Month 16-18

Words:
I didn't start talking much until I was about 2, but I watched and listened to everything. I feel like L is the same way. He says more and more every week but really started saying more words as he neared 18 months. Even if he doesn't say words, he understands SO much of what we are saying. He follows commands (unless he's purposefully ignoring- like if he doesn't want me to help him blow his nose). I can ask him if he wants to eat breakfast and he will run to the kitchen to his chair. I can ask him if he needs his diaper changed and he will pat his diaper. He can put his dirty clothes in the hamper. He definitely knows about bath time, but he doesn't always want to strip down. Instead he tries to climb on in the tub with his clothes on because taking them off just wastes time! He can also point at an eye and say "eye" but you better be careful, because the point soon becomes a gouge. He pats his hair when you say head or hair and he also know about brushing his teeth because he will either run to his toothbrush/toothpaste or touch his or your teeth. When you ask him about getting a toy/thing he will go find it whether it is a ball, finger puppet, paci, or any other item. One of his new words I LOVE to hear him say is "hello" because his tongue comes out of his mouth as he does the l's. It's too cute. Sometimes he says "aye" when you ask him a question. He's been nodding for a while too, but now the nod is sometimes followed by an "aye" so I don't know if that means yes to him or not! Since he loves to play with balls, he now likes to know the correct name "basketball" "golfball" "soccerball" "baseball" "football" "kickball" and will often say something that is two syllables for basketball and baseball. Football and hotdog sound like "dot daw" so knowing the context and where you are is important. He loves words that start with B still and will try any of them- bat, bread (pulls the bread out of the pantry), bird (loves to hear birds), blueberry (loves to eat them, pretend to eat them if he sees them in a book and it sounds like "ba-ba"), bus (loves to hear the bus during the school week), bone (loves giving to/taking from Mav). We eat oatmeal and strawberries too, so it's fun to hear him say a two syllable word that means oatmeal and strawberry. He's starting to say things like "on" and "off" although they sound much like each other we know he is asking for us to turn the toy on or off.

However, he's trying so many new sounds every day like the S and L sound. Every day he imitates more and more what we do.

Play/Motor-social-emotional development:
He has recently started taking you by the hand/finger and leading you where he wants to go. Hiding behind the chair in his room is one of his new favorite things to do too. He will get some toys and take them back there and sit to play. Sometimes he will hide behind the curtain as he plays. He will even hide behind the basketball goal in the sunroom to go to the bathroom. He definitely knows when he's going to the bathroom and so I'm thinking potty training may come in the next few months.

Playing with Maverick is a new thing too. He likes to take him a bone or a ball and tries to put it in his mouth. Not only does he like to take him things, but also he likes to sit with him, play with his tail, check out his teeth, he LOVES getting on his dog bed. Maverick doesn't always give him attention but L doesn't seem to mind.

He'd spend all day, every day outside if he could. As the weather continues to get nice, we are trying to go out more, but the pollen made him have a bit of a running nose (and gave me a headache) so we had to manage our time. Sometimes he just runs around the yard. Other times he will throw or kick a ball here and there.

We've always recognized how curious he was. He loves to flip over his toys and inspect the bottom of them (the screws, the casing, and how it's made). This has now moved over into inspecting people. He will open your mouth and stare at your teeth, touch your toes/feet and try to figure them out, and feel other parts of your face/head. It's hilarious but at the same time it's like he's a doctor inspecting every part of you. He's been attending church on Wednesday nights again this semester while Jeremy helped with the youth stuff. The workers said he loves to watch/observe and then play. They also said he likes to destroy things. HA! If you try to build a tower of blocks, you won't get far before he knocks them down. He also loves taking train tracks and roads apart once they are together as well as pour all the blocks out of his containers. He loves to pick things up too, which is the opposite of destruction. It's nice that he will dump things out and then often pick them up. If he finds trash on the ground, he will either bring it to me or take it to the trashcan too. You can definitely see more and more of his personality each day. We wonder if he's going to be this way or that way, but we know we need to just keep trying to instill good behaviors and hopefully that will help.

Each day he is able to play a little by himself too which is so wild to see. He's been so dependent on having people there with him while he's playing, but now he will run (always a run) to his room or playroom and get a toy and play with it or bring it back to you. Too much time by himself always means trouble since he does love to play in Maverick's water bowl, take down his baby cam, climb the stairs, run into our bedroom to get Jeremy's headphones, and whatever else he finds fun at the current moment.

Every day he seems to become more independent like he wants to eat with a fork and a spoon and he wants to carry things all by himself. The fits- they happen. He wants things on his timetable. NOW. We are teaching him that he doesn't run the world though and that he can't always get what he wants. Sometimes that causes him to get on the floor and cry or leap forward so we can't reach him and he ends up hurting his head or something. One morning I forgot to close the bedroom door and he tried to run away from me and tripped as he was entering the door. He hit his head on the doorframe and hurt his nose. It ended up giving him a little bruise by his eye too. It's in times like these he cries and cries to be consoled and gives the biggest hugs. At night, he knows Jeremy will lay him in his crib so he always holds on tight, gives me lots of hugs, and then starts to cry when I give him to Jeremy. It's so sad. He has the cutest little puffed out lip when he's sad along with the cutest "bye bye" and wave as we leave. He doesn't cry more than a minute but it's always a sad thing to do each night. I'm thankful he doesn't put up a fight about actually sleeping or wake a million times in the night (still sleeping from 7 pm-8 am) though so I'll take a little sadness even if it means he won't give Jeremy the proper hug and kiss he deserves before bed. We will get there.

We took swim lessons again over spring break. It's amazing to see how much he loves the water. He's gotten better at the different things they have him do but he seems to love kicking off the wall and floating on his back the most (well other than when we sing "The Wheels on the Bus" and do the motions in the water).

Food:
He tried some new things recently too: edamame, hotdogs (maybe that was in the last post), chicken nuggets (didn't truly love them and haven't gotten him to eat them again), and fish sticks (right at 18 months-he wanted mine and then has eaten them a few times since). He still loves fried rice and mac and cheese unless he's being whiny. He'd rather eat fruit than other foods most of the time, however he recently stopped loving to eat bananas and has gone to blueberries, grapes, and strawberries more and more.

He still doesn't like meat so peanut butter shows up many times during the week for protein. He also seems to enjoy cottage cheese and cheese. We've gotten him two kid's meals at restaurants so far (one with mac and cheese and another with a hotdog).

Teeth:
He still has 4 teeth. We can see some about to break through, so I will say there are two more coming in soon. He's been drooling up a storm, so I wonder if there are more to come in the near future. (note later on-- he now is cutting a molar and two other teeth two, so there are 5 coming in--- right after he turned 18 months).