19 months old

Well it's been quite the couple of months, little guy... we moved from Texas to Kansas, and shortly thereafter took off on our travels around the world. You have been such a trooper, and a delight to everyone around you. You LOVED spending time with Grandma and Grandpa, and Nana and Grandad, and all SEVEN of your uncles!

We finally got around to your 18 month check up now that we're back from our travels... and you were really almost 19 months. The stats (as of 09/06/2013): 27 lbs 12 oz (72nd percentile), 32 inches tall (36th percentile), 19.7 inch head circumference (94th percentile). You wear size 4 disposable diapers and you are somewhere between a 4.5 and a 5 in shoe size, always XW to fit your chubby feet :) You wear both 18 month and 2T size in clothes.

At 19 months old you have traveled through ten states on various trips, moved to a new state, and been to three different countries on three different continents. You've been on 10 airplanes in the last six weeks alone! You are a little world citizen and such a good little traveler!

Here are some of my favorite pictures of you over the past few months:

{17 months old, on the Mahner farm}

{17 months old, on our back patio}

{17 months old, Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead}

{17 months old, in Oregon}

Sprinkler fun

Proof that you are a real toddler, meltdowns and all!

{18 months old, in South Africa}

We did a lot of driving around Cape Town in the blue combi and you were a champ. It helped that you had uncles to entertain you with rousing choruses of "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Old Macdonald" when you were awake :)

Trying Grandad's hat on

 Chocolate ice cream face (I'll let you guess who gave you the chocolate ice cream...)

Hugging a tree at Rhodes Memorial, Cape Town.

{19 months old, back in Overland Park}

You still love to climb in the media cupboard.

And you still love playing on our back patio

Sticks are a new favorite thing. You pick them up wherever we go.

You have grown up so much in the last couple of months. You understand EVERYTHING that we say now, and you follow multiple-step instructions like "Go to your room and get a diaper and bring it to momma so I can change you"... very handy :)

You are also talking so much now. It seems like you learn a new word every hour. You are learning to string together short phrases.

Here are a few of your sayings:
"Oh no! Stuck!"... when you or one of your toys is stuck. Which seems to be all the time lately, lol. You like to get yourself and your toys stuck on purpose. Funny boy.
"Moh chiz pease" (more cheese please)... or more toast, milk, bubbles, Pingu, Timmy Time etc...
"Gapes (grapes) all gone"... with a sad look on your face. You love your grapes.
"Papa seeping (sleeping), shhhhhh" ... or whoever else might be sleeping.
"Uh oh! Boken! (broken)"... when you find a toy or something else that is broken, or when you are playing with an app on my phone and somehow get out of the app and can't get back... usually followed by "Mama fits (fix) it?"
"Oh! Look!"... when you see something and want us to look too
"Oh! Wow!"... when you are excited about something
You say "Oh no!" and "Uh oh" a lot... it's really cute :)
You say "Ow!" when you hurt yourself, with a pained expression on your face. You like to remind us of your "owies" multiple times a day :)

You're good at saying please ("pease") and thank you ("dak you") when we remind you, and you're starting to say them without being asked. You say "muhk!" for milk and "nack!" when you want a snack.

You identify things by person... "Papa's shoes"... "Mama's car"... "Grandad's watch"... etc.

You're also becoming quite... opinionated. It's helpful in some ways because you answer our questions definitively with "no" (and vigorous shaking of the head) and "yes" (and vigorous nodding). So you know what you want. Unfortunately for you, you don't always get what you want. Which is hard for your little 19 month old self to understand. We pick our battles but stand our ground on the important things.

You're a pro at shapes now. I have a shape sorting app on my phone which really helped you learn them. Your favorites are stars ("stah!") and circles ("shir-cul") and moons ("moo-nuh"). Especially stars... you find them everywhere!

You recognize the alphabet because I sing it to you every time we see it. You don't know individual letters or anything, but you point at it and start doing a little sing-songy thing asking me to sing it.

You recognize numbers too... when you see numbers you start counting "one, two, three, two, two, two, two..." haha! You get to about three and then just fudge your way up by saying two and looking cute.

You spend the majority of your day playing with your cars, trucks and trains. You like to be at eye level with them, so you will either lie down on the floor and push them along, or have them on the coffee table or the couch or the media console etc.... anything that you can stand or squat by and push your cars along :) I guess you like to watch the wheels spinning. Our coffee table is usually covered in your cars. You line them up and push them along, and I just wish I could get into your little head to see what you are thinking as you carefully position each vehicle.

You are starting to identify vehicles more specifically... instead of just "truck" you know "dump truck" and "fire truck" and "garbage truck" etc.  You also know "digger" and "roller" and "tractor" (and I need to learn all those other construction vehicle names so I can tell you them when you ask!). You point and ask me "that?" when you see one you don't know.

You are starting to do more pretend playing - you pretend to put your stuffed animals to bed, for instance. You will lay Pingu (your beloved stuffed penguin) down and say "night night! shhhhhhh" and pat him gently. And then (here's the funny part) you scrunch up your little face and make little crying noises, pretending that Pingu is crying, and then quickly pick him up and hug him and rock him and pat him on the back. And then (here's the even funnier part, at least to me) you look at me reproachfully while protectively holding Pingu as if to say "mom, THIS is what you are supposed to do when you put me to bed and I cry... pick me up and rock me". [But really, I am a total sucker and cannot listen to you cry... so if it's up to me you do get picked up and snuggled and rocked. Because you're only little once.]

You love to draw and do stickers. I took a blank notebook and some crayons and lots of stickers on our travels and it kept you happy for long periods of time.

You LOVE clocks and watches. You point "tick tock clocks" out everywhere we go, and when you see them in books. You become best friends with anyone that lets you play with their watch. You could spend hours studying them and trying to figure out what makes them "tick". Maybe you're going to be a watchmaker?! I definitely see a mini Judah-sized watch in your future...

You are kind of a picky eater. You love carbs - bread and pasta and crackers. And you love cheese. So any combination of those works well - pizza, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, cheese on toast, cheese and crackers etc. You also love fruit - grapes, berries, bananas, peaches, oranges etc. And you'll eat yogurt sometimes. But it's hard to get you to eat anything else - especially veggies. Sweet peas and sweet corn are about the only ones you'll eat! And even then it's iffy. You will usually at least TRY something if you get to dip it in ketchup (I went and got some organic, no HFCS ketchup to make myself feel better about that...)

You are still nursing so I'm glad you're at least getting that nutrition to fill in the gaps!

With all the moving and traveling and jet lag, you haven't been sleeping great. While we were traveling you ended up sleeping with me most of the time, so when we got home you weren't so thrilled about going back in your crib! We are slowly working with you though and we're down to about one or two wake-ups during the night. I hope we can get you sleeping through the night soon... I can't remember the last time I slept through the night! There were a few weeks when you were 2 or 3 months old where you slept through the night (8 hours or so)... but then you hit the 4 month sleep regression... and you went from one regression/teething bout/illness/move/travel etc to the next and you've never slept through since. Sigh. We are getting there though.

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This is just SUCH a fun age. You run circles around me with all your energy and astonish me everyday with something new. Never a dull moment, that's for sure. It's so fun to hear you stringing words together and communicating so well. When you wake up you yell "Mama! Mama! Muhk? (milk)" from your crib... and when you're hungry you say "high chair! nack! (snack)"... when you want to go out and play you say "shoes! outside!"... etc. I just love it!

Papa and I love you so very much. You are our world.

I can't believe you're closer to being two than you are to being one now... this year is going even faster than your first year. Slow down a bit, okay buddy? Maybe spend a little more time at each age, so it's not gone before I can blink? Just a suggestion :)