Success!

Here are a couple of our behavioral success stories as of late:

1. I was brushing my teeth and Garrett wandered into the bathroom and out of the corner of my eye I saw him start to unroll the toilet paper.  I guess I've always figured that if I didn't stop him right away he'd just unroll the whole thing so normally I would have stopped him BUT I didn't this time.  I watched him as he tore off about 2 or 3 feet, then tore it into bits and threw it around.  When I had finished brushing my teeth I told him it was time to clean up and to put all the paper in the trash.  He did it!  I was so impressed, he got lots of praise for that one!  Actually he's been good about doing things I ask him to do recently.  Putting his train tracks in the tub, picking up toys and books, putting an ornament back on the tree (well it doesn't get hung back up, but at least he puts it near the tree), putting something back that he shouldn't play with, being gentle with something, etc.  It's all about giving him the benefit of the doubt and believing that he will comply and when he doesn't being calm and firm about how I deal with him.  I'll just remove him from the situation and calmly explain why and redirect him.  When he throws a fit it usually means he's tired or needs a change of scenery all together!  I rarely find his frustration or complaints totally unreasonable and so they are easy to deal with even when the answer is no.
2. Counting to 10.  So I saw a friend do this while nursing her older child (she's co-nursing her two year old and her 6 month old children).  She told him, when I count to 10 it'll be time to be done nursing, and when she got to 10 he came right off.  I decided to try this with Garrett during activities that were about to end like coloring and play dough, bath time, sink play time, rice tub, etc.  It is amazing how this works!  I've tried it enough without giving warning to know that when I give him the count of 10, he is much more willing to be done with the activity.  I will say, "Garrett, when I count to 10 it'll be time to get out of the bath.  1, 2, 3... 10."  And when I get to 10 he stands up, puts his arms out for me to pick him up and he happily gets out of the bath as opposed to me saying, "Okay its time to get out." which usually results in a scream of "NO!"  He has even counted along a few times!

In other news, Garrett has several two and three word sentences now including two I statements!  Here are his latest:

• "Mama boots (shoes)" - pointing to my boots or shoes in the hall.
• "Dada boots (shoes)" - pointing to Matt's boots or shoes in the hall.
• "No teeth" and "No bite" - as I pretend to nibble his toes while we nurse.
• "Garrett climbs" - although he pronounces just the first part of Garrett and kind of "swallows" the rest of the word.  Climbs is more like "kimes".
• " Read a book" - with emphasis on a very hard throatal "K" at the end.
• "Dark outside" - referring to our walk to get our tree last Friday when it was dark, pronounced "dar ou sigh".
• "I sorry" - at least we think he said it.
• "I scared" - in reference to sitting on Santa's lap at a Christmas party, he pronounces scared without the s and Santa "Sasa".

I'm sure there are more that I just don't understand, he is a little chatter box recently.

Other cute stuff:
Also, he has been hugging everything that he likes.  I think this is an appropriate way to show his affection for objects, although a bit awkward sometimes!  He hugged his play dough the other day and not just the container the play dough comes in, the actual blob of play dough.  He hugged it and said, "ah", which is common when he hugs something.
Another new way of interacting with things is to wave at them.  He walked up to my parents tree and waved at one of the Santa ornaments, even though he claims to be "cared" of "Sasa".  He waves and says "bye bye" to the car when we get out of it.