New tricks

Suddenly, Cayden is all about mimicking and performing. In fact, I call him my performing monkey at least once a day.

His newest tricks? High fives on command (accompanied by big grins and giggles); sticking his tongue out in response to seeing a tongue stuck out; arms thrown way, way up in the air for "so big!", answering the question "How big is Cayden?" (and if the question is posed at lunch or dinner-time, smearing handfuls of food into his hair while doing "so big!"; real, actual tooth brushing, as compared to gnawing on his toothbrush; unsnapping his own pants to remove his diaper post-naptime; and trying his darndest to mimick words.

He's been doing a high-pitched "Caaa Caaaa" for a few weeks now, when asked "what does a rooster say?", and he always laughs when his simple response is followed by a hearty "cock-a-doodle-doo!" by the asker.

And recently he's tried to mimic more words: Mama, Daddy, clock, Cole-Cole (Aunt Colie worked on that one with him on Monday) and a whole lotta "b" words that all come out "baa baaa": bottle, bubbles, boo boo, boom.

And while I'm sure he was trying to communicate something entirely different than the concept he verbalized, this past weekend Cayden very clearly uttered the syllables al - co - hol, in that order, in my parents' presence. Funny or worrisome: you take your pick.

Oh, and while he's still stingy with kisses for people -- he has to be in just the right mood to offer them up when asked -- he's totally into kissing toy animals and animal pictures in his books when prompted. I love ending each bath with "night night kisses for baby froggie, please; night-night kisses for mama duckie, please," watching him love on his rubber bath pals.

This is a really, really fun stage at 11 months old. It's like his brain just turned on and there's this avalanche of stuff he wants to show us he's learning.