The Michael Family Musings: Nate, months 13-15

Stats:

Weight: 24 pounds on the nose, 68%

Height: 32.5 inches, 90%

Size: 18 month clothes, size 5 shoes, and size 4 diapers

Appearance: His hair has grown quite a bit in the last 3 months, though not quite to the point where mom is ready to get it cut! He now has 12 teeth with another one starting to poke through. He’s only missing his canines now (and of course his 2 year molars).

Food:

We started cow’s milk the day after he turned one and it was a very smooth transition. He loves it and probably drinks 3 cups a day. He eats pretty much exactly what we do, except for spicy foods, or super hard foods like raw carrots. His favorites are any kind of fruit, bread, Gerber banana cookies, and noodles, but he mostly just loves to eat. The only thing we still struggle a little with is green vegetables, but even those we can usually get him to eat with the right persuasion. We’re starting to let him use small plastic utensils with dinner. He can’t get food onto them yet, but once we help he’s usually pretty good with getting it into his mouth.

Sleep:

Sleep is still going well! We have had some bad cedar fever around here lately though, so we’ve had a few nights where he was up and down because of congestion. About a month ago, we transitioned him to one nap a day. That has gone fairly well, though some days (if teething is bad or something) he does still need 2 naps. Most days, his nap is just shy of 2 hours. I think the longest he’s napped was like 2.5 hours in a stretch.

His eat/sleep schedule:
7-7:30a – wake up and have breakfast
8-11ish – play/run errands
11:30-12:00ish – lunch
12p-2 - nap
2:30-3ish– snack
3-6ish - play
6ish – dinner
7:30-8 – milk and bedtime

Milestones:

His vocabulary has really exploded in the last few months. He has probably somewhere around 30-40 words. Occasionally, he’ll string 2 words together (like ‘dada bye bye’), but that doesn’t happen too often. The words he uses most are ‘mama/mamee’, ‘dada’, ‘iss’ (sissy), ‘bee’ (this is what he calls both our dogs, one is named Binx. He calls all other dogs ‘wuf’ or does his sign for dog), ‘oof’ (food), ‘mee’ (milk), ‘ahs’ (eyes), ‘baybe’ (which is how he refers to himself, all of Mia’s dolls, and every child who looks younger than Mia), ‘ba’ (ball), ‘eess’ (cheese), ‘buh’ (which means many things, but most often, book), and ‘gees’ (keys). Still lots of babbling and new sounds.

He is still signing. He does the sign for more, but also now says ‘muh’ when he does it. He will occasionally sign milk, but he’s phasing it out and replacing it more with the word. He uses the sign for water to represent any drink that is not milk, including empty cups. He also still uses his sign for dogs. For some reason, the sign for ‘thank you’ never caught on.

When someone walks away, he waves and says ‘bye bye’. We were once at a restaurant seated near the door, and he waved and said bye to every person that walked out. Such a polite little man.

He can point out all the features of his head/face (like if you say, ‘where’s your nose?’). He also does this with other people’s faces (‘where is mommy’s hair?’). I’ve gotten my eyes poked more times than I care to admit!

His fine motor skills are getting quite good.

He’s walking, running, and climbing on everything.

You can definitely tell he’s understanding his world a little more every day. He knows to put a phone to his ear, that hairbrushes are for hair, toothbrushes for teeth, socks/shoes go on his feet, etc.

He is seriously such a sweet and affectionate little man. He loves to give slobbery kisses and hugs. He also blows lots of kisses to random strangers, which makes him pretty popular.

He's getting a little more leery of strangers, but I wouldn't say we're at the stranger danger stage yet. He looks at new people suspiciously, but if Jason or I are comfortable in the situation he usually warms up pretty quickly.

Things I want to remember about these few months:

We’ve had a number of holidays since his birthday. We’ve celebrated Thanksgiving (which was actually his first. He was born the week after Thanksgiving last year, but because of where it fell, he had his first Thanksgiving the day after his birthday. Fun fact, he’ll actually get two Thanksgivings before he turns 2!), Christmas, New Year, and Valentine’s day. This was actually the first New Year’s I spent with him. Last year I was in the hospital due to gallstones and didn’t get to be with him on New Year’s day.

He loves music. He often points to the Amazon Echo we have and signs ‘more’, which is meant to mean ‘please turn on the music’!

I don’t get too many cuddles these days, but I do love that every so often while he’s playing, he’ll just run up to me and give me a hug. I’ll take what I can get!

We flew in another airplane to go visit family just before Christmas. I was worried because this was his first flight since he became mobile and no longer breastfeeding, but he actually did really well. On the way back, he was sick (along with big sister), so he mostly actually slept.

He loves to go for walks with me. This is one thing we do together just the two of us while Mia is at school. He likes pointing out all the trees, big trucks, and animals.

His favorite things:

Eating, climbing, playing with sister, bath time, bubbles, animals (particularly dogs, cats, and birds), balls, loud toys, trucks, ‘wrestling’ with dad, swinging, being chased, playing peek-a-boo, ‘mo’ (Elmo), and watching videos of himself.

Things he doesn’t like:

He still doesn’t love diaper changes, but he’s actually coming around to being strapped down, especially if he knows we’re going somewhere. He gets frustrated if he wants something and we can’t figure out what it is. If he doesn’t know the word, he’ll just say ‘more’ and point to it until we figure it out. Otherwise, he’s really only cranky if he’s hungry or overly tired.

And now, the pictures!