Halloween Part 2

Today we headed over to Roscoe Village to do what we thought was more trick or treating, similar to what we did on Lincoln yesterday. Boy were we wrong. 

There was a parade.

With a marching band, flag core, baton twirlers, fire trucks with sirens and even a classic car with both Romney and Obama riding in the back (ok, maybe they were locals in costume, but how can you be sure?). Tons of kids in costume and every store for a few blocks was giving away candy. We didn't go to the stores for candy but Simon LOVED looking at the other kids in costume and dancing to the marching band. Most of all, Simon loved having his dad back in town.

So many teeth! He got the upper left and lower right eye teeth in a few days ago.
The other two are going to pop any minute.

A serious split bottom lip from tripping and landing full out on the hard wood floor earlier today.
It was bloody, but he was pretty good about it all.

So tired, but still playing!

Most of the day the shirt was hidden under his Spider Man sweater,
but it was so cute I wanted to make sure it was here. 

Halloween Part 1

We went trick or treating on Lincoln at the stores on Saturday afternoon. My friend Morgan joined us, Alan is in Boston celebrating Cindy's 60th birthday. 

Simon loved getting candy and putting it into his bucket, but he wouldn't take it from any of the strangers at the store. He would look at the strangers with suspicion until Morgan or I took the candy and put it in his bucket. Then as we were leaving he'd always give a huge smile to the person ... usually a smile that they missed. We stopped at dinkels and they were giving away cookies, Building Blocks was giving away stickers AND we got to play with their train set for a long while. After the walk up and down Lincoln we went to Burrito Park for some swinging and sliding - only fitting for our little spider man. 

Oatmeal

We both were eating oatmeal, me with my spoon and him with his. But my spoon was better. The smile is for when I finally just gave him my spoon.

Grandpa and Grandma Sweeney Visit 10/4 - 10/7

Grandpa and Grandma Sweeney came to visit at the beginning of October and Simon immediately identified them as 'GaGa' when they arrived. They were down on the ground reading books within minutes, which is Simon's favorite way to snuggle. We did a lot of reading, a lot of running, some park play and some zoo play and of course a lot of learning. By the end of the weekend Simon was saying Kiki - with the K sound a cross between a hard k and an sh sound. The intention was clear and has repeated on future Skyping sessions. It's amazing how fast he learns! It was a pretty wonderful weekend.

Lots more picture and details after the jump.

Cheese!

All Done and More

Thursday, October 18 was a big milestone in Simon's life. On Thursday Simon replaced a sign for a spoken word. Before that day he had about 25 words that he said and another 30 or so signs that he used, but the list of words signed and words spoken did not overlap.  Earlier that week there was a slight overlap with 'bye bye', a sign and word pairing that are done together, but for the most part he either signed or spoke. From the first spoken word he started moving the scale from sign to the ultimate goal of speech and in replacing a sign the scale has tipped and now it'll be a long run down as he gathers vocabulary lists. Just to push that home, Monday he looked at me and said More while he signed it to me.

He still doesn't have the fine motor control to say the wide variety of words that he understands (speech is considered a fine motor skill), so we will continue to use and expand his sign vocabulary as his world and understanding grows. But this was another big step, in so many he's had this year, to building the man he will become.

Now that he can say the word, instead of saying and signing when we talk to him, we will just say 'all done' or 'more' to him as normal speech. And instead of waiting for him to sign to us we will encourage him to vocalize... which I'm sure won't be a problem because he loves saying all done and more!

PS He also learned to shake his head no this weekend. So if you ask him a yes/no question you will get a nod or a shake response.

First Pizza

Best thing about staying at Auntie C's house is the pizza! Simon quite enjoyed his first pizza and next time wants a whole pizza to himself.