Daniel at 16 Months

He had his 15 month appointment and hes been dealing with pretty low iron levels. He had his blood drawn back at his 12 month visit and he needed a repeat draw at this visit to see if his levels had gone up at all (we've been giving him iron drops). I explained that he was going to get an ouch in his arm, and that he needed to stay very still. He sat there, completely still and silent while the doctor tied the tourniquet around each arm to check for veins, then while she poked the needle in and collected the blood into the vials. He honestly did better than I often do during blood draws. He just sat there, silently observing the process. The doctor had her assistant come in to hold him down (so there were 3 of us there), but she probably could have done the whole thing by herself. Everyone was so amazed at how well he did!



Since he was about 3 months old, he has slept and cuddled with this stuffed puppy from Ikea, creatively named, 'Puppy.' As he has grown, so has his attachment to this stuffed dog, and these days, he carries Puppy around wherever he goes. Its gotten to the point where we require multiple Puppys to keep him happy. In fact there are 4 total: crib Puppy, car Puppy, downstairs Puppy and extra Puppy (in case one of the others gets misplaced or needs a wash). He now even requires that he be holding Puppy while nursing these days. I've had to train him to not shove Puppy in my face during this time, or try to poke the tail into my mouth (something he LOVES to try to do, maybe he thinks hes sharing? Ugh!). Its pretty cute to see how much he loves this little stuffed friend though. Will never really got attached to anything and Nora loved her Wubanub pacifiers, and so never had a stuffed lovie, so Daniel is our first kid to do so. The other day we actually went to Ikea and I handed him two small puppies and a giant stuffed puppy. He immediately hugged them all to his chest and buried his face into their fur. He was in puppy heaven!

He desperately wants to be big like the other kids, and is not afraid to be pushy to get his slice of the pie around here. An example of this is when he brushes his teeth with the kids and practically pushes Nora off her stool to access half the stool so he can stand there too. He mimics spitting in the sink just like the kids and likes to rinse his mouth afterwards.

Sleep wise, he is doing ok these days. He will nurse to sleep during the day, but goes to bed awake and falls to sleep on his own at night, which is nice! He is now finally down to one nap most days, and the length of that nap is generally around 2 hours long. Its a nice little break in the middle of the day. The timing of the nap sometimes makes picking Will up from school difficult, but with the neighbor's help and some creative timing, we are generally making it work. At night time he is still not quite sleeping through the night. Some nights he does, but 1-2 wakes a night is still the norm very often. I will be so glad to get that down to zero! That can happen ANY time now!

His favorite book is Play With Me. It has these sliding tabs that reveal characters in the book and he loves to slide them up and down and side to side. In fact, all of the books that he loves best are interactive books. We have several other books that have different textures on each page that babies can touch and feel and he enjoys those as well. He is interested in turning pages and if those pages have activities that interest him he will sit as long as one minute! Otherwise he will turn the page and then immediately throw the book to the side. He has zero tolerance for normal books. Its a work in progress.

Michael always gives the kids 'boops' before bed. Each kid gets as many boops as they are years old. Daniel obviously recently started getting his first boop and he seems to really enjoy it. When Michael asks him if he wants a boop, he sticks his nose out and readies his face for the boop. Then the other night all the kids were getting ready for bed and I told Daniel that it was time for him to go to bed too. He toddles over to Michael and points at his nose and steadies his face, ready for his boop. It was so cute. He understands so much!

He was feisty the other night and I picked him up from his crib, crying. I noticed he had a poop, so I  laid him down on the changing table. He immediately started resisting and trying to sit up. I then told him that I was going to change his diaper and that he needed to lie still. He immediately did so and remained still for the rest of the diaper change. He obviously understood me!


He loves balls and likes to point them out wherever we go. The other day we were at IKEA and they had glued blue balls to the underside of this arch and he was going crazy trying to get them, all the while saying, "Ball! Ball!" constantly. Then one day it was foggy out and you could just see the outline of the sun through the fog, and he looked out the window, pointed out the sun and said, "ball!" He is a smart little cookie!

He also is pretty effective at communicating non verbally. He uses a series of points and grunts with great success, and he can even tell me what he wants to eat. If he wants yogurt, he will go into the drawer where we keep all of the kid plates and utensils, grab a reusable pouch and hand it to me. If he wants puffs or cereal, he will hand me a little snack cup from the same drawer. The other night I was making popcorn on the stove top, and he wanted to be sure he was going to get in on it, so he grabbed a bowl from the drawer, walked over, and pressed it right into my hand as I was stirring the pot. He gets what he needs and he never wants to be left out of anything, even popcorn night!

Hes such a little jabberer. He will sit on my lap and go, "babababaBA!" 'Ba' is his go to sound and he uses it to describe everything including balls, baths, berries, and just about everything else. He always sounds so earnest when he is telling me 'babababa!' too. I really want to be able to understand what he is saying. So far I can tell when he is asking for his puppy, as that sounds more like, "pupapupapupa" and water is "wa!" He can sign 'all done' and 'more' and we are trying to teach him please and thank you. We just love all of the cute little sounds he makes every day!

Daniel is a pretty sweet and affectionate little guy these days and will kiss and hug me spontaneously all the time. He even makes kissing noises and puckers his lips. Its super cute! Every month things get a little easier and he is easier to handle. I am looking forward to this time next year, but until then I expect to make steady progress. Now if only he would stop getting so many ear infections! We are on number 8 for this year already! Enough is enough!