I am in shock that we have an 18 month old....that means Henry is a year and a half old!! It is amazing how time is flying by. Henry is growing so fast and becoming quite the little boy. He has a sweet personality mixed with plenty of stubborn will, too. We love watching him grow and seeing his personality develop. Below are some highlights of this phase of his life.
At his 18th month appt yesterday (ON his actual 18 month bday!), Henry's stats were...
height-32.5 inches-50%
weight-23lbs6oz-40%
head circumference-75%
There are so many new words in Henry's vocab that I am having trouble keeping up. He will attempt to repeat LOTS of words. Some of these I may have posted before, but these are the ones that stick out in my mind from the past month that I think are new.
"pouch"
"jump!" as he tries to jump like us...he bends his knees and gets really low, but when he pops up his feet never leave the ground:)
"peach" sounds kinda like "beach"
"bunny"
feet, socks, toes, shoes...all from this genre are said frequently!
"door?" then "knock, knock!" (really loud) as he knocks on the door
"good girl!" as he pats Maggie (d and l are left off the end of his words, though). This one is so sweet:)
"monkey" and says "ooh, ooh, aah, aah" for the noise it makes
"off"
"on"
"empty"
"cheese"
"pizza" this one is super clear!
"sssss" for what the snake says
"boon" is both balloon and spoon
"open it" I was skeptical of this one when Steven said he was saying it, but he said it over and over while playing with his toothbrush and toothbrush holder, so now I am a believer!
He is trying to sing ABC's...and it's so cute! He replicates the tune really well, and he says the abcd part, but then just makes up his own sounds for the rest, except he the joins me on g, says "ssss" for s, then says "know" and "me" at the very end of the song . I am amazed he even tries it-we don't sing it that much! We do listen to music a lot, though, and he continues to love that and remains quite the dancer. He also wants to count when I say "one" he sometimes says "two" but more likely, I say "one, two" and then he says, "three!" He loves to tickle-both when we tickle his belly and when he tickles
us, too, and say his version of, "belly, belly, belly!" as he tickles.
I have been amazed at how much Henry is understanding lately. I can say stuff to him like, "Go get your diaper out of the drawer and bring it to me" and he will do it. I can also ask him if he wants to go outside, them tell him to go get his shoes. He brings them to me, then sits down in front of me for me to put them on (while he is talking about his feet/shoes/toes and trying to "help" me the whole time). Then he gets up and walks to the door. If it's the wrong door, I can tell him the other door and he goes to it instead. I can tell him to pick something up off the floor and throw it away. After he does it, he claps! Anytime I get my purse on my shoulder, he notices right away and starts saying, "bye bye!" to leave.
Eating-I think his eating has really picked up this past month, and I am so thankful for that. I still don't think the quantity is very much (I really watch what other kids eat, and he just doesn't eat as much as they do), but he is entertaining foods that he would have never even considered before this month. Some things we have tried with success are...fish sticks (yuck!), bagels with cream cheese, sometimes chicken nuggets (like the frozen ones cooked in the oven), he seems to really like spicy stuff (I made some chili that was hot for me and Steven, but Henry gobbled it up), he still loves Mexican and pizza. He has even eaten some lunch meat (turkey and ham) from the deli. I made egg free muffins and pancakes and those went over ok. He doesn't act like they are amazing or anything, but he entertains them. He is a great fruit eater overall and this month has eaten tons of "strawbabies", watermelon (he attempts to say this, but there's no way I can replicate it!), peaches and apples (hand him the whole thing and he takes bites), bananas (hand him the whole banana half pealed and he takes bites)...I wish I had a list as long of veggies he eats, but we are working on it. He will eat french fries (of course), frozen corn in addition to frozen peas (go figure), and loves corn on the cob. He will NOT accept sweet potato fries. His yogurt love has grown cold, but he gets plenty of dairy with milk and cheese. Speaking of milk, we only give him milk or water to drink, but there have been three times in his life that he's been given apple juice and he sucked it down! Luckily he didn't then reject milk and water, but we will definitely have to save juice for special occasions!:)
For a few months he has been using a glow worm to cuddle with as we rock him before bed, then we put it in with him and he listens to it/hums until he goes to sleep, but this month he has voluntarily added a few other "cuddlys" to the mix and now also has a bunny lovie and a bear that he sleeps with. I have learned that this has helped him when he wakes up. Instead of crying, now I can hear him in there with his animals talking to them. When we go in to get him out of his crib he has to take them with him (which is hilarious because he has to figure out how to gather up all three simultaneously), and he hugs them and cuddles them for a bit before moving on to other things.
His favorite "toys" are Maggie (he wants to love on her all the time and bring her toys), his wooden frog on a stick that he pushes around the house, and he loves books. He will just sit and look thru them himself. So cute! And he is so interactive when we read them to him, too. He also loves dada's golf clubs and balls and tries to replicate Steven. He he tries to put the tee in the ground and balance the ball on it and everything! Just this weekend we got him his own kid sized golf club, and I can tell he's going to have lots of fun with it. He still adores music and is quite the dancer. He loves the bath and pool and thinks "splashing" is great fun. At the pool he will dunk his head in the shallow end while he "swims" and never stops smiling. We really have to be right with him, because he has not sense of self preservation and is quite the dare devil.
We've gone back to school just this past week, and it has been a bit of a transition. We are in a new building, so his room is not the same. They are also trying to get the babies to have the same nap schedule, so his napping has been off on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He still naps at home on MWF, because I am done teaching at 12:30. I am really hoping that he will make a full adjustment soon. He hasn't eaten great there, either. His normal nap schedule is 12:00 or 12:30 to 3:00ish. Henry is a good sleeper and gets 11-12 hrs of sleep at night, too. He sleeps from about 7:30pm-7:00am, although with school starting back we are waking him at 6:30. He rubs and rubs his heavy eyes and says, "eyes?"... after a few minutes of cuddling in our bed waking up, he wakes fully and says, "Maggie?" and we go get her out of her crate. Luckily on the wknd he has slept later than 6:30.
There is so much more, but I guess I will stop! Henry, you are such a joy to us. We love spending time with you and watching you grow. Thanks for being such a special baby boy.
