Sleeping, Sinners, Ant beds, and Easter Egguhs!

Sometimes I think our 16 month old is smarter than me! He is oh-so-observant and points out everything. Here are the things he's been doing lately:

• Last Friday, he was playing with his little toy cow, sheep and pig. He stood them all on their feet one by one, and then laid them each down on their sides, one by one, and then put his finger over his mouth and said "ssshhhh!" (This is what we do when we read the book "Big Red Barn" when the animals are sleeping.) He laid them down and said "shhh!" and put them to sleep:) He then put his cars to sleep, too! That he can transfer that from book, to himself, to another object (his toys) is amazing.
• He was at his Grandmommy and Popster's house last week (who he calls "Ma-Ma-Mee" and "Pop Pop" so cute!) and they had some ant beds in their yard. They only had to tell him once they were called "ant beds" and from then on he kept pointing to the little mounds and saying "ant beds"!
  
• On Saturday he kept looking at us and saying what we all thought was "sinner!" (sounded like "sin-erhh" with a barely pronounced "r" sound) which was kind of funny...and sad...were we getting rebuked by our toddler? :/ Well, today we put his shoes on so we could go outside, and then he kept pointing to my sandals I was about to put on and saying "sinner...sinner...sinner" OH! He was saying "sandal!" I remember last week Stace was teaching him that word while he put his sandals on. I remember lightly thinking "all he needs to know is 'shoes'-- which he does already know that word-- why complicate it by adding a specific type of shoe?" Why oh why did I underestimate my genius boy?

• He has known the color "yellow" for a while now. Whenever we ask him the color of something, he'd say "yellow" ("lellow"), and every once in a while he'd say "green." We'd kept trying to teach him by gently correcting him if he said something red, green or blue was yellow. But it wasn't something he seemed to care to pick up on. Well, today he pointed to the beach ball I painted on a poster and said "beach ball!" and then went and grabbed his beach ball and stood next to the painted one. I asked him "where is the yellow on the beach ball?" and he pointed to it and said "yellow!" then, totally unprompted he pointed to the green and said "green!" while I was still praising him for getting the yellow correct. Because he did it at the same time I was talking, I wasn't sure if I'd heard it right, but thankfully he did it again! "Green!" he said, and then he pointed to the blue and said "blue!" and then he pointed to the red and said "red!" (or, "reduhh!" he really likes to pronunciate the endings of words that end in consonants...) This reminded me that he really is listening and learning all the time, even if we can't tell it exactly right away...which usually we do...that is why we weren't sure if he really cared to know the different colors yet. He did indeed!
  
• Note to self: I really need to make a list of all of his words...
• This boy is ready for Easter! Grandmommy found him all sorts of Easter books and he loves reading them and is obsessed with Easter "eggguh!s"
• Thanks to his Gospel ABC book he got for his birthday and to his Grandmommy, he knows the word "prophet"
• We were a little nervous he had a slight milk allergy, as cows milk and yogurt would give him a little bit of eczema on his cheeks. He's always been able to eat cheese without a problem though. The doctor suggested soy milk & soy yogurt for him, saying he believed J would outgrow the cow's milk issue. So we've been using Silk Omega 3 & DHA soy milk and Stonyfield Soy Baby yogurt for the last four months. I'm happy to say that we re-introduced cows milk last weekend and he's outgrown the allergy! phew!
• He recognizes shapes (not just in his shapes puzzle that he originally learned them on) and will point them out. Ohp! I don't think I ever posted that story on my blog...I only did on Facebook, so here goes:
  On March 3, with his shapes puzzle, totally unprompted he picked up the diamond and said "diamond", then I asked him to point to the circle, triangle, square, oval, and octogan and he got them all right!!! I then asked him to point to the rectangle- he didn't get it right BUT he did SAY "rectangle!" (Note: he has that rectangle down pat now!)