Sweet reminder

Since Carter started eating solids, we've always tried to make a table prayer part of our meal time routines. Doesn't always happen and when it does, it's usually about halfway through his meal since we tend to get him going while I finish getting the food on the table. But, all that aside, the munchkin has definitely picked up on the praying, and we had a really memorable moment the other day.

We were all having lunch together, and as usual he was well into his meal by the time Mr. C and I sat down with our food. Once we were all seated, Carter stopped eating and looked at us with hands folded and said, "pay??". We both (mid-bite) realized we hadn't said our table prayer yet, so we put our forks down to pray and when we were finished, Little C enthusiastically echoed us with a cheerful, "uh-men!" before returning to his lunch.

I know he does not fully grasp the concept of our table prayer just yet, but it was so sweet to be reminded by our toddler to say our prayers. :)

Cream Cheese and Crecent Roll Dessert

Took this to a breakfast meeting I helped host and it was so good I may or may not have eaten almost half the pan over a period of two days. Definitely serve it with a STRONG cup of coffee though because it's super sweet and super rich.

• 2 cans original crescent rolls
  
• 2 (8 oz.) cream cheese (softened)
  
• 1 c. sugar
  
• 1 tsp. vanilla
  
• 1 lg egg (separated)
  
• 1 c. brown sugar
  
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
  
• 1/2 c. chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Unroll 1 can of crescent roll and place in bottom of greased 9 x 13 inch pan pressing the seams together (or you can buy the crescent roll sheets). In separate bowl, beat together cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and beaten egg yolk until smooth. Spread the cream cheese mixture on the crescent rolls sheet in the baking dish. Top the cream cheese mixture with the other can of crescent rolls, press seams together. Brush with beaten egg white. Mix brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped pecans and sprinkle over crescent rolls brushed with egg white. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until bubbly and the bottom crust is slightly brown. Allow to cool then slice and serve.

Alternate recipe:

• Eliminate egg
  
• Add 1 stick butter (melted)
  
• Swap 1/2 c. granulated sugar for 1 c. brown sugar
  
• Eliminate nuts

Prep as above. In a separate bowl beat together the cream cheese, 1 cup sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spread the cream cheese mixture on the crescent rolls sheet in the baking dish. Top the cream cheese mixture with the other can of crescent rolls, press seams together. Pour melted butter over the top layer of crescents. Mix 1/2 cup sugar with 1 t cinnamon and sprinkle on top of butter. You can add more or less of the cinnamon sugar depending on your taste. Bake as above.

Trick or treat!

We had a very fun second Halloween with Little C. He went trick or treating for the first time. Just a spin around the cul de sac with a few friends, but I think it was a hit!

Look who's talking!

All of a sudden Little C has decided he wants to use words to communicate! I know, I know...I've posted similar announcements in the past, but the brief phenomenons never lasted and the talking was never consistent enough to make me feel like my child could 'talk'. Even now, he's much more of a repeater than an initiator when it comes to talking. He'll point, and then when Mr. C or I say what he's pointing at he'll repeat it (or repeat the first syllable). 'Co' for 'cold', 'ma' for milk', etc. As a result many of his monosyllable words have multiple meanings. For instance, 'ba' means bottle or bath or bottle or even bye depending on the scenario. 'Chee' means the dairy product or the camera (because we always tell him to 'say cheese' when we pull out the camera). 'Tee' means teeth, the letter T, or a tree. And the list goes on, but oddly enough, the one syllable word we have been dreading the most has yet to pop up in his limited vocabulary. That would of course be the word 'no'! :) He's gotten quite good at shaking his head, though, so I don't know how much longer we'll be able to dodge that bullet. Still, it's so nice to know he can actually speak! I'm sure in a year or two I will be begging him for some quiet time, but for now I am reveling every little word crumb he throws our way :)

Just a spoon full of sugar

Little C has been fighting off the crud for what seems like forever now. He is supposed to take a decongestant twice a day to keep all this crud from turning into a sinus infection, but he has absolutely developed a black belt in medicine refusal. It takes both of us holding him down and sometimes holding his nose to get him to open his mouth. Once we get the medicine IN his mouth, it usually gets spit back in our face.

Tonight however, we discovered the power of candy-bribery. I had a dum-dum in my mouth during all this hooplah (hard candies help when I'm feeling nauseous), and when I took it out to avoid getting impaled by the stick as he was squirming he opened his mouth REALLY wide wanting the sucker. We seized the opportunity and squirted in the medicine then immediately followed it with the sucker. It took two seconds to get him to take a syringe full of medicine without spilling so much as a drop! I couldn't believe it. He cried when we took the sucker away, but we let him suck on it long enough he definitely (hopefully) has figured out there is a reward to taking his medicine. And yes, I will be stocking up on dum-dums for as long as we have to force him to take this medicine.

So, add this to list of things I swore I would never do as a mom - bribing my kid with candy to get him to take medicine!

Don't want to forget...

Little C has been achieving all sorts of seemingly small accomplishments, but when I think of them all together, it's pretty impressive. Well, at least to his momma :) So I wanted to list them down so I wouldn't forget.

At 17 months, he can:

• Eat with a spoon, although it's still a messy process (still working on forks)
• Eat off a plate (until he's done and starts playing)
• Eat at the table in a big chair (likes to do this for his snack-time)
• Drink from a sippy cup and out of a straw and out of a regular cup (in the bath tub)
• Spin
• Stand on one foot
• Flash-dance (we'll say 'do the feet!', and he marches in place as fast as he can like the move from flash-dance)
• Name his belly-button, tummy, nose, eyes, mouth, ears, head, hair, and feet/toes.
• Ride the parachute at gymboree AND wait his turn for his gymbo stamps (this is huge, we've been going to gymboree for over three months and this just started happening last week).
• Sign, 'more', 'all-done', 'please', 'apple', 'milk', 'drink' and is very good at pointing to what he wants and vigorously shaking his head 'no' when he doesn't want something.
• Say 'kitty', 'outside', 'gone-gone' and 'bye-bye' with moderate consistency.
• Say 'mommy', 'daddy', 'pretty' and 'hi' on rare occasions.
• Make the elephant noise (with arm movement), monkey noise and 'meow' for cat noise.
• Crawl up on the couch/chairs/ottomans by himself
• Move a chair over to the counter and crawl up on it to see what I'm doing when I'm working in the kitchen
• Climb up and down stairs by himself (if thw steps are small enough he can come down the steps without eveing having to sit down to scoot)
• Climb up and down ladders (with a spotter)
• Go all over the playground equipment and down the slide at the park by himself (have to REALLY watch him to keep him from trying to go off the side of the tall equipment like the big kids, though).
• Bring me his shoes/socks/a certain toy when asked
• Finger paint and scribble with crayons and markers
• Knows how his shoes and socks go on his feet and tries to put them on himself (he still needs a little help, though).
• Can 'brush' his hair and 'brush' his teeth (needs help to actually do these things, but he likes to do it himself, when we're done).
• Can put blocks into a square hole, we're still working on simples puzzles and shape sorters, though.
• Can take lids off and put lids on tupperware containers
• Can stack the rings on the ring stacking toy (not necessarily in the right order, though)
• Can 'blow' on things, like food that is too hot, and can blow into a whistle
• Loves to crawl on Stephen's back for pony-rides
• Knows what it means to 'scrubby-scrub our hands' and can wash his own hands as long as I turn the water on for him and give him a little soap because he can't reach those things.
• Knows what it means to 'shut the door' and can help me shut the fridge, shut the door, shut the dishwasher, etc.
• LOVES dogs
• Reacts VERY badly to mosquito bites
• Is possibly allergic to our cats, and definitely seems to have seasonal allergies.

Ok, those last three aren't accomplishments so-to-speak, but I wanted to remember them :)

Stick 'em up.

Stickers stickers stickers. Little C is obsessed with them these days. His favorite place to put them? On his belly button, which he just recently discovered. He's also just recently discovered other people have belly buttons, so don't be surprised if the next time you see him he tries to lift up your shirt to see if you have one too.