Christmas 2013

It's Christmastime again and this year Rubén is able to participate in the traditions.  We ate the advent calendar chocolates every day when we got home from daycare.  He really looks forward to eating them and always asks for "ma! ma! ma" (más) every time.  We decorated the tree together and he hung his ornaments all on the same branch.  He likes to rearrange the tree ornaments daily by just pulling them off (ah!) and either walking them around the house or putting them on other branches.  It's impossible to wrap presents when Rubén is around.  He wants to grab at the paper.  He especially likes to tear up tissue paper in the bagged gifts.  Sometimes he tries to stand on the presents to reach at the ornaments higher up.

Rubén is now 17 months old and can do a lot of things.  He understands a lot in both Spanish and English and can say about 45 words now:

1. cold ("co")
2. hot ("ha")
3. up ("uh")
4. down
5. agua ("lala")
6. pan
7. gato ("ga")
8. más ("ma")
9. car ("ca")
10. puzzle ("pudja")
11. bike
12. baby ("baba")
13. all done
14. bird ("buh")
15. vaca
16. chugga (train noise), ("gaga")
17. bath ("ba")
18. bum
19. boob ("boo")
20. pizza
21. sit ("si")
22. zip
23. mama
24. dada
25. bye-bye
26. allá
27. eieio (old macdonald)
28. bobo (character in a book)
29. hola
30. go
31. cookie ("caca")
32. hug
33. Micaela ("mica" a girl at daycare)
34. pelota ("ta")
35. moon ("moo")
36. shoes
37. hi
38. chair
39. hooray
40. snow ("no-noo")
41. boo
42. button
43. poopoo/pupú
44. gone
45. stop

He is learning to sleep without his "binky" - at daycare he doesn't use one, but at home he sometimes needs it to calm down.  He has slept without it at night without major problems, but often he wakes up in the 6 o'clock hour and to get him to sleep until 7 a.m. he needs his binky.  We just took him for another haircut today (Xmas eve) and they used the electric shaver for the first time.  He was too tired and cried the whole time, and his hair is now pretty short!

My first snow!

My first candy cane 

Showing off my bum!

Making a gingerbread house

My first tea party with grandma