Updates on our almost 17-month-old....
He LOVES mealtime. He knows that when we come home from Kathy’s, it's time to have dinner and we better not try to do anything else first. 8 out of 10 times, he still cries when the food is all gone, but here recently he's started to get a little better. He’s just so sad that it’s all over and he even starts to whimper when he notices there’s only a few bites left. Poor kid – you’d think he wasn’t being fed enough, but trust me – this kid can eat and he eats a lot! (Hmmm….I seem to have a similar issue and the common denominator is fabulous food made by Cody….so maybe this is really Cody’s fault that Daniel and I love to eat) Our pediatrician keeps telling us that babies know when they’re full and they stop when they get to that point, but if we let Daniel do that, he seriously will throw up. We’ve tried it. So his off switch seems to be malfunctioning, but if we can get him distracted enough when the food is gone, he doesn’t cry too long.
Usually likes bath time, and playing with the bubbles. Trying to drink the bath water is also a new (and disgusting) trick.
We’re still working on getting rid of the binky. We’re down to only using it during naptime and at night. In the morning when we pick him up out of his crib, we ask “Where does the binky go?” and he’ll pull it right out of his mouth and drop it into the crib. Except for the mornings when he’s feeling ornery and he’ll pretend like he’s putting it in the crib but actually sneaks it back into his mouth. It makes me sad thinking about getting rid of it altogether b/c he knows there’s a binky in his crib waiting for him, and he’s usually so excited to get into his crib to get it. I just worry he’s going to sit and cry and just look and look for the missing binky and be so sad.
Still a great sleeper. He takes 2 hour long naps a day and then sleeps from about 7:30p to 6:30a. Sometimes he so zonked out that he doesn't realize he's sleeping with his legs in the air (picture taken of our video monitor screen):
He’s toddling all over the place now. He was officially up and going right around 15 months. He’d taken a few steps before that quite a few times but it wasn’t consistent walking. We love taking walks down to the elementary school and playing on their playground. We also love to play on our swing set in the back yard. Wherever we’re playing, he continually insists on climbing up the slide and doesn’t have a whole lot of interest in going down it.
Playing in the backyard:
Very interested in taking lids off things and putting lids back on, taking objects out of one container and putting them into another, pushing buttons, etc. We're finding that non-toys are his favorties toys right now:
Spoon organization:
Playing in the unlocked cabinets:
Paper towel holder was a fun new find recently:
Dixie cups!
And this is when I get to ride in the front seat. Ok obviously not, but the first time crawling around up front was pretty fascinating. I figured out how to turn up the music REAL loud:
Daniel has learned the word “No” Sigh. He definitely knows what it means and uses it in the right context. But then sometimes he’ll just walk around singing “no, no, no, no…..” like it’s a pretty song.
His vocabulary is growing, and depending on his mood he’ll try to repeat just about anything you ask him to say. But ma-ma, da-da, boo, ball, boom, no, up, down, and yum-yum come through pretty clear. Cracker, milk, ….. he also says pretty routinely, but it’s a pretty vague resemblance of the actual word. It’s amazing how much he understands of what we say, though, and Cody and I have officially started spelling things to each other.
He is starting to pretend like he’s doing things. He likes to pick up our phones and hold them up to his ear and he'll blab, blab, blab like he's just got a lot to tell the person on the other end. He’s also started walking around with a little container and spoon and he’ll pretend like he’s got food in there and he scoops the “food” into his mouth as he walks around.
Daniel gets a big kick out of the sign of peace at church. He loves to shake everyone’s hand around us, and he keeps trying to shake their hands well after we’ve moved on to the breaking of the bread. He’s just so friendly, I guess!
