Wednesday, January 18, 2017

18 Months Old!

A year and a half old already?! I honestly can't believe how fast they are growing up these days. Some notes about the boys at 18 months:
Will, 18 monthsDesign
Griffin, 18 months
Cooper, 18 months
  • Their vocabulary continues to grow each day. They are starting to put together phrases- Will and Griffin will both say "up, pwease!" when they want to be picked up, complete with a very dramatic signing of "Please". Their sign language vocabulary is also growing. They pick up on things from watching their Signing Time DVDs that I don't even realize that they know, which is fun. Out of nowhere the other day Will signed and said "Pway" (play). He now requests to go pway as soon as he's done eating or while we're changing his diaper. They know how to sign and say "hot" and will point to the oven and repeat "hot hot hot" over and over again. Pretty sure that they don't realize what hot means yet, but glad they are relating the word to an off-limits item like the oven.
  • They have watched Will and I fill up our water bottles at the refrigerator and are just tall enough that they can reach up and push the water dispenser. Thankfully we can lock it but there have been a few occasions when we've forgotten to and the guilty baby ends up soaked!
  • I came home from work the other night to find the boys dressed like Texans. I had to take some pics and share them with my Texas grandparents!


     




  • Griffin has developed a strong attachment to his Jellycat, Raffi. He will bring it around with him all day, and sleeps with it every night. We take it away from him during meals, but as soon as he is out of his high chair, he's reaching for Raffi again. Raffi is one toy that is, for the most part, off-limits to Will and Cooper...he belongs to Griffin. Will has a woolly mammoth and Cooper has a cat, but neither of them have development the attachment that Griffin has to his Raffi. They won't even keep their Jellycats in their cribs with them- they get tossed out almost immediately. I guess time will tell if they develop the same affection for their Jellycats that Griffin has for his.

  •  Their relatively picky eating continues. They will still eat just about any fruit we offer them, though we did learn that Cooper is not a fan of clementines. He'll eat mandarin oranges out of a can, but won't touch fresh cuties. We gave them blackberries last week for the first time. Cooper and Griffin devoured them, but Will wasn't as into them. There are very few vegetables that they will eat these days. They, of course, enjoy french fries (regular or sweet potato) and will eat butternut squash, but haven't been as interested in roasted sweet potatoes, which were previously a go-to veggie for us. We recently started buying the Green Giant Veggie tots that are made out of broccoli and cauliflower and they will eat those, so we take it as a win.
    They pretty much consist on a steady entree diet these days of cheese quesadillas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, hot dogs, chicken cordon bleus, english muffin pizzas, grilled cheese, and grilled chicken tenders from Chick Fil A. They are still boycotting pasta, though admittedly, it's been awhile since we've offered it to them.

    They love, love, love muffins ("muh muh", not to be confused with "mama") and will request them just about every morning. We go through quite a few packs of mini muffins each week. I've made several large batches of mini banana and blueberry muffins, too.

    • They have a new favorite bedtime book- Llama Llama Red Pajama. It's requested by all three of them over and over again ("Mama? Mama? Mama?") until we read it. 


    •  All three boys have pretty much mastered walking/crawing up the stairs on their own, and we are actively working on teaching them to go downstairs alone, too. Our constant reminders to "go onto their bellies and slide off" the couch must be sinking in because they all instinctively will turn around and slide down the stairs on the bellies. We still have a long way to go before we will confidently let them go up and down the stairs alone, but they made a lot of progress, especially in the past couple weeks!
    • I think we are getting closer and closer to the big potty training moment, too. Will, especially, seems to be very aware of when he is filling up his diaper. He will often tell us what he's doing when it's obvious he's pooping ("poopoopoo"). And all 3 are seemingly aware of when they are in need of a diaper change. Just tonight, when I asked Cooper if he had poop, he gave me a gigantic grin and squatted down and grunted. Yup, pretty sure he knows what I was talking about.
    • Our pediatrician recommended that we start using the bathroom with the door open and talking about what we're doing so they get a better idea of what it means to go potty. They are certainly intrigued! I had to snap this picture the other day as they were very interested while Daddy used the bathroom- he had quite the audience! :)
    • Speaking of understanding us, it is amazing how much they comprehend these days. You can ask them to get you something very specific and they will seek it out for you. Their imagination is starting to take off, too. They like to pretend a lot right now- they will wash their hands in their play sink and take fake drinks out of water bottles. 
    • We took the boys to a gymnastics center last week for their preschool open play. For an hour each week they open the whole gym up for kids under 5 to have play time. The boys really enjoyed running around! It was well worth the $5 per child and proved to be a pretty good workout for Will and me, too. Chasing around 3 toddlers who have free reign to run where ever they want is pretty tiring! 
    • Cooper has recently started saying "Bye!" very clearly. He thinks it's pretty funny. Will does a good job of showing off his jumping skills in this video, too:


    • They have been enjoying all their Christmas presents. The tent my parents got them is perfect for playing peek-a-boo with each other, and the slide has yet to get old!
     
     

1 comment:

Molly said...

Oh my gosh it's hard to believe. So grown up! Love the Raffi story :)

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