Sweet Boy



He's getting to be a big boy, but he's still got his baby cheeks.

Carrying my babies

14 Months Old

Little Man, 14 months was a big month for you - you completed your first international adventure! It deserves its own blog post but you were the BEST little traveler in Ireland, handling the long plane rides, time changes, car rides, different houses, and flexible schedule so well.  We loved having you with us and were so impressed by you.  For a while we were convinced that you did best with familiarity and routine, but you have shown us this month that you love new environments and meeting new people and are very flexible when you need to be.  You are our little adventurer, and international travel didn't seem to phase you one bit. 


In front of Daddy's beloved childhood home in Ireland

Things that made you a great international traveler:

• You slept lying on an airplane seat since we flew through the night.
• You were cheerful after only sleeping 3.5 hours on the airplane the night before as we began our first day in Ireland
• You do so well eating out, and we did a lot of it
• You took naps in the car whenever we needed you to
• You had no problem with the time change and slept through the night every night that we were in Ireland.  It took you one night to adjust when we returned, but by night 2 you were sleeping through the night again.
• You did great riding in your stroller and took a few naps there as well.

Taking a quick nap as we walked the streets of Dublin.

This was also the month that you started walking!  Before we left we suspected that you could walk if you wanted to but you seemed perfectly content crawling.  You liked walking with us holding your hands but if you wanted to be independent you'd revert to crawling.  However, while we were in Ireland, we saw a big change in you where suddenly you were interested in being upright and no longer wanted to crawl.  You wanted to walk everywhere holding our hand.  Your balance was good enough that you just needed one hand.  Then you started taking steps by yourself while we were there.  If you fell, you would stand back up and try again rather than reverting to crawling.  Once we came home, you really took off.  In conjunction with the desire to walk, we also saw a sudden independent streak.  You didn't want to be held, but you'd squirm to get down so that you could practice your walking.  You also started resisting the stroller since that meant you couldn't walk.  You loved pushing your stroller though.  Even though you may want to walk independently, you love companionship and want to take me with you to see a different toy or visit another room. You will come take my hand if you want to go somewhere or put out a hand to signal that I should follow you. 

Walking with Daddy on an Irish beach

I think you could do this all day long.



Likes:

• Trucks
• Balls
• Music
• Talking on a "phone"
• Books
• Anything that you can push

(nothing really new here)

Dislikes:

• Being without Momma

(also not new!)

This made us late for church, but I couldn't wake my snoring baby.

Milestones:

• You pat us on the back in an affirming way, especially when we are carrying you.
• You love to put stuff on your head to be funny.  If I hand you a diaper, you will often put it on your head with a huge smile on your face.  I realized that I also do this a lot to make you laugh. 
• You have started to pretend that you are hurt.  Last month you started touching your head if you hit it, but this month you will touch your head and whimper even though nothing happened to it.  I still kiss it and ask if you are ok.
• You will now touch the appropriate body part when asked, Where's your head? Where's your nose?  Where's your ear?  And you can also identify it on your stuffed bear (Where's bear's nose?)
• You put your fingers together to imitate the spider when we sing Itsy Bitsy Spider or to show me that you want me to sing it for you.  You have loved this song since you were very little.  Sometimes I will start singing it to you and you will start clapping your hands to indicate that you want me to change to "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands" or vice versa.
• You got to eat ice cream for the first time in Ireland.  You loved it!

• Since you are walking so much these days, we usually put shoes on you before we go outside.  You love putting on your shoes and will bring them to us if you want to go outside.  You will also bring me my shoes when you are ready to go.
• You love music as you always have.  I often turn it on during lunch.  As soon as you see me pull out my laptop, you will sign "music."  You get a big smile on your face when you hear it.
• We went to Taylor Lake for the first time during swim hours.  You loved it!  You would sit and play in the sand all by yourself for the longest time, filling up your sand bucket.  You also loved walking to the water and sitting in it at the shoreline while playing with the wet sand.  We went almost every day for a week right after we dropped your morning nap b/c it kept you active.  I often had to carry you to and from the lake because I would catch you sleeping in your stroller.  One day there were some big kids there building something in the sand.  You walked right over to them and sat down and started filling one of their buckets with sand proving that you really are a social little guy.  You would occasionally look up and wave at one of the other kids.

• You have started looking at books by yourself.  You will pull one off of your bookshelf and flip through the pages.  I gave you one of your books to look at on the car ride home from the Chicago airport and we heard laughter coming from the back seat.  You were just looking at the pictures in your Dr. Suess's "The Eye" book and cracking up.
• You love to push cars (or anything that you can pretend is a car) around on the floor and make your version of a "vroom!" noise.
• We are working on independent play time.  One day you played for close to 20 minutes, but on other days you just wanted to play with Momma. 
• You take your paci out of your mouth and have it ready in your hand to give to us as soon as the car stops.
• You have started putting your hand over your mouth if something surprises or worries you (like if an object falls) but you also do it to be funny.
• You love to climb in and out of your little rocking chair.  You can climb up, turn around, and start rocking all by yourself.  You know you are not supposed to stand in your chair so you will look at me and pretend to stand, but most of the time you are good at staying seated.
• You like to eat using a spoon now and you are pretty good at getting food into your mouth.
• We went to North Carolina to see Grandma and Grandpa Angell, Aunt Lia, Uncle Randolph and Orla.  Unfortunately Orla had Hand, Mouth, Foot Disease and we had to keep you separated so we didn't get to spend as much time with family as we had hoped.  We did have a great time at the beach, though. And you got HMFD anyway.

• You and Momma both got Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease this month so we had to be quarantined from other kids for a few weeks.  You were tough and handled it like a champ.  You needed to be held a lot one of the first nights that you were sick but you eventually were able to fall asleep in your bed.  After that you were able to sleep by yourself.  Auntie Kim came to help out since it happened to be a week that Daddy worked all day, most evenings and the weekend.

• We started putting your water in your sippy cup and putting it in your bed when you were sick since your throat hurt and drinking water seemed to help you go back to sleep.  Sometimes we would see you grab the water bottle and cuddle it to help you fall back to sleep.  I put a safe little stuffed animal in your bed to see if you would cuddle it, but you have ignored it since you love to cuddle your pacis and water bottle.  We have now continued to keep the water bottle in your bed and we see you drinking from it fairly often.
• We got you a "Cozy Coupe" car when you were sick since you couldn't go to the playground for a while. You love to push it and also to be pushed in it.  When I'm pushing you, you usually have one hand on the window ledge and one hand on the steering wheel which is exactly how Daddy drives.  Since there isn't much traffic around us, I will push you along the side of the road and you will sit in the car contently for the longest time.  One time I glanced down and you had fallen asleep in your car!

• You have said "Momma" for a while now but it clicked last month that if you said it, then I would pick you up.  You now say "Momma" if you want me to hold you (which is a lot of the time) or if someone else is holding you and you want to come to me.  If you wake up in the middle of the night (which is rare these days) you will sometimes say "Ma Ma!" as you cry.  You say two distinct syllables (Ma Ma) often putting the emphasis on the second syllable.  Sometimes you make it a three syllable name (Ma Ma Ma).  You must think "Momma" is a magic word because you've also said it a few times when we weren't giving you something that you wanted.
• You have a great sense of direction.  You know if we are near the park or the lake and will point excitedly to where we should turn if you want to go to one of those locations.  If we turn a different way, you will fuss for a bit to tell us we aren't going where you want us to.
• You have started to scream a lot this month both when you are happy and excited, and when you are frustrated.  If you want more food and we aren't looking at you, you will let out a shrill scream to get our attention.  However, if we ask you to tell us what you want, you will calmly sign "more".  If you see something exciting you will also let out a scream of delight.  When Auntie Kim was here, we ran into a store and let you walk down one of the aisles.  You saw a box of Rice Krispies and were pointing and screaming for the longest time in the store with a huge smile.  I think you liked "Pop, Crackle, Snap". You are too funny!
• We catch you imitating us all the time.  You are a sponge soaking up everything we do.  After Daddy fixed one of your toys with a screwdriver, we saw you working on your toy with the screwdriver.  Another day I saw you wiping your belly with a paper towel after I had just done the same to clean some food off your shirt.  You sit by me most mornings while I do my hair and makeup.  You have started taking my comb and combing my hair and your own hair.  You also have taken the eye shadow brush and brushed it on the eye shadow container (which was closed) and then put it on my eyelid.  I've also caught you using my big makeup brush and patting it on your face.  We are often amazed that you know how to do something or how something works without us ever intentionally teaching you.

You dropped your morning nap towards the second half of the month and are now down to one nap.  You were taking a one hour morning nap and a one hour afternoon nap, so I hoped they would merge into a two hour mid-day nap.  However, you now take a 45 min mid-day nap.  I do like just doing one nap, though, because we have so much more flexibility with what we can do each day.  Also, when you dropped your morning nap, you also dropped two of your mid-day nursing sessions.

Here's your schedule at the end of the month:

6:00am wake up and nurse
10:00am snack
11:30am-12:00pm lunch
1:00pm-1:45pm nap (this occurred between 12 and 1:30 as I tried to find the best time)
1:45pm wake up and nurse
3:00pm snack
5:30pm dinner
6:30pm bath and get ready for bed
7:00pm bedtime

What a determined little guy!  You are always up for a challenge!

From Dad: Elias, it was an indescribable feeling to revisit the scenes of my childhood and watch you explore them like I did when I was little. I know that we will have so many adventures together; you have a joyful, curious spirit. Whenever I smile at you, you smile back, ready to join in the fun. We thank God that you are learning so much, and that we enjoy your company even more at every stage.



First day of MOPS

All dressed up and ready for our first day of MOPS for the year.  Little Man tried the nursery but came and joined me for the rest of the time.  He did a great job in the room with all the moms.

Silly Boy

Our silly boy opened one of his dresser drawers today all by himself, pulled out his sunglasses and tried to put them on his head.  He couldn't quite get them on so he brought them to Momma for help.  Then he proceeded to take one mitten out of his drawer and brought it to Momma to have her put it on his hand.  He ran around in his sunglasses and one mitten for quite a while.  Maybe this is why Daddy says he has my sense of humor? :)

Climbing

When Grandma came to visit, we took her to the park.  Here's Little Man doing what he loves to do...climb!