Chase at 21 months!

Wow, I can't believe how fast Chase is growing up. I look back at old blog posts and can hardly believe this is the same little guy who was in my belly 2 years ago.

At 21 months, Chase is:

-On the mend--Finally! The antibiotics the doctor prescribed on Thursday for the ear infection and the nebulizer treatments have made a big difference. Chase is now eating normally again and acting like himself. I had almost forgotten how active he is! He still has bouts of coughing that sometimes make him gag, but they are fewer and further between. The coughing is still waking him up in the very early morning (5:40am today), but it is getting progressively later. His mama is feeling better too, although I still have a cold.

-Talking a lot- I know I say this every month, but he's really talking to us all the time. He's got two word phrases for everything. Chase pretty regularly says 4 or 5 word sentences. He is naming almost every animal, including "newt" and "rhino," counts to 12 or 13 (but often skips 9), and sings his ABCs. He even tried using a pronoun the other day ("me"), but we didn't know what he was talking about because he always calls himself "Chasey". While Stephen and I can understand almost everything he says, he is still pretty difficult to understand. But he's willing to try and say almost anything, which is great!

Some of Chase's funny lines:
               -"No, no squirrels" (yelling at the squirrels to get off the bird feeder)
              -"I don't want that."
              -"Mama, a'doin?" (this is still hilarious...and annoying)
              -"Mama come!" or "Abu come!"
              -"Abu eat da bone"

-Tilting his head to add emphasis to what he is saying- He cocks his head to the side and says "Daddy come?" to look innocent.

-Remembering- Chase names people based on pictures, even if he hasn't seen them in a while. He names all of his friends in school, as well as the teachers. He can even fill in lines from books that we commonly read.

-Thinks his baby brother should be named Noah...after one of his best friends at daycare. I actually like the name Noah, but Stephen does not. There's another problem: Our baby will not look like Noah because Noah's dad is African American. So Chase might be sorely disappointed (and confused) if he has a baby brother named Noah who doesn't look like his friend Noah.

-Still peeing on the potty...once a day. Chase goes potty after his bath. It's sort of a ritual now. Then he gets up (naked), laughs hysterically, runs into our room, and jumps on Mueller's bed. Just what you want on a just-washed naked toddler- dog hair. Now we know to chase him down as fast as possible and intervene before he can get in there. It's really funny.

-Into playing "bounce pass" with his Daddy. Chase and Daddy play a fun game where they bounce pass the ball to each other while Chase sits in his chair. This greatly improves his catch rate! Nowadays he is less interested in "shoot ball" and more interested in "bounce pass". Chase has been watching basketball on television with us as well and even cheers when the ball goes in the hoop!

Here are some of the other things Chase is into these days:

And Happy Valentine's Day!