Daniel at 20 Months

The big news from this month is that we FINALLY had the surgery done to put in his ear tubes (just 3 days ago actually). We got to go to the Otolaryngology Department at Children's hospital and meet with one of the ENTs there. She definitely recommended that Daniel get ear tube surgery (as of the end of February, he is on his 10/11th ear infection since last May!), and we were able to set a date fairly quickly for two weeks later on the 7th for that procedure. He had been having monthly or sometimes twice monthly ear infections, and was loosing weight and just constantly miserable as a result. Its been a really tough 18 months, and I am rather bitter that it took this long to get a diagnosis, a referral, and now finally the surgery. The timing of this procedure was tough personally, because my dad just died and I have been pretty emotionally fragile as of late. So it didn't help matters to have to see my little baby son knocked out and rolled away on a hospital bed, and then seeing his little body hooked up to all those wires and tubes. But he recovered from surgery like a champ. The surgeon said that he saw a lot of scar tissue on both ear drums, and that he had suctioned quite a lot of infected fluid from the ear canal. He said that Daniel would more than likely be better able to hear from here on out (though I had not noticed any obvious hearing deficit in Daniel). On the drive home he vomited once, but after that things have been smooth sailing. We administered antibiotic ear drops for 3 days post surgery and of course hes been on lots of probiotics. But so far so good! Its early days still, but I am hoping things are better from here on out! One funny thing about the ear drops, is that he was really good about reminding me to administer them to him. If I happened to forget, he would tug on my sleeve and say, "mama!" and point to his ear and then the bottle on the nightstand. What a funny little guy!

He has started responding to questions with an enthusiastic and rather high pitched, "yeah!" Like, "Daniel, do you want a bath tonight?" "Yeah!" "Do you want some milk?" "Yeah!" "Did you have fun playing with Nora?" "Yeah!" Its really very cute! He now says the word 'milk' in addition to signing for milk, when hes making a request. Another commonly used word is "cuk." Cuk can mean anything from snack, truck, sucker, to cup. Another one is "kaar." That word can mean car, squirrel or crow. Sometimes its hard to know exactly what he means when he talks. Fortunately he is slowly getting clearer, so it should be easier to understand him soon!

He has started to have an opinion about his wardrobe. I usually let him select which shirt he wants to wear (and he regularly shows preferences to certain shirts), and he eagerly chooses those each morning. Lately however, he will even decide if an outfit that I have selected passes muster or not. Yesterday I put him in what I thought was a very cute little jump suit. About 20 minutes later he started pulling on the chest and taking his arms out of his sleeves and doing everything he could to get out of those clothes. I asked him if he wanted to change his outfit and put something else on, to which he replied a hearty, "Yeah!" So we went upstairs and I allowed him to choose his own shirt and then from then on he was please as punch. So much so that as soon as Michael walked through the door, Daniel had to proudly show him the shirt that he'd chosen for himself. He is an opinionated little chap!

Hand in hand with his wardrobe preferences, is his love of matching with the rest of the family. In particular, we've started a tradition of everyone wearing a blue superman shirt on the weekends. Michael and I each have one and so do Will and Nora, and since he was a tiny baby, Daniel always had a superman onesie so he could match too. Well now hes come to really enjoy everyone all wearing those shirts together, so much so that one Sunday, we were picking out his outfit for the day, and he picked out his super shirt. Then he ran into my bathroom where Michael had happened to leave his super shirt out, and he held it up, 'asking' Michael to wear it too. Then he ran to Will and pointed to his shirt, so Will put his on. Then Nora wanted to join in the fun so she put hers on as well. Daniel was so excited that everyone was wearing the same shirt, that he started an impromptu super shirt dance party. That boy sure does love to dance!

Nora has for several months, had the job of setting the table each week. Daniel has apparently been watching closely and now is tall enough that he can open the silverware drawer. The other night it was just about dinner time and he was hanging on my leg, whining strongly about being hungry. Finally I announced to the kids that dinner was ready, and that Nora needed to come and set the table. Without hesitation, Daniel ran over the silverware drawer, took out 4 forks, and placed them at the correct places on the table. He also grabbed his water cup, brought it over to his chair, then climbed into his booster and gave a little shriek to indicate that he was ready. That was very obvious!

Has been working on his fine motor skills and is now interested (and pretty good at doing) in those chunky wooden puzzles for toddles. One of the even requires that you use a magnet to pick up each puzzle piece to take it out of the puzzle board, and he even figured that part out, no problem! Another favorite activity is taking pens out of a box and putting them back in again, over and over. We have also been practicing building towers with large duplos. Basically anything that requires fine motor skills, he is excited about!






He is a fastidious little fellow and has quickly picked up on the fact that everything has a place and that things should go back into the place where it belongs once its not being used. I've witnessed him putting things away on his own several times and he loves to put away things like toy blocks and laundry any chance he gets. Another example of this is the water cup that we keep in his crib. He gets thirsty at night and before the water cup, he'd wake up crying, wanting to nurse, then once he'd quench his thirst, he'd fall back to sleep on the breast, sometimes only a few seconds after starting to nurse. This was rather annoying to me, so I put a cup in there and the problem was solved. Unfortunately the cup tends to leak a bit if its placed on its side, so I began to store it upright, in one particular corner of his crib. He noticed that it was always in that corner, and so now, I've witnessed him several times, grab the cup, take a drink, and carefully place it back into its exact original position. There was one time where he was drinking from it outside the crib and realized that he couldn't return it to it precise location from his position (he tried), and so he asked for my help. I rather appreciate his attention to detail!

He is still an affectionate little guy and will come up frequently, whenever the mood strikes, to give me hugs and kisses. His favorite time is when I am laying on the couch (this doesn't happen often and its usually only when I am not feeling well). Then he feels like he has unfettered access to me and will come up 4-5 times over the course of an hour to either nurse, cuddle, or give me hugs and kisses. He is a very sweet little boy!

He is very interested in learning the names of body parts, particularly parts of the face and will regularly point to his ears, and say, "ear." Then "eye," "nose," "mouth," "head," etc. He likes to point to parts of my face while I nurse him. Mostly I tolerate it, but after the 4th or 5th time of being poked in the eye I usually have had enough and end the 'game.'


Daniel is a fun little kid these days. He is excited to be a part of the family and do all the things that we do. He is pretty laid back most of the time, and doesn't get easily ruffled, EXCEPT when one of his basic needs is not being met. Basically if he is hungry, thirsty, tired, or in any major pain, all bets are off and he is VERY demanding about having the situation rectified IMMEDIATELY. Other than that, he is hunky dory. Hes very bright and picks up on things quickly, even if I've only shown or explained it to him once. Hes watching everything, all the time and knows so much more than he lets on. I am regularly amazed when I will ask him to do something (not really expecting much of anything), and he does it perfectly! I think hes going to be quite precocious in a lot of ways - he already is! His language skills are expanding all the time and its fun to have little conversations with him. He is just so excited to be included in the conversations! Hes always dancing and moving and climbing and you can just tell that he has a zest for life. Happy 20 months Daniel!