knocked out by a bug and more talking

As is always the case, our weeks are made up of highs and lows. Neko got a horrible stomach flu on Tuesday, as we were driving home from school. The good news: we needed a new car seat anyway. The bad news: it was terrible to watch our poor little guy get sick all over the place. I got sick soon after, and then Aaron. Whole family was incapacitated one by one, for about six days total. Yuck.

On a brighter note, Neko has been talking more and more each day. I love his age right now. He is so silly and sweet. He has so much personality. I sometimes feel torn between work and parenthood. It makes me exhausted and run down, but want to remember these days- my sweet little boy at this age.

As much as I dislike waking up at 5AM on the weekends to get him some milk, I love pulling him into bed with me for an hour and snuggling with him (even if he does hit me in the face with his bottle, and kick me in the stomach). It won't be long before he won't want to climb into bed with me every morning. I also love how he hugs my legs at night while I wash the dishes. I love that he's still small enough to sit in the bath with me. He likes me to walk beside him on his bike and hold his hand when we all go to the park. He loves to have dance parties with us in the living room.

His new words are "fly," "bubbles" (bubba), "choo choo" (his train), "bunny" (buh), "side" (outside), "thank you," and "open" (for me to open his toy chest, only said once).

Every Sunday night I still get a little sad that our weekend together is over, and it's back to the grind. Then again, I really do love teaching. I love my job 95% of the time. Neko also loves going to his own "school." He, Cameron, and Christopher are called the "three amigos." They got in trouble recently for being silly and keeping everyone awake during nap time. He also has a special little friend, named Amelia. She always pulls a chair over for him to sit next to her at the table. When he gets to school, they yell "Neko!" "Neko!" (some call him "Coco"). His teachers say he is always happy and friendly. So anyway, here we go, another week.

Talking

Neko has started adding a lot of new words to his vocabulary, so I wanted to document what he's been saying at 14 months. His first word was "dog." That one came a long time ago, but he's since added several more. He now says, "more" (muh), "ball," "bye," "hi," "hello" (leh-lo), "book" (boo), "done" (and he does the sign for all done), and the other day he said, "shoes" when I put on his shoes. We were both excited. The next morning, he brought several shoes to me while I was still in bed and excitedly exclaimed, "shoe!" each time. He says "da" (daddy) and occasionally, "mamma." He can also say "bah" (bottle) and "wa" for water. He says "uh-oh" and today "cup." He is very obsessed with water these days. He likes playing with the water faucet on the side of the house, filling a cup with water, drinking some, and excitedly dumping the rest all over himself. He giggles and shrieks, and has a lot of fun with it.  He wants to drink out of a big cup (no sippy). He's getting better at it, but he still spills quite a bit.

Aaron was out of town last weekend, so it was just the two of us. We had some good time to bond, but it was also a little exhausting, and we both missed Aaron a lot. On Friday night, Neko and I walked to Ester's for pizza. When we got home, we played with the ball in the backyard, and he caught it several times when I threw it to him. I was seriously impressed! On Sunday morning we had a quick visit from Michael, Elena and their twins, George and Helen. They were in town for a wedding. Aaron got home while they were still here, so he got to meet the twins too. We are crossing our fingers that they'll move back to Colorado at some point. It was so nice to see them.

**And here are a ton of photos from the past month.

*The night before Emag moved, we went over to his house to say goodbye.

**I also forgot to mention another funny thing he likes to say/do. He often pinches us and yells, "Ouch!" I've told him that I am the one who is supposed to say "ouch" when he pinches me, but he just keeps doing it and seems to think it's the funniest thing ever.

A Visit from the Dubravacs

We've been so busy since school started back up, that I realized I never wrote about the Dubravacs' visit. This will be a short post with lots of photos. Stayc, Christina, Luctece, and Phoenix made drove out to Colorado on their way to a family reunion in Utah (in their new car!). We were very lucky that they were able to stop here on their way back home.

Neko loved following the big kids around, but he really took to Lutece. He enjoyed sitting on her lap and playing with her. She has a natural way with little kids. One evening while I was cleaning up the kitchen, I listened while she watched him in the living room. She was so gentle and sweet with him.

We ate a lot of ice cream, visited the neighborhood parks, and ate dinner in the backyard. It was great. I wish they lived closer so that we could do this more often.

Lutece was very patient with my constant picture-taking.

We drove to the Garden of the Gods for a little hike and dinner out.

Neko climbed the little rocks.

Phoenix and Lutece climbed the bigger rocks.

*The little girl in this photo is not Luctece... I just wanted to include this photo so that you could see how big the rock was. 

We were so sad when they left. We need more cousin time.