First trip to urgent care

18 month milestone

You fell and bonked your head on that shelf under our desk and split your forehead. Poor kid! It bled quite a bit but you were such a trooper. We took you to urgent care and they cleaned it out and glued it shut - I guess stitches are no longer the way to go?! So you've got a purple blob of glue on your forehead.

A few minutes after it happened you were already waving and laughing. It was definitely way more traumatic for mommy and daddy.

Little man - 18 months

You are such a friendly little guy! You love to wave at everyone including strangers. 

Talking

Your sign language has taken off this month and the cutest new expression you do is for "I don't know" - you put both arms out and lift your shoulders with the funniest little "hmm" sound. You also motion for us to "sssh" when Dylan is sleeping or anyone is sleeping in a book. When we tell you something is hot you hold your hand to your mouth and blow in it to cool it down. Hilarious.

You are trying to say some new words this month - the best new one is "thank you". It gets clearer every day. Sometimes you even try to say "thank you dada". The number of words that you understand is astonishing to us. We ask you to get things from around the house (your milk, socks, shoes,etc) and you understand all of it. 

You also say "plane" and point to the sky when you and Daddy go outside together.

More words are coming - we often think we hear you saying something once but then you won't repeat it. Stubborn.

Play

You are obsessed with your toy phone and you carry it with you everywhere. Hmm I'm guessing you are mimicking our behavior?! So sad that we always have our iPhones. But adorable that you understand what phones are for - you pretend to push the buttons and you hold the phone up to your ear to talk.

Kisses - you blow kisses all the time. Well you hold your hand to your mouth and say "mmmm" but we haven't quite got the next part yet. 

Books - You love reading books and this month you especially like your First Words books with the pictures and the labels. You will point to each picture in a book to have us tell you what each thing is. You ask us to read the same books over and over. You still love Good Night Gorilla and Brown Bear.

Climbing- You are climbing on everything! You try to balance on books, bins, toys, and your ride on toys constantly. You want to reach up to anything that is higher.

You love to dance! We have a dance party every day. You often ask for me to turn on the music by going in your room and pointing to the iPod. 

Eating - you are getting really good at feeding yourself with a spoon and fork! Amazing. You love chicken hot dogs :) yay! Finally some good meat protein in your diet.

Sleeping - we had a few days this month where you only took one nap during the day! I thought for sure we had turned the corner but you weren't quite ready and after a few days the lack of sleep caught up with you and we are back to two naps per day. You still sleep at night from about 8-6:30. Bedtime has been a bit later since you are still taking your afternoon nap.

Bath time - you like to pour the water from your cup onto your face and pretend to "drink" the water. You often actually drink more than I would like.

We got you a potty this month just to try it out. Sometimes you like to sit on it just for fun and read a book or magazine of course!

Sign language

Your sign language has exploded this month! It's so fun to be able to communicate with you and for you to respond back.

You started signing "more" and "all done" fairly consistently when you are eating and you will do both signs on command.

We also sign for "are you hungry?" and you will sign back "eat".  We have our own sign for washing your hands and you have started doing that one too! 

Even better, you use the sign for "more" in other contexts too - when we're playing a game you like or you want to read a book again. 

We were at Old Navy yesterday and they have this big neon sign with huge lights. Your dad took you over to see it and you were amazed - then you signed "more" and pointed to the sign while we were waiting in line to pay. You make it very clear what you want and when you want it.

This is your new favorite face!

Little man - 17 months

It feels like you do something new every day! You have such a fun and playful personality and you are quite sneaky when you're doing things you know you're not supposed to do!

Talking

You are babbling a LOT with new sounds and you copy sounds and words that we say. Lately you've been doing this "rahrahrah" sound with a deep voice a lot. We're not sure what that's from but it's funny to hear. You will copy mama, dada, ball, gaga, lala, Dylan (you say deelah but it sounds really close), go go, and wow. It's funny how some words you will copy easily and others you won't even try (like up or please).

You have started signing "more" in the right context. You do one hand the right way with all your fingers together and the other one is an open palm - your own sign language - I love it. You also sign "all done" when you're done eating.

You shake your head "no" all the time but sometimes you use no when you really mean it. Like when you're getting in the bathtub you like to pick out your bath toys by shaking your head no for the ones you don't want. You also like for me to turn on the shower when you're in the tub. I bring the shower head down low so we can use it on your body and over your head too. The other night you turned on the shower when it was still up high and you freaked out for a minute - but then you liked it!

We went to Underwood Farms with your class and went on a strawberry picking tour. You loved the tractor ride and you really loved picking strawberries! You ate so many berries while mommy was picking the ones to take home :)

Sleep 

You are such a good little sleeper. You still take two naps each day and you sleep about 11 hours at night. We still put you to bed around 7:30-7:45 and you wake up around 6:30-6:45. You did have one day this month when Grandma took you to school that you only took one nap just like a big kid.

Eating

You are feeding yourself with a spoon and fork and you are getting really good at it! You have also recently liked having bigger pieces of food and taking bites of them yourself instead of me giving you the food cut up. Here I gave you a whole hard boiled egg for the first time :)

You have two more teeth coming in on top next to your molars. I see the little white points poking through so I'm sure they'll be here soon. We had a few days this month of super cranky teething baby and you had a low fever too so it's always nice when the teeth start to show through and the crankiness goes away. You are a trooper, I can only imagine how much it hurts.

Books

You are starting to get better at really pointing at things while we are reading. Your favorite book this month is Good Night Gorilla. You will ask us to read it over and over and over again. It's not one of our favorites but we read it anyway ;)

Climbing

You now use your stepstool in the bathroom to wash your hands and brush your teeth. This is so great except now you think everything is a stepstool! You climb on your toys and use them as steps to try to get things that are out of your reach. We have to watch you even more carefully now!

You now "blow kisses" when someone is leaving or to say goodnight. You put your hand up to your mouth and go "mmm". It's adorable. Sometimes you will give me a real kiss when I ask for it and you lean over with a big open mouth to get your kiss. Too cute.

Love you more every day.

Xoxo

First haircut

Well I've been saying we need to cut your hair for a couple months now, but just couldn't bring myself to actually do it!  Something about your sweet soft baby hair I just didn't want to ruin it. 

Your hair grows in a funny way - as most babies hair does - lots in the back and enough on top but nothin on the sides!  Your bangs were starting to get really long so today I finally trimmed them!

When you were about 6 months old your hair grew in a perfect line in the front- so perfect that people would ask if we cut it that way! Now it looks sort of like that again with your sweet face showing and no wispy hairs hanging down too low.

The past week you have started to copy sounds that we make when we ask you to. You can do lots of "ah" sounds like dada, baba, mama, gaga, lala and we keep trying papa too. 

While you are playing with your toys it sounds like you are having full conversations with your toys. You use the right intonation and you pause just like a real conversation. The words feel like they are coming soon. Some days I can't wait for you to talk and then other times I just love your baby babble.

Little man - 16 months

Oh how the time flies! You are such a toddler now. Seems like all of the babyness (is that a word?) is gone and you are all little boy.

You RUN everywhere often bumping into things in your path and stumbling a lot. You don't seem to mind.

You love to be chased and you run round and round our dining room table. You peek your face up and over the table and then you get down low and we peek under the table.

You are starting to learn some of the names for your play food. We found out by accident a couple weeks ago. Your dad and I were in the other room saying "cheese" to get you to smile. You ran in your room and came back with the cheese! So I asked you to "go get the banana" and low and behold you came back with a nana. We tried again with yogurt and a carrot and you got those too!!!!

You love to play with your ride-on train and your cars. And you love your little smart fire truck!

You have started to "kick" the soccer ball around the house. This amazes me that you have enough coordination to kick a ball and keep your weight on one leg.

Your favorite toy right now is definitely your drums! You push the buttons over and over again and you "rock out" to the music!

You love to eat while holding a spoon or a fork. Sometimes you will try to use it to eat but mostly it's just for hitting your bowl or tray to make noise.

Your favorite book is Brown bear, brown bear and you especially like the page with the children and the last page with all the animals.

You are much too busy to have your diaper changed lately. As soon as we lay you down to change you, you thrash your body around and flip back over. It's definitely a fight to change you! Luckily we always manage somehow ;)

You and Dylan still love to play together. But now you play real tug of war with his blanket and you let him pull so hard that you fall down laughing. You have taken a liking to Dylan's blanket and you drag it with you all around the house.

You love playing at the park and you are starting to get a bit more adventurous when it comes to climbing on the play structures. You love the swings and going down the slide. 

Sleep - you are an awesome sleeper! We are so blessed. You take two naps for about an hour - hour and a half. I keep looking for signs that you'll be ready to drop one but nothing yet. We can be in the middle of playing and I'll say "are you getting tired? Do you want Ellie?" And you will point to your room or walk in there to get Ellie and get ready for your nap.  At night you sleep from about 7:45-6:30/6:45.  You know our routine well. Grammy says that when she had put you down to bed you point at the things she should do next like read a book or get your paci. So funny!

Eating - you are an eating machine! You eat very well and you love fruits and veggies of all kinds (just like your momma). But you are so skeptical of new foods and you still won't eat meat! Unless it's meatballs in your spaghetti.

When someone is leaving, you love to open and close the door, turn the lock and turn on and off the lights. You wave goodbye and try to blow kisses. 

Your favorite word this month is mama. You use it for everything when you're happy, sad, mad or cranky (then it's mahmahmaaaaaaaah). And you grunt a LOT. You make it very clear what you want with your grunts and gestures but we are still waiting for more words to come!

You are such a sweet little dude and you love to give hugs. My favorite is when you run right at me full speed for a big hug. It melts my heart every time. This has been such a big month of changes! It's so fun to see you grow and change every day.

Xoxo

We like to dance dance dance

Well kid, you've got the music in you!  You have started to "dance" all the time and I loooooove it. When you are standing you bounce up and down and when you are sitting you move your body back and forth.  You like to turn on all of your toys that play music at the same time and you groove to the music chaos! Hilarious. 

You've started to dip your food when you eat! You like to dip your pretzels and apples in your peanut butter.

You have also started to copy us when we clap or do "arms up" or "arms down"

You love to be chased and chase us and when we catch you we tickle you like crazy and you laugh and laugh.

We just got you a new pair of shades and you love them! You don't keep them on for very long yet but we'll keep working on it!