Saturday, April 4, 2015

Toddler Boy: 18 Months

Once again, I cannot believe how quickly my little boy is growing. He's tall, sure. But he's also learning new words, new signs, and even a few new "tricks." At his most recent check-up he weighed in at 24 lbs. 11 oz. and 33 3/4" tall.

William has gotten a lot better at repeating words when we say something to him. He might not be able to say the word on his own or know exactly what we're talking about, but he is saying a lot more sounds. For example when we say words like "alligator," "cracker," or "octopus" he will try to repeat the sounds; he doesn't get it exactly right, but close!

Other words he knows and can say without too much help:
water, apple, pear, bear, bread, dada, mama, book, dump truck, up, down, on, and of course, ball

Animal sounds he can make:
cow, cat, dog, sheep, duck, monkey, elephant, lion, and horse
He also tries to mimic a rhino which is a low sounding grunt. He does pretty well.

He says something like "shaw-shaw" for fire-truck, truck, and siren. He watches them constantly outside our window. I'm not sure where that word came from, but he's pretty consistent in saying it for those three things. If you ask him what a fire-truck sounds like, he will respond with "whoo-ooh-whoo-ooh." He's cute.

He can recognize the sounds of the street sweeper, garbage truck and busses outside our apartment too and never seems to get tired of running to the window to watch them. Sometimes I feel like I live in Richard Scary's "Busytown."

We've slowed down on signing but are still trying to add a few more every few weeks. Please, socks, shoe and cracker are our newer words.

We've had several trips to the zoo and science museum in the past month. William loves watching animals; fish especially. Now that he can say "water" and sign "fish" they are even more exciting!




His new trick I referred to earlier is balancing on his rocking elephant. One day I caught him climb up and stand on the back and then let go of the handle bars. Yikes!

He is also getting pretty accurate with his sand toys. It's been fun to watch him get better at scooping up sand, filling a bucket and dumping it in his sand/water wheel. He is also getting much better at sharing his toys at the park.

He is still an excellent napper and fairly consistent night-time sleeper, although sometimes I think he has just mastered staying quiet for hours because when we go in to get him he looks exhausted.

He tends to be a picky eater. Very rarely will he eat what we eat. Typically breakfast is a little bit of scrambled egg, some pancake, banana and juice. If he eats an entire pancake I feel like throwing a party. Lunch is often times a peanut butter and banana sandwich and milk. Dinner is often times a repeat of lunch or toast--with a number of other choices thrown on the floor. He will eat apples, pears and roasted broccoli at anytime of day. His newest favorite is peanut butter right out of the container . . .

William loves water play. We've taken him to a pool a couple of times, but even playing with dishes in the sink will entertain him for a long time. And he is no longer content to stay on the floor if mom or dad are doing anything on the counter. He watches us do everything while standing next to us on a chair. I now understand the need for contraptions like this.

Although he is getting much better at walking, running and climbing, he still falls or hits his head on something nearly every day. Thankfully bumps and bruises don't stay around for long.


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