How's Dexter doing?

Hey look! Another post I didn't finish.

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I've been so busy not keeping up with Desmond's blog posts, I've neglected to do any for Dexter, either.

In fact, it's been so long since I wrote anything substantial about Dexter, I don't even know where to begin, so I guess I'll start with the latest stuff.

Speaking of sleep deprivation, I'm afraid the whole last year and a half or so has been practically defined by Dexter's sleep patterns, or lack thereof. Ever since he climbed out of his crib (March 1, 2010, if anyone is keeping track), it has been a nightly fight to get him in bed and asleep.  Almost all the time, he falls asleep between 9:45 and 10:15. Occasionally, he will fall asleep earlier (July 24, 2011 - 8:50pm) or later (Sept 1, 2011 - 11:00pm), but 10:00, give or take, is the norm. He sleeps through about half of the time. The other half of the time, he ends up in our bed, where he is about 50/50 on either tossing and turning or going right back to sleep.  He's not a great napper (we don't even really try most weekends), so he's getting about 10 hours of sleep/day. Neither awesome nor horrible, but I think we might have slightly fewer tantrums if he were better-rested.

Dexter started putting the "X" in his name a few months ago. So he is now "Dextah" instead of "Deh-tur," which is great and a little sad all at the same time.  Growing up!

He's had all of his letters, with sounds, mastered for some time. I wish I had kept better track of when he nailed those down. If I had to make an educated guess now, I'd have to say it was sometime around February 2011. The Leap Frog Letter Factory video really helped with the sounds part. Who says TV is bad?!

Over the last couple of months, he's really gotten much better at recalling and recounting events, like what he did at daycare during the day, or what he had for breakfast at Grandma's house. It's pretty neat to be able to carry on a real conversation with the kid.