Thank Heaven for Heaters
I've set out Paulchen's little table since he now knows not to climb on it. I've picked out a few crayons, since he has a huge box and made them available with some paper. I only make the rubber stamps available when I can do them with him, as the ink doesn't wash out and can be a dangerous mess in young hands.

Well, I thought we were safe, as Paulchen was coloring on the paper. But I looked over today and foubd black marks all over our heater. We are so fortunate to have heaters all along the base of our empty walls in the living room. Crayon cleans off easily from them, not from painted walls. Now I just have to watch our little guy closer. Though I will admit, I hid in the kitchen and laughed for a few moments. This was such a stereotypical childhood incident and Paul was just commenting on it the other day.

As for Paulchen's progress in other areas, he's become very good at copying pointing at the parts of his face. He's finally pretty comfortable pointing to his eye, though he takes it a bit slow.

He was also so sweet earlier. He climbed up on the bed with me while I took a nap. Then he leaned over really close a few times and gave me kisses on the cheek. Paul had said he'd do that, but I still usually had to ask for my kisses. He was so sweet and cute.

The face and help around the house...
Paulchen is getting so much more interactive now. We've been working on pointing to parts of the face and he's getting better. I have to point to a part first and tell him to point, then he does. We're doing really well on the nose and the mouth, but he's squeamish about his eye. When I point to my eye, he overshoots and points to his ear. Paul figures he doesn't want to poke his eye. But we're getting there.

He's also trying to help around the house more. When Paul put him in his seat in the car earlier, Paulchen held the little buckle so he wouldn't sit on it. It always falls under him when we pop him in the seat.

He also helped me wrap Paul's birthday gift the other day. He tried to pull off pieces of tape, though he didn't get the ripping motion down, so I ended up with a few long pieces. I'd place pieces of tape on the gift and let him press them down the rest of the way. He also tried to help fold the wrapping paper. It was really cute.

Then after the gift was wrapped, I sat him at his little table and chair and he colored a birthday card. Then I brought out the stamps and ink pad and helped him stamp the card. Once he got the motion down, he did a bunch of stamping. The card is hardly up there with Botticelli, but it's art to us.

Crafts and chatter
Yesterday at playgroup, Paulchen made a little snowman with falling snow out of paint. Granted I had to help him maneuver the sponge and paintbrush, but he enjoyed himself and made the sound effects along with me as we swirled circles with the sponge. The snowman has replaced his snowflake on the fridge.

It's great that he's accumulating crafts now. I picked up a bin so we can store them for the future. I write his name and date them all on the back, so we keep track of these memories. But I just love that we're starting a scrapbox for him and already have a few things in it. Over the years it will fill up nicely with memories.

Paulchen is also getting chattier. When we were at work yesterday he spoke with Mike, our photographer. None of it made any sense, but he had the inflections in his voice and was chatting and asking questions. Mike got a real quick out of it. And it's the next step forward. Now he's willing to talk more, so eventually his chatter will turn into real words.

He did the same thing last night. I caught him bouncing down on his bed and scolded him strongly. He gave me excuses and asked what the problem with it was. At least in his own language it seemed that's what he was saying. So I had a nice little conversation with him, as to why he couldn't jump on the bed. It was fun.

He's also eager to talk on the phone now. Granted, he likes to listen more than talk, but he does get the occasional words out. Unfortunately once he has the phone, he doesn't like to give it up. Since our phone system is a little odd here, I have to find out if I can have two lines somehow, so he can be part of the conversation, while I still talk to the family each week.

Parts of the Face and Camping
I finally figured out how to teach Paulchen to point to the different parts of the face. I would point to my nose and ask him to point to his. He just looked at me blankly. So I finally formed his finger to point and helped him point to his own nose. Now when I point to my nose, he'll point to his. We've also added eyes to the list of body parts. After he points to the part of his face, he'll point to my face as well. It's really cute. So not only is he learning the body parts, he's learning what is the same.

This morning I placed three chairs in a circle, evenly spaced. Then I threw our Queen-sized wolf blanket over the backs and made a tent. Paulchen loved it! He kept entering and exiting the tent. I sat inside the whole time and we had a snack. Then when he would sit inside for a bit, we'd play clapping games. Paul was outside the tent and I kept teasing him with our password for the tent. "Mommies are better than Daddies." But we eventually let Paul into the tent as well. Then all three of us had fun sitting inside. I'll have to make little tents more often for Paulchen, since he really enjoys them.

First Geocache
Today was a fun and VERY busy day. I had an ultrasound in the morning. For 20 minutes they hooked me up to a fetal monitor to get a long term heart rate. Paulchen sat next to me the whole time and had the oddest look on his face, as if to ask, "What the heck is that sound?" Considering he only pokes at my belly button when I try to have him feel the new baby kick or move, at least this was something he could show an interest in for a bit.

After that, we went geocaching. I'm not as keen on it as letterboxing, as letterboxing has some crafting associated with it, in making the stamps, but there's tons of geocaches in our area and very few letterboxes. So this is an incentive to explore new trails in the woods and get out more.

I've had bad luck so far with two boxes I've searched for, but I also wasn't very well-prepared, so that may have contributed to our lack of success. Well, today I had the prinout of the clues and the local map which also has all the wooded trails neatly marked, like regular roads. They even have "road signs" on the trees here.

Paulchen and I went looking for a box and eventually ended up in the right area. There were a few landmarks listed, so it was easier. Then we spent 20-30 minutes looking for the box. Okay, so I looked for the box. Though it might not have taken so long if I wasn't so easily distracted.

Paulchen was out in the leaves and running around. He was so cute and small looking among all the tall trees and vast land. I finally found the box and opened it up. I took a cute photo of Paulchen with the box and the timing was perfect. His mouth was open and he looked surprised, as if he were excited about our first find.

I wasn't going to do the typical trade with items in the box, just sign the logbook, but Paulchen kept trying to put our pen in the box. Then he was hooked on a golf ball in the Cache, so I placed a dinky Spongebob character in place of the ball. So we did the trade after all. It was a fun treasure hunt and Paulchen got a new toy out of it. I'm guessing now I'll have to keep a handful of little trinkets in his stroller in case he wants something from the boxes.

The three of us are going to look for a few local boxes Sunday morning. Hopefully this time Paul will be able to find some with us. It's a fun hobby.