William at 18 Months

As of this morning, William now weighs 24.5lbs (25%), has a head circumference of 18 3/4" (75%) and is 33.5" (75%) tall.

Will learned several new words this month. A few weeks ago I was giving him a bath and he has this little cup that we use for rising shampoo from his head. He was filling it up with water, and then dumping all the water out, and proclaiming, "all gone!" Then a little while later, I flipped the valve to let the water out and as the last drops were circling the drain, I said, "bye bye water!" and he repeated (while waving), "bye!" I just love hearing his cute little voice say words. Another example of a new word, was after Will had finished eating lunch today, he looked at me and said, "all done!" And raised his arms up to be lifted out. He didn't eat much (this is par for the course lately), but I thought it was so cute anyway. His favorite word right now is 'light.' He points them out and any opportunity, usually with head thrown back, eyes wide and arm outstretched with finger pointing dramatically. Except he can't pronounce the 'L' so it comes out sounding like "ight!" Still super cute though :) He has also started shaking his head 'no' when he doesn't want something. He hasn't quite learned to nod 'yes' yet though. 

Another sign of increased comprehension happened when I was reading Will a Sesame Street book the other night. I asked him to point out Grover and Elmo, and he did! I was so surprised because this is the first time hes ever pointed anything out in a book ever! I know he knows what things are, he just refused to point them out for the longest time. Stubborn little stinker.

His sleep has unfortunately regressed this month after he got a small cold several weeks ago, and it totally wreaked havoc on our schedule. Instead of napping for 3 hours, I am lucky to get an hour break. Hes been getting up from his nap at 2-2:30. Sometimes I can rock him back to sleep, but other times he is just up for the day. He has been getting up earlier too. Now hes generally up at 8am instead of 9am. Bed time too has been tricky. If we put him down at 7pm, he will play in his crib for an hour or more. If we put him down at 8, he generally goes to sleep fairly quickly. His night time sleep has been crummy too. He is up at least once a night but sometimes twice, every night. He will scream until I go in and rock him. Luckily this usually only takes about 10 minutes or so, but I have a hard time falling back to sleep afterwards, so I have been extra sleep deprived lately. Thankfully his sleep has also more or less returned to normal in the past couple of days. Now he is waking up at night, maybe once a week and his naps are more like 2-3 hours again. Whew! Thank goodness!

One good thing is that Will is going through a very obedient phase at the moment, and its one that I will enjoy as its not likely to last long, with 2 coming right around the corner. If we tell him to stop doing something, he listens the majority of the time, if we ask him to pick something up, he will, and if we tell him to stay close, he does. For example, we went out to an Indian restaurant the other night, and he wanted to be put down on the ground, as he was tired of sitting in his highchair. I told him that the only way I would let him down, was if he stayed close by, and that if he wandered, I would come and get him. He listened and stayed no more than 4 feet away at all times. I had to issue the occasional reminder, but he always listened immediately and came right back. That was not a solitary occurrence and happens frequently. I will enjoy it for as long as it lasts!

The other really cute example, is whenever it's time to change his diaper, take a nap, or go to bed, we will ask him, "are you ready for bed/naptime/to get your diaper changed?" and he immediately runs to the baby gate that separates his room from the rest of the house and lets out excited shrieks. We will then lift him over the baby gate, and he will run at full tilt, to his bedroom. If he happens to stop along the way to enter a different room, we gently remind him that he needs to go to his bedroom, and he continues to his room, pronto! I think that he is not so much excited to sleep or get his diaper changed, as he is to get to explore his room and the fun stuff that is in it, since it is usually off limits. His favorite thing at the moment, is baby bottles. Under his changing table we have baskets of baby stuff, organized by category. One of these baskets contains all of the bottles and milk/pumping supplies, and he eagerly runs to it, grabs an empty bottle and starts sucking away. I had sterilized all of those bottles when he was done with them, but it seems I will need to do so again before the next baby needs them! Oh well :)

In the meal department, he is obsessed with frozen peas and corn, as well as baby carrots and peanuts. Now that he has all of his baby molars, he is a chewing machine and relishes eating anything crunchy. The peas and corn are especially amusing to me. He will beg me to open the freezer, and when I do, he spots the bags of peas and corn, and yanks them out excitedly. I then put a handful in a little cup for him, and he eagerly eats the entire thing. This morning he came back 3 times begging for more veggies. Up until now he has been really difficult to feed veggies to. I would never have guessed that my solution was to just give them to him frozen! Funny kid! Peanuts are another special favorite. I have a jar of salted and dry roasted peanuts in the snack cabinet. About 3-4 times a day he comes to me, has me follow him to the cabinet, stands underneath it and point up, begging for a treat. I lift him up to the cabinet and he opens the door and gets to pick whatever he wants. 9 times out of ten he picks out the peanut jar. I hand him a small handful (like 4-5) and he demolishes them happily. At least he is getting some protein out of it! We also have to be careful about the order in which we present his food to him. All of the 'yucky' things like protein have to be served first, then followed by veggies, and finally by fruit and bread. If this order ever gets changed, he refuses to eat the less yummy items. Oh toddlers!

I have been really enjoying this age lately. Yes there are a lot of tantrums and crying, but he is also able to understand so much more and can now follow directions with varying degrees of difficulty. He is like a little buddy and we generally have a lot of fun together. I cant wait to see what changes the next few months bring!