17 months

WARNING: this is an EXTREMELY long post...probably because I'm cramming 12 posts (or so - but who's counting) into 1.  Feel free to take a break as you need it.

If we're being honest here, which we have no reason not to be, we're convinced that P is currently going through a phase (who am I kidding...it's not a "phase" it's just a "state of being") of extreme adorableness.  It's hard to deny...that crazy, slightly-curly platinum blonde hair, that sweet little voice, his hysterical little idiosyncrasies, the games he plays...he is just so stinken' cute - inside and out- and that, of course, is in our unbiased and ever-so-humble opinion.

This has been a great month!  P really does have us smiling all the time...and here are a few reasons why.

1) Sleep- He is sleeping like a champ!!! :)  I know, I know, most people say something like that when their kid is 6 months old...but I'll take it at 17 months!  I finally stopped nursing him at 16 months, which meant no more getting up at 5:30 for his early-morning feeding.  Once we got this figured out, he has been going to bed at 7:30 and waking up at 6:50.  He also takes a guaranteed 2 hour nap in the afternoon from 1:30-3:30, but if he's really tired, he might make it all the way to 4:15.  Either way, I'll take it! :) 

 

He sleeps with his little lovey (normally as a pillow), a soft blue bunny blanket to cover him up, and 2 stuffed animals (a dog and a bunny) which I don't think he even realizes are in there.

2) Stacking things- the kid is kind of obsessed with stacking things.  This is not entirely new.  A few months ago he was also enjoying stacking things (I would say he started stacking some blocks around 15 months - because I'm picturing him playing with blocks while we were out at the ranch for Easter), but he was very particular about the "right pieces" being stacked together - meaning, don't even try to stack one of my plastic blocks with my cardboard blocks.  That goes against the order of the universe.  Things have now changed.  Gone are the days of stacking everything "just so" (he was seriously being a little OCD toddler...).  Now we're stacking blocks with rings with puzzle pieces.  I often find myself saying, "I love how creative you're being!" :)  And the kid has some mad stacking skills.  There are days where I walk back into a room, and he has a tower of 9 blocks stacked.  He has also realized that standing up once the tower gets too tall makes it easier to keep building, so he does this with regularity.

I swear that P stacked this all by himself...except for the 3 base pieces that J stacked first.  J and I watched in disbelief as P proceeded to defy gravity and stack 10 more pieces on top. :)  How's THAT for a party trick!?

3) Sunbuggies (aka - sunglasses)- Obsessed. with. sunbuggies (which is a term I did not come up with...btw).  There's even a horrible song that goes along with wearing sunbuggies.  It goes, "Sunbuggies.  Sunbuggies.  Everybody's wearing their sunbuggies."  It might involve dancing.  I might have been the one to make it up.  Either way - if you have sunglasses on - watch out.  And be ready to put them on P and sing a song...

 He took these off of my head at the grocery store and put them on his head all by himself.

 Don't call me.  I'll call you.

 He stole them from me again at the park.

 Hi, Mom!

 Quite the look, huh?

4) Water fun- P seems to be experiencing a love/hate relationship with water this summer...although it appears as though we're veering more towards the "love" side right now.  It started out with swimming lessons.  Lesson 1 = major crying.  Lesson 2 = more crying. :(  So then we busted out the water table in the backyard...

This was the first time P got to use the water table...

 

 Think he liked it? :)

 This is new...it must be a new developmental stage...when P puts things places and they disappear from view, he tries to get a better look to figure out where they actually go.  I LOVE watching his little mind at work!

 

A moment of frustration trying to get the tower in the right place.

And then J busted out the hose to water some plants in the backyard, and P seized the opportunity to get thoroughly soaked, with pretty cold water - I might add, and loved every minute of it.

 

And then came the splash pad by Aunt KiKi and Uncle Bear's house...

...And what do you know?  Swimming lesson #3 actually went pretty well! :)  Looking forward to spending lots more time in the water this summer.

5) Singing songs...if you sing the right ones - We like to sing.  A lot.  And we have a rather large repertoire of songs...but there are only so many songs that P will let you sing on a certain day/ at a certain time.  In fact, if you are singing to him, he'll let you know if he wants you to stop singing a particular song by gently reaching out and touching your face, and then he gives you this look like, "Please, never sing that song again."  It's hysterical! (J got a video of this, and we'll post it.)

6) Food - P has been eating us out of house and home.  This month he has been obsessed with fruit and beans...while our veggie intake has been hit or miss.  At the beginning of the month, he was refusing cheese (WHAT?!?!  My child!?!?) and was only eating yogurt.  We added in cottage cheese at dinner time (a total mess, but he loves it), and he's been doing a much better job of drinking milk out of a straw at meal time.  At breakfast he eats a full serving of oatmeal, fruit, 4 oz. of yogurt and some beans.  He seriously eats more than me 1st thing in the AM. :)  The blueberry obsession continues.  If we gave him 5 pounds of blueberries, I'm pretty sure he'd eat 5 pounds of blueberries.  Obsessed, I tell you.  He's had the opportunity to have a popsicle at Grammy Share's and a bite of ice cream at GiGi and Gramp's, but I'm doing my best to not introduce sweets.  Living in our house, he'll have PLENTY of opportunities to eat sweets, so I figure I won't push it now since he doesn't know to ask for it. :)

 You can see evidence of the cottage cheese and bean additions. :)

 All done!

A member of the (almost) clean plate club...

Lovin' him some lime popsicle...

7) Being outside- Summer = being outside.  P and I have spent many a morning at the park recently before it gets too hot.  He loves to play in the wood chips, walk around the sidewalk walking path, play with his cups, and swing.  We've also eaten dinner outside several times recently, and P usually plays with his water table/ in the backyard at least once a day.  As mentioned above, the splash pad near K and B's house may be his new happy place.  I have a feeling we'll be spending a lot of time there this summer.

Waiting for his bath after playing outside after dinner.

 

8) Wheat Thins- about a month ago, P was eating a snack in our room.  He finished it and looked at me and grunted.  I told him it was "all gone."  He proceeded to stand up and leave the room.  I followed him as he walked into the kitchen, went to the pantry, reached up arms, and started whining.  Excellent.  He knows where we keep the food. :)  Although it turns out that the kid has a snack preference, and that preference is for Wheat Thins.  In fact, if it was up to him, he would seemingly like to eat at least one Wheat Thin an hour throughout the day, and there are some days where he gives this a go.  We believe in moderation and things other than processed carbs, so we try to balance things out by offering a grape or a blueberry in place of the Wheat Thin from time to time.  While he begs for a Wheat Thin, we've been trying use it as a teaching moment to teach him sign language for "please" to no avail.  If our child comes to your house...hide your Wheat Thins.  They're not safe.  And he won't ask for them nicely.

 What's better than one Wheat Thin?  Two Wheat Thins!!! (And don't mind his berry-tinted mouth and hands...he had just eaten some frozen blueberries...kind of intense pigments in those.)

9) Being chased - nothing gets a giggle out of this kid like being chased around the house.  He loves the thrill of the chase and squeals with delight when you catch him and tickle him...and let's face it - he doesn't move all that fast, so there's LOTS of tickling and lots of giggling. :)

10) Rings - if I could only pick one toy for P to keep out of all of the ones we have, I would pick his rings - hands down.  He's been able to stack them for a long time.  So now he's changed things up by putting the base all sorts of different places before stacking...or putting it at a weird angle...or balancing it precariously on the edge of a table, etc.  He also loves to take the rings off the base and move the base to a new location, so he can then go and retrieve the rings one by one and bring them back to the base.  He's taken playing with rings to a whole new level.

 Some pretty rockin' hair after a good nap, apparently.

 For the ultimate good time - move rings you've played with 1,000,000 times to a new location located approximately 2 feet away from your current location.  For the amateur, this may seem like there is no difference at all.  To the expert, it makes all the difference in the world.

 If possible, set ring base up at a funny angle.

Now move rings from one chair to the other.

 When finished, pick up rings and get ready to move again.

11) Puzzles - P LOVES doing his puzzles.  He is really good at doing his Fisher Price plastic six-piece puzzle, but he also loves to play with his wooden puzzles, and he's kind of freakishly-good at putting the pieces back in the right spot.  It's so fun to watch him.  He also likes to take the large farmer puzzle piece out of his farm puzzle and bring it to me and grunt, which is my signal to sing "The Farmer in the Dell," and no cheating...he wants me to go through all the verses.

12) Rules - it's amazing how you can tell early-on that a kid is a rule follower.  P is seemingly a stereotypical "first child" with a desire to please.  If he does something he's not supposed to do and you sternly tell him, "No," his little bottom lip quivers, and he looks at you with these eyes that just scream, "I'm sorry."  It's all we can do to not tell him, "Never mind!" and just squeeze him. :)  He will sometimes reach out and gently touch your face...it's like his little way of saying, "I'm sorry."  He also loves having the Leslie Patricelli book, No, No, Yes, Yes read to him...leave it up to my child to want a rule book read to him. :)

13) Waving "bye-bye" - a cute, endearing thing P does is that when we're leaving a place or a room or a toy and we're having a hard time leaving, we just wave "bye-bye" and say that we'll see them later.  P does this every night without prompting as we get out of the bathtub...he has to wave goodbye to "Mr. Octopus."  This makes me want to kiss him (P- not the octopus).


14) Vocabulary - no additions this month...although P says "boom" a lot more now since he is constantly on the move and is almost always carrying something that is difficult to hold (like a puzzle, let's say). :)  He also signals that he sees a light by lifting his arm up and opening up his hand towards the light. (Grammy Share taught him this while walking the hallways at GiGi and Gramps' place.)

What will 18 months hold?  Well, not to worry...based on the calendar, you only have to wait about 2 weeks to find out!  However, based on my blogging calendar (which is my own version of time - kind of like the Mayan calendar, except my calendar doesn't have the world ending on Dec. 21 of this year), you may have to wait at least another 2 months! :)  But it may have taken you that long to finish this post anyway... :)