The chatty little man

Daddy here checking in ... thought I'd say a few words about Max's surge in development and some of the cool things he's doing.

Just a month ago, we were writing down his new words every day, thinking we could keep track, and we did up to about 50. Now, it would be an impossible task. Nearly every word you ask him to say, he'll try it and often he nails it. He remembers so many things and every day there's a new phrase or word he just blurts out. He knows his name, he says "Mats"; doesn't quite have the X down yet. Some of my other favorites lately are: sweet potatoes, weedeater, lawnmower, hammer, saw, mud, dirt (see the pattern here ...?) Yes, Max loves tools (the only 'kid stuff' he really gets into is Bob the Builder) and some of my favorites anecdotes lately revolve around his fascination with digging, hammering, etc:

• The other day we were driving along and he saw a big yellow backhoe on a trailer and he pointed and said "dig hole!"
• One thing he does alot lately is say "help dada"or "help mama"' when we're putting away his toys or clothes. I was fixing the storm doors to the basement and had to dig a little trench so the corner of the door would lay right. He saw me doing this and started saying "help dada" over and over and he ran across the yard to the shed and grabbed a big shovel and came over and started digging. He can actually work a shovel, I need to get a picture of it, it's priceless.

• Max is very tuned into music. He loves rock, the Beatles, Jason Isbell, My Morning Jacket. He likes to "pay" guitar along with Daddy and actually holds his little red guitar right and picks the strings, smiling and looking at daddy. And he has a drum and we'll be playing along together and I'll say "drum solo" and he'll start flailing away like John Bonham.
  
• When you say I love you, he says it back to you, kind of like "Ah whu yoo" and he gets a big grin on his face. And he's starting to get into drawing with his crayons and chalk, "daw" as he says.
  
• He's doing quite well at his new daycare, ELDC, and is almost getting to the point where we think he actually likes going. The first day I picked him up, one of his teachers, Kim, told me that he's very chatty and that none of the kids his age (21 months) are talking as much.


• One of the coolest things is that Max loves positive affirmation. He loves to impress you. When he does something cool and we say "Yes! Nice job, Max!" he gets the biggest smile on his face and usually giggles.
  

Of course, he gets frustrated more often than we'd like, is still fairly cautious at the playground and doesn't find contentment for very long in any one thing. But we're hearing more and more from teachers, parents and reading online that that is a sign of intelligence, that he has the capacity to think about multiple things at once but hasn't yet developed the basic skill of focus, which will come. And his cautiousness shows that he has the ability to think about the potential consequences of throwing himself headfirst down a slide or climbing too quickly up the ladder. Max has never been content to sit and stare at the TV for more than about 3 minutes, and although it would be nice to have that temporary baby-sitter sometimes to get some things done, it's a good thing to know he's not being conditioned to think that's what he needs to be entertained ... at least for now anyway. The days of Wall-E, Xbox, etc. are not that far off ...