17/18 (almost 19) Months

Oliver is almost 19 months and I am SO behind!  I hate that I've not posted before now since this is where I keep up with everything.  We have had a busy summer.  I'm skipping pictures for now and will post some when I can get to the other computer.

Stats (unofficial)
Height: ?
Weight: 22lbs
Teeth: 16 (and working on 2-year molars I think; cuspids started coming in at the end of month 17)
Shoes: 4.5

Clothing sizes: still 12m or 12-18m.  Some 18m sizes and a few 24m sizes.  He has a couple of 2T t-shirts, but those seem to run very small.  His 18-24 size shorts are so big on him they fall off.  With a cloth diaper, they work fine, but in a disposable, they're to his ankles.

Diapers: bumGenius 4.0 and Elementals.  I think we'll stick with this until he's done with diapers.  I really love bG for older babies.  We moved to size 4 in disposable at the end of month 17 due to leaks at night.  That seemed to do the trick.  Daytime, a 3 would still be fine, but since he's at the top of the weight for 3s, I decided to just move to a 4.  They still look really big on him, but he's not in them often so it made sense not to get something he might grow out of and we'd be stuck with later.

Words: Oh my!  His vocabulary has literally sky rocketed since month 17.  Every day is a new word.  He actually says so much I couldn't list it all.  We have some first word books that he loves to read and point out what he knows.  His favorite is the page that has pictures of things that go - 'car!'  'airplane!'  :)  He loves cars, trucks, and airplanes.  When he hears a plane he'll point to the sky and yell 'airplane!'  Thunder is often confused for airplanes.  If there's a long word he can't say, he'll use the syllables and make his own word.  For example, strawberry is 'sta ba ba,'  Rectangle is 'reh ta ba' (or something similar!).

He'll babble and say some words here and there and then will suddenly say, 'ooooh, ahhh, oh!, Mmm.'  It is SO funny.  And really, the cutest thing in the entire word.  I promise, it is.

He knows more than he let's us know, which is frustrating because I never know how much or what he knows.  Point in case, we talk about shapes, colors, numbers, letters a lot, but he rarely points to things on cue... night before last he was nursing before bed and then we read some books.  On one of the pages there were shapes so I asked him to find what I knew he knew, circle/star/oval/triangle... then I asked him to find the rectangle, diamond, heart, square, etc... and he correctly identified each one.  Last night, I didn't prompt him and just let him 'read' the book himself.  He again identified each shape and said the name.  He's also done that with colors - he was nursing and randomly sat up and pointed to a blanket behind us and said, 'bu' (blue) - so I know he's taking in a lot more than he lets on.  He also knows 2, 4, 8, 9, a handful of letters and a few colors (yellow, red, blue, green).

It's so fun to teach him things!

Food: His favorite all time food is fruit.  He'll eat almost any fruit but has the most love for red berries.  He can put down a big Sam's Club container of raspberries in a day if we let him.  Usually we can stretch that out to three days.  He also loves strawberries, pears, banana, kiwi, peaches, and apples (and applesauce, specifically from a straw).  He used to eat a lot of vegetables, but lately he just prefers peas.  He will eat celery, carrots, and other vegetables if they're cooked so I tend to make a lot of casseroles that have vegetables hidden in with the chicken.  He loves Chick-fil-A.  (He gets that honest.)  We often go there for lunch dates on Fridays or with daddy during the weekend.  He also loves cheese and will eat just about anything if it's covered in cheese.  Macaroni and cheese is included in that as is broccoli, which is often mixed in with his mac'n cheese otherwise he'd never eat it.    He also loves yogurt.  He still drinks only water.  I have, on about three occasions, added about 1/8c juice to his water, but that has been when he's sick and needed fluids so it was more to trick him than anything.

Naps: 9-11 AM and 2-4 PM.  He still very much needs two and both are normally two hours.  Often the afternoon nap is closer to 3 hours, just depends on the day.  Two days/week he gets one nap due to my work schedule and those tend to be hell days for us.  He's so grumpy and out of sorts that he's usually in bed between 7 and 7:30.  Normal bedtime is 8:30 and he sleeps until 6:30 with a rare 7:30 sleep in - rare, but does happen from time to time.  Like this morning.  It was heaven.

Nursing: He nurses 4-5x/day.  His quality of nursing has decreased most of the time, but he still very much enjoys nursing.  It's both easier and harder to nurse in public now.  Easier in that he can get to it by himself (which is fine when he's in a carrier) and harder in that he can get to it by himself. :)  It's not uncommon for us to be walking through the mall while he's nursing - yet no one would know since he's bundled up for the most part.  Nursing time often becomes learning time because he's normally very relaxed and I have his full attention.

Toys: He prefers cars and trucks to just about anything.  We went to Target recently (daycare day, which meant he'd gotten half the nap he normally gets) and he found a pink jeep that ended up coming home with us.  It was a battle I wasn't willing to get into - it helped that it was on clearance.  Puzzles are fun if the shapes are big enough, otherwise he gets frustrated.  Cutting food (a Melissa & Doug toy) is also a current favorite.  He's really good at cutting and cleans up well too.  He also enjoys coloring and play doh in his learning tower in the kitchen.

Other: He is already a joker - we were upstairs nursing before bed one recent evening and he was pointing and naming body parts.  He went through the ones on his face (ears, eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, chin) and then went to belly button and feet... then he pointed to my boobs and said, 'boo boo' (which is what he says when he wants to nurse).  I said, 'right, 'boo boo.'  He hesitated and grinned, then pointed to my boobs again and said, 'feet!' as he laughed and laughed.  It was SO funny!  He's the silliest!

He's normally good at following directions, but he's also in a stage where he's testing to see what he can get away with or stretch.  He's also testing himself.  At Gymboree this week he walked up a foam wedge and slowly started to let go of another foam block he was holding onto - he stood up cautiously and then slowly squatted back down, beaming that he'd done it.  :)  He rarely walks and is always running to where he wants to go - normally this is fine, but we're starting to work with him when he's on sidewalks.

He's a champ at having his teeth brushed.  Aside from worrying he'll fall and chip a tooth, my next fear is that he'll get a cavity. I've never had one and I hope he'll be the same.  His teeth are so close together and are not the ideal 'picket fence' so I'm really funny about making sure they're brushed well.  The front teeth probably need to be flossed but I'm afraid that will hurt him.  Any ideas for that?  Taking all tips!

He loves to help do whatever we're doing.
He also loves to take showers.
He climbs on anything he can find.
He taps his fingers on my shoulder when he nurses.
He also taps them on his legs when he sits down.
He likes to dance.
He likes to close his eyes and make you think he's hiding b/c he can't see you.
He'll let you know when he's pooped.  (No, there will be no big potty in the near future.)
He thinks it's fun to run with the big kids.

I'm really bummed I didn't post at 17 months because I just looked back at my post from 16 months and he was still saying 'bitta' babble with a few words here and there.  Now, he's pointing at everything and saying all kinds of words.  I'll have to do better about making time for blogging.  I don't want to miss some of these things - especially when the next few months will be even more explosive with development.