Dylan Update and Ava Sings "You Belong With Me"

Our Dylan McVillain with 12 teeth, 4 molars, is growing up fast and becoming quite the little toddler. His recent discovery has been opening doors, which I had feared would happen soon because he has been reaching the door knobs for some time now, but just recently he learned to turn the knob. He thinks this is just great while I now have lost the ability to shut the doors to my room while I fold laundry knowing Dylan would "stay" in my room and play with his toys. I have Ava to thank because she loved teaching him how to "grab the knob like this, Dylan, then you turn it like this. Okay, now you try it" as she would explain to him.

Dylan has mastered the stairs so much so that we no longer need a baby gate anymore, which is awesome! Dylan has been in a few, 1 minute, time outs for ramming Marley with his train (poor Marley) and for repeatedly playing in Marley's water bowl even after we remove him from the situation. The time outs worked like a charm.

Dylan is picking up on using the word eees/please a lot more when he wants or needs something which has been GREAT, rather then using his classic scream/yell. You can witness his cute scream/yell at the end of the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" video below. It's Dylan's classic scream.

Dylan's doing much better about sitting still longer for story time, he loves to put his play money in his piggy bank, drop shapes in their correct slots without cheating, color for about 30 secs. on paper, stack blocks, use his utensils with much more control, and loves playing in the play kitchen.

His favorite activities are still knocking things over and making loud noises, ramming his trucks into things and into Marley, playing ball, brushing his teeth (he LOVES to brush his teeth), taking baths, going swimming, and going for long walks so that he can climb hills, pick up sticks and get dirty. He also enjoys saying hi to random people at the store to which he receives friendly comments back like "well, hello there" or "aren't you a friendly little guy" or "what a cutie". This only encourages Dylan to then say hi more.

He has found a huge interest in "Mar Mar" (Marley) our dog and loves to fill the cup up with dog food from the bag, dump it into Marley's bowl and put the cup back into the bag and then call for "Mar Mar" to come eat. It's cute because this use to be Ava's chore which has now become Dylan's chore, as Ava has moved on to more big girl duties.

Dylan is just the funniest kid ever and makes me laugh every morning on my way to work. He loves to point out everything he can say and recognize on the car ride like, dog dog (dogs) and lights and balls. He laughs every time I turn around to look at him. He blows me a kiss at the traffic light right before Simon drops me off, even before I tell him good bye because I think he now knows where mommy works and he loves to blow me kisses. He has the funniest smile and loves to say cheeeeese while he smiles.

He's not the best at snuggling and rocking in the chair which makes me sad because I realize how much he's growing up and he just wants to be on the move. He does give great hugs and kisses though. We lay him down at 7/7:15pm after bath and an attempted story and he's out cold until 7:15/7:30am the next morning. He has dropped his morning nap and is down to one, 3 hour nap at 11:30am, which is right after his 11am lunch.

Adding to Dylan's word count from his last post:
15) oooooh, lights (for the pretty Christmas lights - Dylan use to only say oooooh, but has now added the word lights)
16) lights - his favorite word
18) mar mar - Marley (our dog)
19) Uh oh (Dylan quickly learned the word Uh oh for when he drops something, but now he purposely drops things or throws things on the floor just so he can say "uh oh". It's pretty funny but I try not to laugh)
20) let's go
21) bath (if Dylan hears one of us say bath, he starts heading right up the stairs for bath - I can't tell you how much he loves the water)
22) dog dog - for doggy
23) cheese and cheeeese
24) gul - bagel
25) eees - please
26) teeeeeth - which means he wants his tooth brush so he can brush his teeth
27) bear
28) apple (doesn't sound that perfect but getting there)

My favorites are still thank you and lets go - so adorable. I need to catch them on video.

Speaking of videos, check out this cute video of Ava.

The Escorcia's have become quite the Taylor Swift fans because Ava just loves her music. It all started when Ava first heard "Love Story" on the radio and quickly learned all the words to the song so of course Simon, being the music dad that he is, downloaded lots of Taylor's songs for Ava to listen to at home. Now we all know the words to all of Taylor's songs.

This video is of Ava signing "You Belong With Me", however, Ava has a very bad cold and cough so it's hard for her to sing. By the end of the song I could tell Ava was acting a little funny and had an odd expression on her face and then realized it was because the poor little thing was trying to hold her cough in so that she could sing the song. Ava didn't quite finish the whole song because she needed to cough, but you can get a clear picture of how much Ava loves and knows Taylor's music.