I'm finally starting to feel like we've settled in back at home after being gone for the summer. Toren has started attending daycare three days a week this fall. Two of the days (my class days) he attends the daycare around the corner from our house and on Friday he continues to go to daycare with his cousins in Whitmore Lake. The move to part time daycare has freed up some time for Justin to concentrate on his work since these days there is no real possibility of getting anything done when Toren is around. Toren has become a lot of fun, but also quite the handful. He runs round the house these days trying to scale everything in sight and chucking about anything he can get his hands on. He loves to try to sneak his way up on to the kitchen table when we're not paying attention. We also have to be careful to avoid flying objects. We've put away for now all his wood blocks to avoid some issues and are trying to teach him to only throw balls or his soft blocks, but his response to scolding continues to be laughing at me. We've also tried to institute time outs for his more grievous of infractions, but it usually entails me trying to repeatability put him back into a chair for a couple of minutes. I'm hoping it will have some sort of impact at some point. The other new unattractive development has been the degree of whining that he's developed now that he wants to do more, but usually needs assistance to achieve his goals.

On the fun side, it's been very cool to see him able to understand and communicate more and more these days (when he's not whining). He continues to be a socializer and loves to meet new people. He'll wave goodbye and blow kisses to just about anyone. He also loves to laugh and be tickled and has also gotten a little more cuddly, especially in the morning when he first gets up. He also absolutely loves music and dancing. He'll break into dance at the slightest hint of music. His favorite music is Bob Marley since this is what he frequently bounced to in his jumperoo days. Much to his Mom's chagrin and his Dad's pleasure, he also seems to really like hard rock, as this usually results on a lot of fist pumping and head banging in his car seat when it comes on the radio.

Toren's stats at 16 months:

• 80th percentile height, 20th percentile weight (at 15 month appt)
  
• Words: Mama, Dada, Dexter, Dog, Ball, Bye Bye, Bottle, Bubbles, Bob (his term for music after Bob Marley), More
• Signs: More, Please, Bubbles, Milk, All Done, EAT, Dance
• Completely addicted to his pacifier (why can't they sell them in six or ten packs instead of only two at a time)
• Still using his bottle at nap time and bed time, but we'll probably try to phase this out soon.
• Loves to be outdoors and throws a fit if you don't let him out the door if you go out
• Loves dancing and drumming
• Loves balls and throwing
• Finally appears to like his cousin Emmett :)