what do you want to sleep with today?

i ask this question every single day right before nap time. at night, caleb just sleeps with his doggy. but for his nap, he gets to pick 1-2 toys/books to sleep with as well. sometimes they are stuffed animals, sometimes books, sometimes kitchen utensils, etc. i can usually guess what it will be based on what he's involved in playing with right before nap begins. because of this, during lunch i try to hide two specific toys. first, is "music doggy"... a stuffed dog who plays music when you pull his tail. i've made the mistake of allowing him to sleep with that once. after about 1/2 hour of listening to the song over and over, i finally had to take it away so he could sleep. the other toy i hide is his duck. it's just too big, and wooden, to sleep with. so today it was two winnie the pooh books. yesterday it was two alphabet books. the day before, an elephant stuffed animal. most days it's different, and i always know he's really tired when he grabs a toy or two, his doggy, and comes to me asking to dance to personal penguin!

woosh

that's what caleb calls his goldfish... and since i promised a post about that little guy, here it is. so, we received this fish as a party favor from a super fun 1-year b-day celebration. we thought it would be no big deal, just toss the fish in a vase, give it some food, and see what happened. well, what happened was that caleb fell in love with this fish. it's not got some gourmet fish food, a nice big fish bowl, and an adoring fan. this fish has already more than doubled in size... partly due to the fact that caleb hates to sit down to a meal unless Woosh gets to eat, too. and if it's nap time, caleb will not relax on my shoulder or be ready to go to his crib until he's said goodnight to the fish. it's really cute... but who knew i'd be starting to think about qualified pet sitters at this time in life!

caleb's first joke

i think caleb made his first joke on friday. see, we have a fish (more on him later). and caleb loves this fish. during every meal, he likes to say "hi" to the fish. on friday, though, he said, "hi turtle". i laughed and reminded him that it was a fish. but he kept saying it and getting a huge grin on his face and a funny little look in his eye. silly boy, he was teasing me!

words

caleb is talking a ton. realistically, he's the only baby i REALLY know, so it doesn't seem all that unusual to me. although, i was prepared for a boy to take a while to talk, i guess i just didn't have to wait all that long. a lot of what he says, probably only troy and i would understand. but more recently, i've had people from the nursery or at stores comment on his verbal abilities and ask me how old he is.
i've started to compile a list of all the words he knows. some of them sound a bit similar to innocent bystanders, but they are best understood in context. so far, my list is at 35, and i'm sure there are some that i'm forgetting. some of his favorites are: mama, daddy, please (cuz it gets him so much good stuff), more, music, doggy, hi, sit, up, no, yeah, all done, all gone, fish, and cracker... just to name a few.
it's made me think about the whole nature vs. nurture debate. i tend to attribute a lot of it to nature. i know i was quite the talker quite early and he seems to be a really "emotionally intelligent" (as one friend put it) boy. he just "gets" communication. he likes to listen to others and does his best to participate in whatever they are doing. on the other hand, though, i had a friend over last week who commented on how much i talk to caleb and how many words i give him throughout the course of a couple of minutes. maybe it's the teacher coming out in me, but that's just how i am around him. also, i know i try really hard to pay attention to what he's saying and reward his efforts. i assume this builds up his confidence to keep trying. it also helps that, so far, he's not showing any perfectionist tendencies when it comes to talking.
all that to say, it's probably a lot of both. and i'll be interested to meet our new little one and see how he/she develops verbally. maybe it will answer some questions. maybe it will just raise some news ones. we'll see...