Hammer Time

In the first hour he was awake this morning (sadly, an hour that started with the number 5), Mattie said three new words! Hammer, neigh (for his rocking horse), and wee-wee. Go, Mattie! And it didn't end there; he also said "noodle" (he wanted some spaghetti for lunch), and he tried to say "clock" (although it came out more like "la").

He loves lights of all kinds, and he is especially excited about the Christmas lights. Mike put some up on the bushes outside the other day, and this morning Mattie was pointing to them saying, "Dada! Lights! Dada! Lights!"

Another new word for him is "hot." We have a DVD of Christmas shows, and one of the bonus features is a "virtual fireplace", which Mike really likes.  So, the fake fire is "hot", and when I told Mattie last night that he had a fire truck on his pajamas, he said, "hot! hot! hot!"  So I guess he associates fire with hot!

So far he also seems to be using his power of no only for good. I asked him this morning if he wanted any more milk, and he said, "No. Uh-uh." Good to know!

He also, amazingly, has suggested bedtime on his own, twice! Tonight we were getting ready for bed and we went downstairs to say goodnight to the Christmas tree lights. He played with his toys for a few minutes, and I said that we could go night-nights after he was done riding on his rocking horse. He got off the horse, looked at one other toy, and then grabbed his bottle and said "night night" and headed for the stairs to go up to bed! What a good boy! He's still not happy about being left in his crib by himself (after snuggles from Mommy and a goodnight song from Daddy, so he's not just being tossed in there), but the crying was less tonight than previous nights, so we'll see. (On the other hand, we tried it for naptime yesterday and that was a complete disaster; he never did nap.) But I'm very impressed that he is sometimes recognizing that it's time for bed.