So let's see if I can catch us up. There are three post that i posted in one night. so scroll down for the other two--which are visual friendly!! :)
Weston is now 16 months as of last week. He has become such a little person, still ever-stubborn, driven and hilarious. He had a great check up a month ago..measuring average for height and in the 26% for weight. Or something like that.
A shortened version of what he's up to:
He loves to eat with a fork and spoon...and is quite good with each. He's been doing that for about 2-3 months, though the accurate use of the fork via stabbing food has come up in the past month or so. He also gets super excited to drink from cups with no lids, but we still have problems with his "let go" action as he tends to just toss the cup when he's done....uh oh! Water everywhere!
Dinner has been going a bit better though he is for the most part a liar with his tastes. Things he devours one night, he won't eat another. It's hit and miss, but we try. Peas are his fave veggie as he likes the challenging of spooning them up.
Words he can say (some are repeats form previous posts)...though lots of the words aren't fully pronounced perfectly...so chair might sound more like "cheh"...
bye bye, hi, kitty (key), dog (or ah ah, since that's the sound they make! ha), shoes, more, mommy, dada, ball, cheese, duck, Elmo, chair, socks, choo-choo, bubbles (his first true 2-syllable word other than mommy and dadda and Choo-choo).
He says a word "hah-pee" A LOT...and we can't figure out what he's saying. He is generally happy when he's repeating it over and over, so we joke that he's telling us what mood he's in, but I don't think that is it. I think he says "binky" but it sounds like "beeme"...
Animal noises he knows: horse (huhhuhhuh); dog (ah, ah); chicken (bahbahbah); monkey (AHHAHHH..the end of oooh-ahh-ahh); cow; bee; cat (ow); snake (sssss) is his newest.
He loves to find our..or his... nose, ears, head, mouth, eyes.
He can catch a balloon now (my dad wants to take credit for the idea of teaching a kid to catch with something that falls slowly..like a balloon...and by golly, he was right!). He will try to sing back to us what we sing if it's familiar/repetitive...so "ro ro ro ro" for Row Your Boat; "Happy Birthday" and the Itsy Bitsy Spider.
He loves when we close the door to a closet...with him in it. ha And did I mention, the light is out? Yeah, he won't grow up scared of dark, small places. haha
He has 11-12 teeth. These latest (molars) were the worst.
He has known NO for several months....as previously blogged. But in the past 2 months, he also has been using Yeah! He nods his head and giggles excitedly when he is excited about WHY he is saying "Yeah!" I love it. So we have started trying to get him to sign or say PLEASE during these moments as YEAH usually follows a question and YEAH means he WANTS something. :)
Speaking of signs....did I ever blog that he signs I LOVE YOU? He did that a few months ago, but I think it was after I posted last. Maybe. He likes to hug me and then hug Neil and then me, and then Neil back and forth. Any sign of affection is big for me. :)
We don't allow Weston to play with our phone in public or watch anything in the car...but we have weakened our resolve a bit when we are in desperate need for him to lie still for a dirty diaper change. We sometimes give him our phone to look at pictures. He seems to stop when he comes to one of himself. hmmmm Narcissistic already? He didn't get it from me!
Along those same lines, since he never sits down and chills, we do turn to PBS shows to get him to relax and wind down. Or when I need to make dinner and he's in an "I only wanna be held by mama" mood. His favorite is SUPERWHY. It's a group of kids, led by Whyatt, who are SUPER READERS and solve (trivial) probs with their reading skills. I know 2-3 kiddos who have learned their ABCs faster than the average bears due to that show. So it has my blessing. In the beginning, all the Super Readers put their hands in together to power up....and I taught Weston to do it. So if Neil or I are near when he watching it, he waits for us all to put our hands in. I love it.
He watches maybe 10-15 min at a time, and not even once a day.
We made it through a road trip to Chicago...the first for our family!!... and never once handed our screaming toddler a phone or ipad. We gave him books, toys, snacks or my goofy faces in the backseat.
Weston's fave parts of the trip:
pushing elevator buttons; walking down the long hotel hallway; swimming and splashing with daddy; chasing pigeons through crowds of people; having his hair blow fiercely in the strongest wind he's ever been in; jumping around on the bed; playing with the hotel room's phone; climbing into his suitcase; riding the ferris wheel at Navy Pier; watching himself eat in the mirrored closet doors; trying to get around our barricade to push microwave buttons; and playing with Parker & Leo -- the two little buddies he met on the way up and on the way back.
My favorite parts: eating out; having a king-sized bed; sharing LOOKS with Neil as we watched our son experience new things; sharing high-fives with Neil as we realized how crazy we might ahve been for taking a toddler on a long road trip.....and having Weston fall asleep in my arms on the city bus....I can't remember the last time he did that.
He now has a SAY CHEESE face. Uh oh. I didn't teach him.
He loves playing in the sandbox, though now he always wants me to bring in water for him to pour on his lap.
He has gone to the zoo several times and he is most excited about the ride on the train or carousel. For the train though, he HAS to sit alone on the seat. Not in my lap.
He likes to push buttons of all kinds. Elevators. Garage door. Unlock in our cars. He's just like me. I' shut down an escalator when I was 2. let's hope Weston saves me that humiliation.
He still puts his clothes in his hamper after baths. Now he also likes to put other things in the hamper cuz he knows he will get a rise out of us. Tonight, he threw in his sippy cup and the boppy pillow and Neil's pants. And he likes to crawl into the hamper after tipping it over...and he's usually naked for this part. Then he pokes through the hamper (it's made of canvas) until we poke back and htat is just so funny for him. Duh.
Similarly, he can stay busy for several minutes if we give him a bunch of things to wad up and throw away. This is risky as he will also try to throw things away that aren't trash like... his blanket, clean diapers, towels.
Kramer is still his comrade. He sometimes will just lie down next to him and then giggles if KRamer licks his head. He also likes to bring Kramer things that cats have no use for. Tonight he thought it'd be cool to offer him several children's spoons.
Lately, he's more into his blankets. He likes to carry one with him if he's tired and he'll just lie down with it on his face. And when going to bed, he'll often request ALL of his blankets so he can mound them up and lie down on them and then fluff them again and repeat. It's quite cute.
Some memorable tantrums of lately were thrown because:
--I wouldn't let him eat the fuzzy skin of a kiwi
--I wouldn't let him play with a butcher knife
--Every day we want to put clothes on him.
--We didn't wnat him throwing away his silverware when he was finished eating.
--I didn't let him eat straight out of my chinese food to-go container.
--Neil had been lying on his stomach and Weston was climbing all over him. Neil got worried that Weston would do something stupid (like hurt one of them) and rolled over so he could at least have his arms catch W if he fell. Weston lost it. and tried for 3 minutes to get Neil back on his stomach, all the while, screaming and crying throwing himself on the ground as if it were the end of the world. We kept laughing. Toddler antics, though headache-inducing, are quite funny.
Here are some pics on my good cam... the next post will be of cell phone pics & video
A shortened version of what he's up to:
He loves to eat with a fork and spoon...and is quite good with each. He's been doing that for about 2-3 months, though the accurate use of the fork via stabbing food has come up in the past month or so. He also gets super excited to drink from cups with no lids, but we still have problems with his "let go" action as he tends to just toss the cup when he's done....uh oh! Water everywhere!
Dinner has been going a bit better though he is for the most part a liar with his tastes. Things he devours one night, he won't eat another. It's hit and miss, but we try. Peas are his fave veggie as he likes the challenging of spooning them up.
Words he can say (some are repeats form previous posts)...though lots of the words aren't fully pronounced perfectly...so chair might sound more like "cheh"...
bye bye, hi, kitty (key), dog (or ah ah, since that's the sound they make! ha), shoes, more, mommy, dada, ball, cheese, duck, Elmo, chair, socks, choo-choo, bubbles (his first true 2-syllable word other than mommy and dadda and Choo-choo).
He says a word "hah-pee" A LOT...and we can't figure out what he's saying. He is generally happy when he's repeating it over and over, so we joke that he's telling us what mood he's in, but I don't think that is it. I think he says "binky" but it sounds like "beeme"...
Animal noises he knows: horse (huhhuhhuh); dog (ah, ah); chicken (bahbahbah); monkey (AHHAHHH..the end of oooh-ahh-ahh); cow; bee; cat (ow); snake (sssss) is his newest.
He loves to find our..or his... nose, ears, head, mouth, eyes.
He can catch a balloon now (my dad wants to take credit for the idea of teaching a kid to catch with something that falls slowly..like a balloon...and by golly, he was right!). He will try to sing back to us what we sing if it's familiar/repetitive...so "ro ro ro ro" for Row Your Boat; "Happy Birthday" and the Itsy Bitsy Spider.
He loves when we close the door to a closet...with him in it. ha And did I mention, the light is out? Yeah, he won't grow up scared of dark, small places. haha
He has 11-12 teeth. These latest (molars) were the worst.
He has known NO for several months....as previously blogged. But in the past 2 months, he also has been using Yeah! He nods his head and giggles excitedly when he is excited about WHY he is saying "Yeah!" I love it. So we have started trying to get him to sign or say PLEASE during these moments as YEAH usually follows a question and YEAH means he WANTS something. :)
Speaking of signs....did I ever blog that he signs I LOVE YOU? He did that a few months ago, but I think it was after I posted last. Maybe. He likes to hug me and then hug Neil and then me, and then Neil back and forth. Any sign of affection is big for me. :)
We don't allow Weston to play with our phone in public or watch anything in the car...but we have weakened our resolve a bit when we are in desperate need for him to lie still for a dirty diaper change. We sometimes give him our phone to look at pictures. He seems to stop when he comes to one of himself. hmmmm Narcissistic already? He didn't get it from me!
Along those same lines, since he never sits down and chills, we do turn to PBS shows to get him to relax and wind down. Or when I need to make dinner and he's in an "I only wanna be held by mama" mood. His favorite is SUPERWHY. It's a group of kids, led by Whyatt, who are SUPER READERS and solve (trivial) probs with their reading skills. I know 2-3 kiddos who have learned their ABCs faster than the average bears due to that show. So it has my blessing. In the beginning, all the Super Readers put their hands in together to power up....and I taught Weston to do it. So if Neil or I are near when he watching it, he waits for us all to put our hands in. I love it.
He watches maybe 10-15 min at a time, and not even once a day.
We made it through a road trip to Chicago...the first for our family!!... and never once handed our screaming toddler a phone or ipad. We gave him books, toys, snacks or my goofy faces in the backseat.
Weston's fave parts of the trip:
pushing elevator buttons; walking down the long hotel hallway; swimming and splashing with daddy; chasing pigeons through crowds of people; having his hair blow fiercely in the strongest wind he's ever been in; jumping around on the bed; playing with the hotel room's phone; climbing into his suitcase; riding the ferris wheel at Navy Pier; watching himself eat in the mirrored closet doors; trying to get around our barricade to push microwave buttons; and playing with Parker & Leo -- the two little buddies he met on the way up and on the way back.
My favorite parts: eating out; having a king-sized bed; sharing LOOKS with Neil as we watched our son experience new things; sharing high-fives with Neil as we realized how crazy we might ahve been for taking a toddler on a long road trip.....and having Weston fall asleep in my arms on the city bus....I can't remember the last time he did that.
He now has a SAY CHEESE face. Uh oh. I didn't teach him.
He loves playing in the sandbox, though now he always wants me to bring in water for him to pour on his lap.
He has gone to the zoo several times and he is most excited about the ride on the train or carousel. For the train though, he HAS to sit alone on the seat. Not in my lap.
He likes to push buttons of all kinds. Elevators. Garage door. Unlock in our cars. He's just like me. I' shut down an escalator when I was 2. let's hope Weston saves me that humiliation.
He still puts his clothes in his hamper after baths. Now he also likes to put other things in the hamper cuz he knows he will get a rise out of us. Tonight, he threw in his sippy cup and the boppy pillow and Neil's pants. And he likes to crawl into the hamper after tipping it over...and he's usually naked for this part. Then he pokes through the hamper (it's made of canvas) until we poke back and htat is just so funny for him. Duh.
Similarly, he can stay busy for several minutes if we give him a bunch of things to wad up and throw away. This is risky as he will also try to throw things away that aren't trash like... his blanket, clean diapers, towels.
Kramer is still his comrade. He sometimes will just lie down next to him and then giggles if KRamer licks his head. He also likes to bring Kramer things that cats have no use for. Tonight he thought it'd be cool to offer him several children's spoons.
Lately, he's more into his blankets. He likes to carry one with him if he's tired and he'll just lie down with it on his face. And when going to bed, he'll often request ALL of his blankets so he can mound them up and lie down on them and then fluff them again and repeat. It's quite cute.
Some memorable tantrums of lately were thrown because:
--I wouldn't let him eat the fuzzy skin of a kiwi
--I wouldn't let him play with a butcher knife
--Every day we want to put clothes on him.
--We didn't wnat him throwing away his silverware when he was finished eating.
--I didn't let him eat straight out of my chinese food to-go container.
--Neil had been lying on his stomach and Weston was climbing all over him. Neil got worried that Weston would do something stupid (like hurt one of them) and rolled over so he could at least have his arms catch W if he fell. Weston lost it. and tried for 3 minutes to get Neil back on his stomach, all the while, screaming and crying throwing himself on the ground as if it were the end of the world. We kept laughing. Toddler antics, though headache-inducing, are quite funny.
Here are some pics on my good cam... the next post will be of cell phone pics & video
okay LOVE him in that turquoise shirt from target...i love that we have a lot of the same kiddo clothes as you guys:) our boys are awful cute. it's fun to see what B will be up to in a couple months...weston is a DOLL.
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