Twenty Months Old!

(Cole wanted to flip the script and give Guido the spotlight this month.)

This month, we kicked off the Holidays by hosting Thanksgiving. We were happy to have Cole's cousin Colin over as well as Cole's new friend Phoebe. Oh, and their parents, too, but we're trying to keep the focus on Cole here. The kids had a blast playing together, though the ladylike Miss Phoebe may have been taken a bit aback by the cousins' rough play, but she hung tough.

Cole continues to love sports, trucks, and trains more than seems appropriate, but it keeps him off the streets, I guess. He's getting much better with his alphabet and his numbers, and we practice most nights in the tub with the foam letters and numbers that we got from Grandma Lily. Speaking of letters, Cole's word letters at his daycare (the teachers put all of his new words on a big C, and when that fills up, another C, and another C, etc.) are filling up! His teacher Lisa tells us everyday how smart he is and how fast he is picking up words. This pleases us.

Nana came to visit in early December, and we had a wonderful time at an Indian restaurant. Cole dropped his truck, and Nana said, "Oh, dear!" And that, apparently, is the funniest thing that anyone has ever said. Like ever. Cole just flat-out lost it. There's just nothing like hearing a toddler laugh uncontrollably.

Cole also got to visit Minneapolis this month and see his good friends Amelia, Jack, Emma, John, and Colin. Their parents are such great friends of ours, and it warms our hearts to see Cole have fun playing with such great kids.

Cole also loves seeing snow (or "sonows," as he calls it) when it falls, but it never sticks! (Note: we do not object to this. Keep up the good work, Denver weather.)

There's a dark side, of course. Cole can be pretty ornery and contrary, and we're getting into the habit of at least a few timeouts a day. He's pretty good about staying in his timeout spot for the full minute we put him there, though, and he knows that he has to give us hugs and say "sorry" when he's done. Sometimes he says "sorry" with a huge I-learned-nothing-from-this-timeout-and-I-can't-wait-to-misbehave-again grin on his face, but you take what you can get, right? Eh, we'll get there. 12/21/2012.