Remember when this little guy was even littler and was swimming in this chair?But back to the topic - Tommy is 14 months old! What strikes me the most is that I was 14 months old when my sister Karyn was born. I can't imagine being in that situation with how busy a kid Tommy is...kudos to my mom! Tommy has us on our toes all the time. He is always busy, playing with toys, reading his books, climbing stairs, running from room to room. We feel so lucky to have such an amazingly HAPPY baby boy Don't get me wrong, Tommy has his moments, like any toddler.
Favorite Foods: French toast sticks, cheerios, turkey melts, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese, sweet potatoes, strawberries, bananas, Gerber cheese doodles, pickles
Self-Feeding: Tommy has made some great strides with self feeding. He had been picking up foods with his fingers, but now also uses a fork and spoon, with some assistance. I'll put the piece of french toast or chicken on a fork, but he likes to take the fork and feed himself. Same thing with the spoon, which is usually a bit messier, but I let him do it as much as possible. He is very proud of himself when he does it. But, he has to be in the mood - he's gotten used to all his girlfriends, I mean, teachers, waiting on him at school, and boys are generally lazier when it comes to self feeding, as I've been told by numerous people.
Favorite Activities: playing with balls, playing with giant legos, turning pages of books, going for walks, exploring his surroundings - wherever he is!
Teeth: Tommy has 5 teeth, with #6 on the verge of popping through on the top. He has his 2 bottom middle teeth, two top teeth, one incisor on top, and the other one is poking through. His teeth have REALLY been bothering him again the past 3 weeks or so.
Sleep: Tommy goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:15, and will often wake around 11 or 12 - right after Mommy goes to bed of course. I let him cry for a bit and then go in to him. As mentioned above, this is a teething thing. It's not every night, but more often than not. He wakes up around 6ish...sometimes it's 5 or 5:30, but I can bring him into our bed and he will usually go back to sleep for another hour. At school he generally takes a 30-45 minute nap in the morning, and then a 2 hour nap after lunch. On weekends, he doesn't nap as well for us unless we are on a long car ride or we give him a bottle to relax. We don't even keep bottles at daycare anymore, so we know he doesn't "need" it to nap, but he knows what buttons to push on us, and we've got to stop letting that happen! I've had a few nights of success putting Tommy in the crib while still awake and getting him to put himself to sleep...while Mommy lies on the floor next to the crib. Yeah, not ideal, but it's working, and ultimately the goal is that he'll let me leave the room after I put him in the crib. Some nights he falls asleep so quickly I haven't had a chance to get him in the crib, but most nights I talk to him, ask him if he wants to go in the crib, and eventually he points to it and I put him in. He is usually out with 15 minutes, though tonight he was a stinker, playing with his musical aquarium, then throwing all of his animals out on the floor on top of me. I chose to ignore that, and did not put the animals back in his crib until after he fell asleep. It ended up taking closer to 30 minutes for him to fall asleep, but he did do it. I had to be patient, but the payoff was worth it.
Clothes: Tommy is wearing 12-18 month and 18 month size clothes, with a few "larger" 12 month shirts in the closet and a few pairs of pants too. He still wears size 4 shoes.
Diapers: Size 4 diapers
Weight: Since there are no checkups between 12 and 15 months, I can only guess that Tommy is around 24 or 25 pounds.
Personality: HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY! Unless his teeth are bothering him, of course, or if he hurts himself. And when he's overtired, of course, but what HUMAN isn't upset when you are overtired??? But he is easily distracted with a song, or a raspberry on his belly or neck, so we can turn his mood around pretty quick if needed!
Pushing Limits: Tommy has been hitting the past few weeks, and thinks he's funny when he does so. He's also bitten Mommy and Daddy once each, and one of his teachers at daycare. The instance with me was more of an accident, and I don't think he realized what he was doing, but we also know there is some frustration causing this, as we know it's "the age." We are firm with him and tell him to be "gentle." We use the baby sign language with him to reinforce "gentle."
Vocabulary and Communication: We still swear he asks "what's this" and "what's that" when pointing to things. I have to try to get it on video, it's very funny. His 2 newest words the past 2 weeks are "walk" and "ball" which he started saying while we were in Illinois last weekend. He also says "bah" for bath. John and I have been making more of an effort to use the baby sign language with him the past week. We got a little lazy about it but after seeing Tommy make signs and we weren't sure what they were, we realized we needed to commit to it so Tommy was able to communicate with us. He signs "milk", "more", "all done" on a regular basis for us. Truly amazing to have the opportunity to really communicate with our little guy!
Affection: Tommy is extremely affectionate! The past month he has really started giving tons more hugs and kisses. Even his open mouth kisses are welcomed! He even leans in to give Tux and Tails kisses!
Following Direction: My expectations with any toddler, including Tommy, are not that high that they will listen and do what you say. I mean, they are toddlers!!! But Tommy has impressed us with his ability to follow direction with certain things. He helps put his bath toys away when I ask him where certain things go. His teachers at school also say he is very good about helping with clean up when they tell the kids it's time to do that. Let's hope this continues....
Other: We turned Tommy's car seat around so he is facing forward. We took the seat to Illinois with us and put it in the rental car facing forward, and when we came home decided to keep it that way. We hemmed and hawed about when to turn it around because I'd read a lot about it being safer for the child to stay rear facing as long as possible. But Tommy enjoyed facing forward on our trip, so we decided to keep it that way. The funny thing is, he's a very quiet kid in the car. I put his CD's on and sing along but he just sits there, watching the outside world. Not much of a chatterbox in the car right now.
Next week is Thanksgiving, and we'll be hosting this year, though everyone's bringing or making something so my main concern is the turkey...I've hosted 2 times since John and I were married, and so far we've ended up with a nice tasting turkey, but I don't remember what we did!
Can't wait to watch this little boy enjoy the upcoming holiday season!
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