Dear Shep,

What a month! For someone who doesn’t say much, you are adding a new word or sound each and every day. All of our hard work attempting to teach you new things actually paid off. What do you know? You are sleeping in until 7:45 again and going to bed around 7:30. We are attempting to get you ready for daylight savings so right on track for 7-7 again here soon. You still have breakfast with Daddy and love to ditch your meals for whatever he is eating (or attempting to eat) in peace. You walk up to us while we try and eat our own food and make your “Mmmmm” noise and sign “more” while saying PEEEEES (please) and well, we cave. How can you not share your food with such great manners? Now that your nap is closer to 12:45, you and I still take an adventure outdoors on most mornings and try and enjoy this “fall” weather we are having part of the week. Your favorite adventures lately? Playgrounds!!! This is also my least favorite part of parenting. Playgrounds are great and you are amazing navigating your way through to get to the slide (kid, you love a good slide – you’re fearless) but the little openings throughout make my mommy heart drop. You just love to fake me out and have me running like a mad woman all around the set to make sure I’m there to catch you when you don’t have any plans to dive off at all. Sneaky little man. You also are quite fond of heading to Treetop down the street and love bouncing in the bounce houses with your Daddy and me on the weekends.

This past month has been full of adventures! We had another visit from Blakely and spent the afternoon in Mount Laurel playing and grabbing a slice at Area 41. Dece and Honey both took you on adventures to the zoo, and we went with Dece to the Pumpkin Patch on the perfect day to feel a bit of cool weather for the first time and soak up the fact that we were some of the only ones there to explore. You and I have made time for a little more crafting around the house and your Daddy took you to the Mount Laurel Library for story time and crafts. I got there a little late after work and peeked in to see you having an absolute blast! Your Daddy was able to see just how much of a handful you truly are in quiet/sit still while I read to you situations 😉 All the little girls sitting quietly reading and you running around telling everyone “BYE” while waving as you fake out an exit. You are so incredibly funny you just keep us laughing non stop.

New tricks? WOW! You quack for a duck, roar for a lion (or the pony at a recent birthday party….we’ll work on that one), mooing and barking like a champ still, and now you have added the love of songs. Current hits? ABC is still fun to clap for, but these days you are all about “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. Shep, you clap, stomp, and your favorite part? Putting your pointer finders on your cheeks for the other parts and asking for “more please” the minute we finished the song. When Daddy tries to put you to sleep at night, you point to your cheeks and say “PEAS” to entice him to keep the party alive and keep singing to avoid bed. About that…..you cringe while heading to nap and bed. I hate it too bc it used to be such a sweet time for us. You would lay your head on my shoulder and just settle down as I whispered in your ear. Now? You cry. You cry hard. Then once you’ve given in, you do your very best to start up games or songs as we rock you in your room. The good news is that your beach habit is gone and you are 100% back to putting yourself to sleep. We rock you, and cuddle, but you refuse to go to sleep without a fight so once we lay you down you chat away to your crib loveies and eventually cave and fall fast asleep. We heard you the other night around 11pm and looked at the monitor to see you waving and saying “bye bye” to all your loves as you pretended to escape the crib. We were dying laughing at that spectacle for sure.

Meals are back at the family table and you are doing so good about eating better. You still give us grief at times, but that is one part of parenting that I felt prepared for. You are still a juice guy and love to put it in your cup holder by your car seat which is pretty cute. Speaking of, you are facing rear again. It’s safer (and much more inconvenient for Mommy) but you’re doing pretty good with it and I couldn’t be more proud. We have story time before bed and read you “cooks” (yup! another new word) and you as always lead the show with those. I look forward to the day that you will let me read a book from start to finish and actually sit back and listen. For now I’ll let you interrupt, turn the pages on me before I finish, and give the wrong animal the wrong sound.

Keep the fun up kiddo! We are having  blast watching you grow into such a huge personality.

Love Mommy Xx

UPDATES:

diaper size – 4

favorite food – pasta anything

Teeth – working on 4th molar

words – cook mean book, course means color, woof, moo, quack, roar, peas means please, more, duce means juice, WOW!, yuck, yeaaaaaaaaaah, side means outside, car, and now you are into trains and making train sounds for us!

bedtime – 7:30-7:45