Thursday, April 3, 2014

Baby boy is 18 months!

Little Caleb turned 18 months old on March 23rd. Hope we can get some good pics of him soon. The photos for this post were all snap shots taken in February and early March. I love this age so much. He's so easy going and inquisitive and still a little bit babyish. I love rocking him and reading to him. I love how he learns new words all the time and tries his best to repeat the words we teach him in his own babyish way. I love his complete obsession with cars, trucks, trains and balls! The grandparents are going to love their visits with him. (My parents are coming in April; Jeremy's parents in May.)

At his 18 mon. check-up on March 26th, Caleb weighed 24 lbs. 3 oz. (26th percentile). He was 33 1/4 in. tall (77th percentile) and his head circumference was 47.5 cm (42nd percentile). So, at this point we have a tall, slim little guy. This is fairly consistent with his growth all along. He's been on the tall side for height and usually falls between 25th-50th percentile for weight.


Jeremy gets sweet hugs on his birthday, March 8th.

"Reading" one of his favorite transportation books!

Caleb loves Emily's old Thomas the Train book and pushing the sound buttons.


Recently, I sat down and tried to remember all the words he regularly says now. After a couple of minutes, I had a list of over fifty words and phrases. He has learned so much in the past three months. I'm not going to bore you with his list of words, but these are a few of my favorites he says these days: "yucky," "sissy," "poop," "Where'd it go?", "choo, choo, choo" (for train), "owie," and "yaya." Yaya is the word for his lovey that he sleeps with. He never called it "lovey," but I started noticing one day that he seemed to be calling it something. I said, "yaya?" and he was like "yes!!!" So, now the whole family calls his lovey "yaya."

Caleb has started talking in a few simple sentences such as "I want...." or "It's a ...." or "Where's....?" and "All done." "I gotta poop" is another sentence he sometimes says and then points to his diaper to tell me he pooped. Goodness knows he doesn't announce to me every time he poops in his diaper, but he's done it on more than one occasion. Caleb also knows and points to about 20 body parts when you ask where they are.

Sometimes I think he's still completely a mama's boy, but he's awfully attached to his daddy, too which is wonderful! I've noticed that at nights and early in the morning, he calls for me nearly every time. Often times while we're out, he wants daddy to carry him. He gets SO excited when daddy comes home from work and he notices when he's missing. For example, one morning he woke up early at 6 am so I went to get him and put him in bed next to me while we both fell back to sleep. When he woke up again, Jeremy was in the shower. He looked over at daddy's side of the bed and as clear as day said, "Where's Dada?" So sweet!



President's Day weekend at Bay Area Discovery Museum

These are a few of our favorite things...


When we are outside, Caleb loves to run up/down inclines and he "practices" going up/down curbs without holding to anything. He loves to try to "jump" off of a small step although he's not actually jumping up yet. At the park, his favorite thing to do is kick or throw a ball or play in the sandbox with bunches of construction trucks. He doesn't love swings or slides although he does like to climb the stairs to the slide. He's gotten much better at safely going downstairs by sitting on his bottom, or by going down like a big boy by holding your hand or touching a rail. Of course, we still use our baby gates and supervise him, but at least it isn't quite as scary if he gets away from us! 

Caleb's sleep schedule is definitely skewed late, but we've done that on purpose so Jeremy can have more time to be with the kids after work. Dad gets home from work at around 6:30 pm. We try to wait to eat dinner with dad when we can, but lately the kids have been famished by 6pm and I don't have the patience or heart to make them wait longer. Caleb goes to bed between 8 and 8:30 pm. He wakes up in the morning at around 7:30 am. Lately he has been waking up an hour earlier and I'll go get him and his "yaya" and we snuggle and sleep in my bed the last hour. Honestly, I don't mind too much because he goes right back to sleep and I love holding him close. Caleb naps about three hours in the afternoons between about one and four o'clock. He's fairly flexible with his afternoon nap time and will go down to sleep at almost any time between 12:30 and 2:30. However, if he happens to fall asleep in the car for awhile, it can be difficult to impossible to get him to go back to sleep for a proper nap later. This happens to us every now and then on Sundays after church. That 25 minute ride back to Alameda is so temping for a car nap and of course Sunday is a day we would most like him to get a good nap and let us rest!

Caleb's most annoying behavior issue right now is throwing food off of his high chair tray. He doesn't dare throw a favorite food. He usually reserves this behavior for his meats and vegetables! Jeremy and I have tried everything we know to let him know that this is not acceptable. It is frustrating and our kitchen floors pretty much stay messy unless I sweep three times a day. I know we are slowing getting through to him and he's doing better, but you still have to watch him closely for signs that a) he doesn't like something and is going to hurl it or b) he's done eating, bored, and ready to get down. If you can stay on top of these two issues, then you can stay ahead of the food and sippy cup throwing game. 

We took advantage of the Free Day at the Exploratorium on Pi Day. Jeremy even took the day off work to hang out with us. It was a lovely day. We took the ferry from Alameda to SF and then had a pleasant half mile walk to the Exploratorium along the Embarcadero. 


I knew that the free day would bring out the crowds so I opted to try to carry Caleb in the Ergo instead of bringing my stroller. This worked out pretty well and then I gave him (and me) regular breaks to walk around and play.

Emily enjoyed this climbing activity better than anything else. She just saw this photo and said, "Mama, that thing was the most awesomest thing ever!" While there were many things she loved about the Exploratorium, many of the exhibits were too academic for a four year old. This is a place we will grow to love and learn something new after every visit.