July & August

Written on September 9, 2013

Today little Sam is 18 months old, and although it blows my mind that I have a child that is one and a half, I am very relieved and peaceful.  Since his first birthday party, I feel like things have just been crazy for this kid.  Zach was gone in Alabama from March to May, in May we had our big move from North Dakota, and since then Zach has been living on base while Sam and I were at my parents' house two hours away.  Zach would come in on weekends to be with us, but we haven't really felt like a real family for quite some time.

In mid-August we moved into our house, and even though we are still definitely trying to get settled, it is such a weight off of my shoulders.  It sounds silly, I know, especially since my parents' house was so lovely, we had all of the space that our walking boy needed, and they were quite generous in how they took care of us.  I just feel like we are at a point now where we are offering a more calm and consistent life for Sam.  He is upstairs right now napping in his own crib, in his own room, and that just makes me happy.  

You may have noticed that I missed the 17 month update entirely --- that was partly due to us being in Colorado for a good friend's wedding, but in the past I usually update the blog once Sam is in bed for the night, and lately I've been spending those extra moments searching online for things to make this house feel like a home.  

So...just to update...in the month of July we spent a lot of time at Table Rock Lake.  Sam actually became a pretty big fan of the water.  He loved his life jacket (his "boat coat"), and he did a lot of fishing in the mornings with my dad off of the boat.  Our friends from Oklahoma were there for a few days with their little girl that is just a few months older than Sam, and they were hilarious to watch.  There also may have been first kisses between them (after being told to do so by us...).

"More" fishing 

August was busy.  Zach and I went to the wedding in Colorado at the beginning of the month, and we closed on our house the week after that.  We had the movers here and another wedding in Kansas City the following weekend, and then my ten year high school reunion back in Topeka.  We haven't had more than one weekend in our new house that we've really been here to enjoy it, but the weekdays have been great.  We've gone on a lot of walks, played outside in the neighborhood, met a lot of new kids at playgroups, and have already signed up for a few activities for when it starts getting cold outside.  We've loved having our parents so close, and we are so happy to feel like we're in a "passing through" location (example: haven't seen either of our Best Men from our wedding since our wedding day....we've had both of them in our home in the past two weeks.  Crazy).   Life is starting to slow down, so we're able to enjoy the little things again.

17-18 Months

18 Month Well Baby Stats:
Weight:  25 pounds (38%)
Height:  32.68 inches (61%)
Head:   49.5 centimeters (90%)

I was reading something just today that said "it is easy to expect too much of a toddler.  He looks so different from the crawling baby of a few months ago, and many parents think their youngster is no longer a baby."  I think I've fallen into this category a few times, because Sam seems SO grown up now.  

Walking/Talking/Moving About
He is moving all. of. the time.  He definitely knows how to walk, but honestly, he just runs everywhere and climbs on everything.  He has also started to learn the general idea of using a hockey stick to put a ball into the hockey net.  After he succeeds, he screams "goal goal goal" with the stick above his head.  Zach is quite proud.

He says a lot of gibberish on his own, but he also has quite a few solid words and repeats anything.  We've worked a lot on counting, and he has numbers 1-10 down pat.  We've also watched this alphabet song on YouTube enough so that he has gotten A, B, and C in his head. 

17 Months

It is really amazing how the whole "their brain is a sponge" thing is actually true.  He knows random words and things that we didn't purposely teach him...Zach and I have at least a few moments a week where we are both wide-eyed looking at each other like "did you teach him that?"  It is silly things like knowing that feet are stinky and saying "woo-wee" to the smell, and that after running sometimes people hold onto something and bend over like they're out of breath.  He has also started to put his trash in our kitchen trash can...just pulls it out, throws his garbage in, and shuts the drawer.  Some of our favorite random new words and phrases are moon, owl, pipe, digging, digger, football, bye bye dozer, ah-ah-apple, please (pronounced "peeeasss"), thank you (pronounced "tank ew"), Abby (from Sesame Street), and when he says "big" he exaggerates it so much it sounds like he is suffocating.  It is funny, I promise.

Favorite Things
Toys: Construction vehicles --- dump trucks, cranes, bulldozers, and his absolute favorite, the digger.   He likes the airplanes he sees when we go to base, but his day to day loves are all things construction.

CAT Tough Trucks from Amazon

Books: Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site, Once There Were Giants, The Feelings Book, and Hockey Numbers

Shows:  Not a lot of TV watching around here, but we do watch Sesame Street a few times a week because he loves Cookie Monster, Elmo, and Abby Cadabby.

Eat/Drink:  The bottles are long gone, and have been for awhile.  They magically disappeared midway through our stay at my parents' place, and then they just never came out of the box once we moved into our house.  He hasn't seemed to miss them one bit.

Still not the best consistent eater, so I really push smoothies on him because I just throw everything in there.  He'll have a few good days of eating an impressive breakfast and dinner, but that is still rare.  He LOVES whole milk, so we've started to have to watch how much we give him in a day.  He refuses juice and water is just insulting...so we are at a loss for what else there is to offer.  His doctor made a good point that he is getting additional fluids in the smoothies, so I'll definitely keep pushing those for that reason alone.

Sleeping:  He had the night terror of all night terrors just a week or so before his 18 month milestone...it is such an upsetting situation to see him in that I hope they pass really, really soon.

Usual schedule is wakes up between 7-8:00 a.m. and is in bed between 8-8:30 p.m.   I've really tried just in the last few days to get him to one nap in the afternoon, and he seems to be doing well.  We've had playgroups in the mornings, so that distraction helps to skip that nap.

Looks like we need to buy a swing set.

He is growing up and is so much fun.  People keep asking me when we'll have another kid....and I have to say, we are having such a blast with him right now that I don't want to even think about having to shift my focus yet.  He is hilarious, sweet, curious, and exhausts me JUST enough by the end of the day.  :)