Goats

Kelton was impressed whith the tigers at the Columbus Zoo, but petting the goats was the most exciting part the trip for him. He loved running around from goat to goat petting them and giving lots of kisses. After kissing all the goats, Kelton decided that Grandpa could have one too.

Language log: 18 months

At 18 months Kelton has learned to communicate effectively with a combination of signs, words and sounds. It is exciting to see the world through his interpretation. He is learning at a rapid rate and is coming out with new words constantly. Since 18 months is such a milestone I've listed all the signs, words and sounds he now knows. Here we go:

Signs:
more, all done, help,
eat, drink, water, milk, apple
lights, music, hat, phone, comb, toothbrush
airplane, train, car, bus,
turtle, bug, bird, elephant, cat, bee, butterfly, fish, frog, flower

Words:
uh-ohh, hot
Mama, Dada, Nana, Papa, Sierra ("ee-ra-ra"), baby,
down, spoon, broom, moon, popper, "just gas", goop-goop,
Gack (from Dr. Seuss), castle, shovel, kitty, goose,
couscous, ohhs (cheerios), banana

Sounds:
woof-woof (also his name for dog), roar (used for tigers and lions), oink (used for pigs), cough (used to copy us when we cough or when I say I want to get some coffee)

My cousins, "the babies"

Kelton loved seeing his cousins Sierra and Dylan over the 4th of July. They are 4 and 6 years old, but Kelton called them babies. They thought that was pretty funny.


Kelton had fun swimming in their new pool. Here's a video of the whole gang swimming and resting afterwards.

Don't bother me, I'm on the telephone...

Kelton's started to do pretend play. He loves telephones - cell phones, pay phones, house phones, any kind of phone. He can spot a pay phone from a mile away. Now when he sees a telephone, he puts his hand against his head like he's holding a phone and he looks away and says, "Ma-ma. Ma-ma." It's too cute.

The 4th of July

Kelton had a fun-filled day on the 4th of July. He saw his first parade. He met the tallest Uncle Sam I've ever seen, watched the marching bands and was scared by the police truck.




After the parade we went to Fudruckers and had hamburgers for lunch. Yum! Except Kelton, he had a PBJ sandwich. Kelton loves to pull his sandwich apart and eat it from the middle outwards. Very messy! After lunch we went to Homestead Park. Kelton really enjoyed the toddler water area which was designed to look like a little barnyard. Grandpa found a really beautiful moth which Kelton recognized as a bug and showed us his bug sign while he watched it.


The park also had a caboose on display and Kelton was fascinated. Here he is running towards it signing "train". He kept wanting to be picked up so he could look inside. Unfortunately it was locked so we couldn't go inside even though Kelton really wanted to.


Finally the highlight of any 4th of July celebration - the fireworks! Kelton wasn't scared by the noise or the lights. He loved playing with the light rings and had fun watching a movie of the fireworks that Grandpa took on his cell phone.

Tigers

Today we visited the Columbus Zoo. Kelton liked seeing the tigers. He got a close-up look at a real tiger snoozing. He kept saying "roar" in his little throaty way when he saw the tiger. He also enjoyed comparing his ear to the tiger ear when getting his tiger picture taken. I have to admit that he came home with a tiger T-shirt.



The zoo train was another highlight. He was very excited watching it go by and kept saying more-more while we were waiting in line to ride it.

I think he had the most fun at the petting zoo. After he leaned down to kiss the goats several times, he finally decided that it was ok to kiss Grandpa too. We got some cute video instead of still pictures for that adventure.

A hot summer's day in the park

On Saturday Kelton flew to Ohio to visit Grandma and Grandpa. On our first day we visited the park to run around. It was a lovely, fun park, even if it was 90 degrees plus about 90% humidity! Kelton's cheeks turned very rosy. I got a portrait of the guys taking a little rest. Next Kelton is checking out grandpa who is trying to take his picture. Kelton also enjoyed climbing the steps up and down on the play structure. One of his favorite games is zoom-zoom. Here's daddy racing him around the trees and over the grass making motor noises. Kelton asks for more and more zoom-zoom until daddy just about collapses.




We visited the park again in the evening with grandma too, but we didn't take any pictures.

My new sandbox

I just got a giant sandbox and castle! The castle has a ladder that I just learned to climb, a platform for surveying the yard, a wheel for piloting the castle and a groovy slide that I finally learned how to use. I dove down with too much enthusiasm the first time and landed on my head, good thing that mommy had put a pillow at the end of the slide for the first couple of days. Now I'm an expert at the slide and I land bottom first in the sand. I was so excited about my sandbox, that before the sand was added I fell into the box headfirst when poking at the bottom with my shovel. Mommy got that little accident on videotape. Here I am in my sandbox mowing the sand.



My friend Maya came over on the first day I had my sandbox. We both had fun playing in the sand. Then she decided to play with my hat, so I decided to wear mommy's hat and she wore Maya's hat. It was silly. Maya also liked my mower, here we are negotiating using it.