His Favorite Games

Paxton is hilarious. And his imagination is equally hilarious. One of his favorite things to do is role play with his siblings and with us.

For instance, "Puppy" is played in our house just about everyday; sometimes several times a day. Typically, one or two kids pretend to be a puppy (crawling around, barking, panting, etc.) and someone is the owner. Interestingly, Paxton is usually the puppy.

But I think my favorite game that Pax LOVES playing is "Daddy be da cow!" It's hilarious. Pax wants to tie a rope to Wes and drag him around the house (while Wes moos) yelling, "Come now, cow! Come now!"

I just love his little imagination.

He's Developed a Stutter

Paxton is following in his brother's footsteps in many ways. He is adventurous, wants to climb everything, talks nonstop, is hilarious, is a pickier eater than Vivian, is messier than Vivian, and just like his older brother at 2.5, Pax has developed a stutter.

Just the other day, Vivian said to me, "Why can't I understand Paxton anymore? I could a few weeks ago, but not lately. What is he saying?!"

It's because the poor kid is having an extremely difficult time getting a sentence out. Gavin went through a stuttering phase for about 6 months when he was around Paxton's age. It's adorable to me and Wes, but it can be incredibly frustrating for little Doots. But like many of the crazy childhood phases we've experienced in the Rosier house, this too will pass.

A Peaceful Town

The name "Paxton" means "a peaceful town" ("pax" means peace and "ton" means town or township). And based on our experience with our little Paxton, we couldn't agree more! At 21 months (today), Paxton is definitely the little peace maker in our family. For example, he's the first of our three to hug ANYONE who gets hurt or starts to cry for some other reason. Second, whenever one of the twins gets put in time out, he will go and sit next to him/her and attempt to comfort. Third, he's great comic relief.  He's really good at breaking the silence (with a fart noise or giggle or adorable squeal) when tensions are high. And it almost always works; making us all laugh and kinda forget what we were all upset about. Lastly, he's one of the calmest kids we know. He only gets upset when its called for and he can be comforted rather quickly. Don't get me wrong, his calm, cool, and collected demeanor is slowly disappearing with toddlerhood, but he's still way calmer than his siblings were at his age. Paxton Marshall; our peaceful town.

His Own Language

Pax is such a funny little guy. Even though he doesn't have a ton of words in his lexicon, he communicates very well. He also has names for things (that are completely incorrect and don't even sound remotely like the real word) that he consistently uses. For instance, he calls an apple a "wawa," he calls a banana a "lala," he calls Vivian "baba," and he calls Gavin "babo." His little language is hilarious.

His Top Words

At just about 20 months of age (on Jan 21st), Paxton has a vocabulary of a couple dozen or so words. But, he definitely has a few that he seems to say NON STOP. Besides the expected DADA and MAMA, Paxton's top words include YEAH, NO, GONE, ME (!!!), BYE-BYE, GO, BABY, BUG, BOOBIE, DOG-DOG, and CAR. 

Although he probably says NO and ME the most, we think BOOBIE is his favorite. 

Toddler Pax

Paxton is a toddler. He's starting to pitch fits when things don't go his way and reveal his frustration with things. The "toddler stomp" is in full effect. Some f the things that have pushed him off the deep end lately include: being told that he has to sit in the cart at a store, being refused a lollipop at 5:30 in the morning, his brother or sister taking something from him, being told that he cannot have a 4th pickle in one day, and being forced to wear a diaper instead of running around in his birthday suit (sound like someone else you know?).

He's Got Sound Effects

Paxton Marshall really likes to make chomping/eating sounds whenever he's pretend or for real eating. He also likes to make "choo-choo" sounds when playing with trains, "vroom-vroom" sounds when playing with cars and trucks, snoring sounds when pretending to sleep, and animal sounds when playing with animal figurines. He's also getting good at a few animal noises. Specifically, he can tell you the sounds made by owls, horses, dogs, and cows. Lastly, when he's playing baby dolls with Vivi, he will make the baby cry. His sound effects get me every time.

He's Adorable

 

I know I'm partial, but he is.

He's a Troublemaker

A Few Paxton Updates

It's been a while since I wrote a post about Paxton's development, measurements, etc (I think the last time was his 12 month birthday, actually). Well, in the last few months, Paxton has changed a lot. Here are the highlights.

Communicating

I feel like Wes and I are constantly saying to each other, "he really understands us!" And it's true. Paxton seems to comprehend most of what we say to him. He also trying to communicate to us. Whether he's pointing and grunting to let us know that the microwave door is open (the kids seems to hate it when doors are left open) or he's nodding or shaking his head after we ask him something or he's using actual words to tell us something, it seems like he's talking and blabbering all day long. In fact, his vocabulary has started increasing again lately (he definitely took a "listening break" in recent weeks to focus on walking, running, and climbing). His repertoire includes words like: mama, dada, ball, bye-bye, book, baba, this ("Dis"), yeah, more ("Mo"), baby, cheese (which sounds like "CH-SSSS"), and okay. Overall, he's very good at understanding us and it's not too difficult for us to understand him.

Walking/Running/Climbing

Pax has spent the last couple of months perfecting his walking skills, learning to run, and climbing on everything. He's gone from wobbly walking barefoot to being able to run on wood floors in socks. He's also mildly obsessed with trying to get up on the couch, our dining room chairs, and anything else that his siblings regularly get on.

Eating

Paxton is a great eater; at least most of the time. He usually eats a wide variety of foods and a lot of it. His absolute favorite foods include pickles, hotdogs, corn on the cob, watermelon, pizza, green beans, and Greek yogurt. Other foods he likes a lot are broccoli, peas, carrots, blueberries, grapes, cheese, french fries, ground beef/hamburgers, and chicken. For some reason, he doesn't like bread or other bread products (weirdo), but he loves meats and veggies. 

Sleeping

Pax is down to one nap a day that starts sometime between 10 and 12 (it really depends on whether the twins are home or at school). And he naps for 1-2 hours. At night, he comes upstairs with the twins to brush teeth, get in PJs, read books, and go to bed. After books, I usually take Paxton to his room to rock him to sleep. He's still waking up once in the middle of the night. One of us will go get him, bring him to our bed, I'll nurse him (Yep! I'm still nursing him!), and he'll go back to sleep til the morning (to be honest, I think he's intentionally waking up so that he can nurse just to get those few minutes of comfort). Wes and I just love sleeping with that little nugget and we hate that our co-sleeping days are numbered. 

That's the update!

Paxton's Lexicon

Paxton's first word was BYE-BYE. His second word was BALL. And his third word was BOOBIE. Later came BABY, BABA, OKAY, and YEAH. So far, his vocabulary seems to be filled with the letter B. 

Initially, it seemed like he was on a roll in the vocabulary department, saying his first word other than Mama or Dada right around 12 months. His second, third, fourth, and fifth words quickly followed and he was using this group of words all of the time. Then, our little man's vocabulary development took a hiatus for about a month. He not only stopped learning new words, but he also stopped using the words he already knew. We have since realized that all of this happened right around the time when he learned to run. He was focusing all of his time and energy on learning this new skill, along with perfecting his climbing abilities. 

Well, now he's back on talking, picking up a few new words in the last week or so including, MORE, DUCK, CHEESE, THIS, and BOOK. It'll be interesting to see how the next few months pan out.

He's a Turn Taker

This has been a post in the making for a couple of several months now. I've just been procrastinating. And busy. But mostly just lazy.

Our little Paxton became a turn taker much younger than his siblings did. For a while now, he has been making sounds, grunts, and even saying words back and forth with us. He understands that when someone talks to him, he should respond. Even if he doesn't know how to respond. He gets that he needs to make some kind of sound. And he's understood this for months.

Typical "conversations" between one of us and Pax include things like someone asking him a closed-ended question (one that requires a "yes" or "no" as a response) and him answering by saying "okay" or "yeah," nodding his head for "yes," or shaking his head for "no." Other times, we could ask him an open-ended question and he'll blabber something back to us. We'll then respond with a sentence or two and he'll counter with a babbled sentence of his own. Still other times, he'll just walk up to you, blabber something out while usually pointing, and then expecting you to reciprocate. It's precious.

While he's been taking turns for a while now, we all can't wait for the day when we can actually understand his blibber blabbers.

He's a Walking Pro

Over the last week, Paxton has gotten really good at walking. He's gone from walking just a few steps at a time with his arms up in the air for balance to taking longer strolls to walking from one room to another, changing direction in mid-walk, putting his arms down instead of holding them above his head, and even stopping to pick up a few things along the way and going straight back to walking. Here are a few videos to show his progression (the videos are in order).

He's Door-Obsessed

Paxton is oddly obsessed with opening and closing doors. Closet doors, the front door, the mailbox door, the playhouse door, and all of the gate doors in our house. He loves 'em all. He likes to sit next to them or stand up next to them and swing them open and closed. He likes to control who can go through doorways, giggling as he opens the door for one sibling and not the other. He checks the mailbox everyday and squeals when he slams it down. He also closes the front door every morning as Gavin and Vivian leave for school. But his most favorite thing to do is to open and close the gates that are there to keep him in or out of a room in our house. We've even caught him standing "in" the gate and swinging on it as it opens. Crazy kid.

He's Figuring Things Out

Paxton has really started to figure out that he is perfectly capable of getting around and doing a lot of the same things his siblings can do.

He's a Little Birdie

Just like his older brother and sister, Paxton has become a baby bird whenever anyone is eating. If he notices that someone has food, crawls over, stands up, opens his mouth, and squawks. It's actually quite precious.

Doll Houses

Paxton absolutely loves playing with Vivian's doll houses. He likes climbing on them, standing up next to them, and playing with all of the little pieces of furniture and little people inside. Give the kid a doll house, and he's happy.

He's a Snob

Our little Paxton Marshall is a bit of a snob. He's particular. He likes some things and absolutely hates other things. There's not much grey area with this one.

The most hilariously common snobbish behavior he has is with his beloved yogurt. This kid LOOOOOOOVES yogurt. In fact, he eats some just about every single day. The snobby part comes in when we talk about what kind of yogurt he eats. You see, the first time Paxton ever had yogurt, I gave him some of my Oikos brand Greek yogurt. In case you didn't know, I'm a tad addicted to it, eating 1-3 individually packaged cups of yummy goodness everyday. Well, I guess Paxton loves it, too. Since he tried my Oikos, it's become the ONLY kind of yogurt he will eat. We've tried to give him regular yogurt (non-Greek) and he spit it out. We've tried that expensive baby yogurt; spits that out as well. And we've even tried giving him Walmart brand Greek yogurt. He thinks it's disgusting. What can I say? He's a snob. He only desires Oikos brand Greek yogurt.

Once I put it in the cart, Paxton pulled it from the back
himself and started trying to open it. So obsessed.

He's also a bit snobby when it comes to eating Puffs (he only likes the Gerber brand and will barely eat the Walmart brand) and playing with certain toys (only being amused by a specific few).

He's Always on the Move

He's Transitioning

Last night, Paxton Marshall transitioned from sitting to a crawling position and then back from a crawling position to a sitting position. He did it several more times today. We know, it's a little incredible.