Eighteen Months

A year and a half! Holy tamole, where does the time go???

We see Dr. N on March 12, so I’ll post his official stats then. For now, he unofficially weighs 29 lbs and stands 33 inches tall. He moved up to a size 5 diaper late this month, and he wears 24mo-2T clothing and a size 6-6.5 shoe.

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

• This may be the last time I document the new words he says, simply because he says too many to keep track of: car, root, acorn, wagon, hammer, money, pinecone, vacuum, teeth, naked, parade (“carade”), mail, raining (and knows when it is), hose, garden, burn, people, driveway, truck, tray, bib, egg, grape, toast, popcorn, cracker, hoop, football, basketball, soccer, baseball, highchair, dinner, cut, almost, phone (“tone”), bacon, alligator, butterfly, button.
• New phrases/names: “carry you,” “oh cool,” “okay so,” “touch/reach/hold/read/pet/ride it,” peek-a-boo, rock-rock, “oops” (from his Blue Hat Green Hat book), “bee bo” (from his Belly Button Book), Dakota (“Kota”), Lizzie, Eli, Rita, Popo, Jenn, Endymion (“Dymion”). And he’s getting much better at saying “Nola” correctly.
• He tried a few new foods this month: bacon, scones, plum, quinoa, snowpea, French toast, brown rice, artichoke, cucumber. And he’s doing fairly well with eating from a fork, although it works better when he has one for each hand. He also has two snacks just about every day: one mid-morning and one late afternoon. Raisins are usually involved!
• He has 14 teeth.
• He’s doing pretty good with one nap a day. He started out only sleeping for about an hour and a half, but lately he’s been staying down for about three hours. I’m hoping that lasts! He has lunch around 11:30am, he plays for a little bit afterwards, and then I put him down around 1pm. He also doesn’t drink any milk before his nap (he has it all with lunch), but I do still give him his paci.
• Every now and then he’ll stop playing, lay down wherever he is, and say “night-night.”
• Nola taught him that we pee and poop in the toilet. Potty training may come sooner than I thought!
• He has started to ask for “Mickey,” which means he wants to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on tv. He also likes Octonauts, Clifford, and Sesame Street. His attention span is still pretty short, though; he doesn’t watch for very long.
• Not only does he know what sounds lots of animals make, but he can also say what animals make a particular sound.
• We have taught him to say “please,” and it is one of the cutest things to hear in his little voice. When he asks for something, we respond with, “What do you say?” and he almost instantly says “please.” He’s also starting to say it on his own, without prompting.
• He puts the word “big” in front of a lot of things he says, and he’s almost always right: big piece/truck/ball/etc. He gets especially excited when he sees big trucks.
• He started to say “awww” after giving a kiss. I love that he picked up on that from us! And, he was sitting up on Aunt E’s lap at one point during the Superbowl and he was determined to give her a kiss, even though she was sick and didn’t want to risk passing something on to him. He actually grabbed her face and attempted to turn it around when she looked away. He really wanted to give her a kiss!
• Basketballs have somewhat taken the place of his obsession with trucks and sticks, as well as airplanes. He’s been asking for basketballs almost instantly when he wakes up in the morning! We often spend lots of time outside on the driveway playing with a bunch of different kinds of balls. He can tell the difference between a basketball, a football, a baseball, and a soccer ball.
• He loves hairbrushes, brushing his teeth, and getting his ears cleaned. He’ll stand up on his tippy toes in the bathroom demanding “teeth, teeth!” until we hand him his toothbrush. He also loves when the vacuum comes out and will ask for it if we’re in the room where it’s stored.
• He’s been very squirmy during diaper changes this month, and he also loves throwing things onto the floor while he’s in his highchair.
• He has started to kick and hit a bit. We’re trying to teach him doing so is not nice, but he’s not really responding to our discipline about hitting/kicking or throwing things.
• He has started trying to jump, but he doesn’t even come close to getting off the ground. It’s the funniest thing, and I hope to get it on video soon!
• He is SO smart it’s scary.

Eighteen months old!