It has been a really fun week around here! Stuart has been off all week on vacation, and we did not travel anywhere like we usually do, so it has just been bliss having him around to truly relax and enjoy the spring weather. We also celebrated my 28th birthday this week, and James turned 15 months!
I feel like there has been a real cognitive leap that James has made in the last month. When I ask him a question or tell him something, he seems to understand most of what I say. It blows my mind! If I ask him if he's hungry (which he almost always is), he does the sign for "food" or "eat." If I ask him at nap time if he's ready to go to sleep, he crawls to the stairs and starts banging on the baby gate to go up. If I ask him where almost anything is located, he will look around and hold his hands out like "I don't know, where?" if he can't find it.
He is saying several words:
dad
mama
dog
duck
sock
shoe
bye bye
ball
light
milk
more
animal sounds for cow, elephant, and a growl for lots of animals like lions and bears
He still uses a lot of signs, and has learned the sign for "help" and actually uses it! We insist that he use "please" and "thank you" during meal times (and other appropriate times, but especially at meals) and he is getting good at remembering to sign those on his own.
Our sweetest friends, Wen and Casey Reagan, had their first baby (Ezra) a few weeks ago, and we stopped by to see them at their home when Ezra was just a few days old. James took his first steps there! He is getting braver and will let go of the furniture or wall when he's cruising around and may take a step or two on his own, but then drops to his knees. If we are there coaching him and cheering, he'll take several wobbly steps before dropping.
James really enjoys playing by himself these days, probably because he has been working on more skills like stacking blocks and twisting lids. In the kitchen, he matches tupperware to the correct lid and screws bottle caps on and off a bunch of 4 oz bottles I have sitting in the corner of the kitchen (been trying to figure out where to store them since the breastfeeding days...). He also likes to pick socks out of the clean (or dirty) laundry and try to put them on his toes. A big leap that happened this month is that he increased his block stacking to 5! I was shocked when I looked over and saw a tower of 4, and he placed a 5th on top and then clapped for himself :). He had been stacking 2 or 3 for a little while, so I guess he got adventurous and tried for more. I was impressed since I can only stack 6 or 7 of his blocks before they fall over (is it me or the blocks?!?). He also matches three of his shape sorter blocks to the correct hole in the container and puts them through all on his own (the flower, star and oval shapes). He needs a lot of help with all of the others still.
Other than independent play, he loveslovesloves to read books, swing outside, and snuggle and tickle on the floor. He is the sweetest boy! He may be playing by himself, then crawl over for a hug, then return to playing (on a good day - other days he follows me around crying and wanting to be held. I think those are the teething days... This is when the Moby wrap or our new Ergo carrier come in quite handy!).
It has been a month of new teeth! James has 12 teeth total now, including 4 molars. A dentist friend of ours took a look at everything and was impressed :) He even said he saw several more (canines mostly, but also a way back molar) ready to pop through at any moment. Yikes... I guess it's better to get it all over with at once, right?
He is still napping twice a day, though sometimes one of the naps is rather short and he spends most of nap time just talking and playing in his crib (includes removing his socks, launching them out of the crib, then tossing his teddy bear out, too). On days where he only gets one nap because of appointments or whatever, he is pretty cranky and usually falls asleep in the car. So, we'll stick to a two nap schedule until he seems to be able to do better without both of them. Bedtime is strictly at 7pm. We're pretty convinced that if he goes down later than that, he almost always wakes up earlier (as early as 5am). If he goes down at 7pm, he almost always sleeps until 7am.
We love our little guy more and more every day, and we are so proud of him and the little man he is becoming!
No comments:
Post a Comment