Love That Boy

Update on our little 23 month old:

He is starting to wear 2T shirts (still in the 12 month shorts). He has a skinny waist.

He is improving every day with his language skills. He meets 2 times a month with a speech therapist. They play with Korbin and get him to repeat sounds and words. They also teach us how to continue the exercises throughout the rest of the month. His favorite word must be "ba-bye". He says it all the time (with a little wave). He makes sounds for car (vroom), straw (a sucking sound), meow, woof, boom (when he hits things), a snoring sound for sleeping, gogo (for Go Diego Go - TV show), baba for banana, dada and mama.

He weighs about 23 pounds. We met with a nutritionist (included in the Early Childhood Intervention program). She made a few great suggestions on how to add calories to his diet. We've started to add Half & Half to his milk, dried milk to his foods, added dips (like ranch and whole-milk yogurt for his fruit) and add butter or oils wherever possible. Yum. It's challenging trying to add calories without adding sweets/candy! But, it's possible! :) (he does love the gummies Grandpa bought for him ... if Daddy doesn't eat them all first!)

He is starting to use his imagination. One of the speech therapists (there are two) suggested that we start encouraging imaginary play. It should help his language skills. A few hours after she left Korbin tried to "feed" his stuffed monkey (totally on his own!). It was so cute. He also has decided that a monster lives under the couch. He growls and then acts scared. He points to under the couch and wants you to play along (acting scared and looking for the monster).

He loves songs. Korbin LOVES the "itsy bitsy spider". He'll request it (with a sign) and get really upset if you don't sing it to him! He recognizes it within the first few notes on the CD we have and comes running up to me making the sign for the song. He loves music (still) and dancing... singing is just one more form of music that he enjoys.

He is so smart! Yesterday, I put a shirt on him that had a heart on it. I pointed at the shirt and told him it was a heart. He looked at it several times. Then, while I was putting away his pj's he ran over to his toys and pulled out a plastic heart shape from his shape-sorter. He ran over to me and pointed at it and then his shirt! Clever little man.

He has new signs all the time! New sign for "itsy bitsy spider", new sign for "cat scratching" and a new sign for "happy face". The speech therapists thinks it's hilarious that he makes up his own signs. She said that it definitely shows he wants to communicate and is intelligent (since the signs make sense).

He loves accessories. He loves hats, bracelets, necklaces, cell phones, etc. (He has toy versions of all of them). :)

He LOVES books. Ask him to bring you a toy and 9 times out of 10 it will be a book. He loves sitting on your lap while you read book after book after book. One time I read 4 books in a row before I had to tell him to find something else to play with! haha.

(check out the flickr link to the right for more photos of the little man)


Birthday present ideas...
Korbin's birthday is August 30th. He'll be turning two. His birthday party is September 6th. If you are looking for present ideas here is a short list of stuff he would enjoy:

books (go to Amazon.com. I have a list of adoption related story books that we'd love for him to have)
outdoor toys (we are moving into a rental house and would love some toys for the backyard)
bath toys (Korbin loves his bath time)
cars/trucks (he loves making that "vroom" sound! He's such a boy!)
creative stuff (easel, finger paints, sidewalk chalk, play-doh, crafting supplies, etc.)
music (CD with FUN kids music like Justin Roberts, Laurie Berkner or Like this one. We have a lot of the nursery rhymes and stuff...)
something fun and different (like an indoor tent, fun rug, night-light, cool mobile ... remember his room is all animals)
could use baskets to store toys, new cloth laundry basket, shoes (size 7.5+ wide)
clothes sizes (doesn't need clothes) 2T+ shirts, 12 month pants/shorts, size 7.5 shoes
gift cards IKEA, Toys R Us, Amazon, Ebay, The Children's Place, Carters, OshKosh, Target