Cuteness Update

I've been told by well-meaning grandmothers that it's been a while since I've bragged on what Oliver is up to these days, so I thought I better get right on that. And post some really cute photos too!

• This is the biggest one recently: the boy can whistle!! I'm not kidding. Should almost 20 month olds be able to whistle? Is this normal or yet another sign of his genius? We've seen the Sesame Street episode where Telly is trying to teach Baby Bear to whistle twice recently (because the PBS Sprout Channel seems to repeat the same 12 episodes over and over), once on a Saturday when Marty was here. So Marty started whistling and I started whistling, and Oliver tried, but was just blowing. Marty does whistle sometimes, so maybe it's something he's started to notice. Then the other day, we were going up the stairs and Oliver just started whistling! And has done it 3 times since! It's a deliberate, though pretty soft, whistle...with a few different notes in it. I was just amazed. I'll have to try to get it on video!
• I've mentioned before that he was starting to notice letters, like when we went to Boston and he stopped at every manhole cover to point at each letter. Well, he still does that, and more! We got him this Fridge Phonics toy to encourage this interest, and between that and Sesame Street, he now recognizes and names a bunch of letters! His favorite letter is 'M', followed closely by 'B' and 'O', and he can also name 'V' and 'E', and sometimes 'G', 'P', and 'X'!
• He is also starting to count, well, sort of. He's been able to recognize and name '1' since his 1st birthday when Grandee taught him to say how old he was (and put up 1 finger!). Now he also knows 9 and 4, and sometimes 3 and 6. Although, most of the time when we count things, he still goes "1, 1, 1, 1, 1,..." in a very rhythmic way that mimics the cadence of counting. But now when we get to 9, he says 9! 
• Words....I can't even begin to list how many words he knows. It seems like he's saying new ones every day. If you saw the video I posted the other day, you saw him say "happy," which is my favorite new word of his, especially because I think he understands what it means. Even his jibberish is starting to sound a lot more like lanugage than just consonant and vowel sounds. And even if he can't say the words, he understands so much of what we say to him. He also repeats a lot more words now, so Marty & I are really going to have to start watching what we say around him!!

I know they say this about every age, but this is such a fun age! It's just so awesome watching him learn. Yet he's still my sweet cuddly baby sometimes too. Here's some photos of my half naked toddler-baby having fun with the diaper changing basket. Don't you just love half naked babies? And that face!

 

(uh-oh, you caught me!)

 

 

(dancing)