Sixteen Months

I had originally planned to scale back my “birthday” posts on Riley-bean, doing one every three months or so instead of every month. I quickly realized, however, that wouldn’t be possible. This kid just does so much and says so much that I have no choice but to keep up with him. So here we go!

Riley is officially sixteen months old today. He weighs approximately 27lbs and stands 32 inches tall. He’s still in a size 4 diaper (5 for overnights), and he wears anything from a 12-18 month to a 2T in clothes.

Here’s what I want to remember about this past month:

• He has tried a lot of new foods: salmon, cornbread, coconut, popcorn, caramel, walnuts, crackers, lettuce, roast beef, lobster, rabbit, flounder, swordfish, ginger, crabmeat, and peanut butter. His daddy also taught him how to “cheers” with his sippy cup, which is so cute.
• He is also saying tons of new words: again, bowl, empty (and knows when something is), cheese, grape, blueberry, snake, baby, airplane, brush, star, bite, kale, moon, towel, pillow, penguin, tree, sticky, edamame (“mami”), ham, hair dryer, boulder, hello, cereal, Cheerio, noodle, hanger, alrighty. He talks a LOT.
• And a few new phrases: “sssss” for snake, “choo-choo” for train, “baa” for sheep, “ah-ah” for monkey, “I’ll do it,” “Doh!” (and also hits his head with his hand when he says this…Uncle Jeff taught him), “cray-cray” for crazy (QP taught him this and he says it all the time).
• He also says many names: Daddy, Mama, Nopsi, Na-no (Nola), Grandma, Uncle Jeff, QP, Elmo, Jembo.
• He very much understands the concept of on/off and open/close. He says open all the time. He also started to say “no-no” when he doesn’t want to do something. Super.
• He is very busy, all the time. He doesn’t stay in one place for very long, always on the move, constantly doing something. Unfortunately, this also means he is not a big snuggler. I miss those days! He also doesn’t easily and willingly give as many kisses these days, so I take them as often as I can get them.
• He is starting to trip and fall a lot more, which probably has something to do with his speed. He’s pretty fast on those feet of his.
• He loves to turn the speakerphone on and off, as well as play with the answering machine. And lots of times when the phone rings, he’ll say “hello!”
• He loves throwing his sippy cups and some of his food onto the floor, although we’re trying to teach him that’s not nice.
• He is loving moving things from one place to another and dumping things out (corks, foam blocks, etc.), but he’s not so into picking things up just yet.
• I’m starting to teach him colors, although he says everything is green.
• He is learning where his cheeks, chin, elbows, and knees are.
• He’s been a little more whiny and moody lately, which I hope is because of teething and not a personality switch. One of his first bottom molars came in this month, so that brings his tooth total to 8 (that I can see to count).

Sixteen months old!