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eighteen months
Holy crap, last Wednesday the prince was one and a half.
The past month has been a lot of irregularity, which he's been pretty good at rolling with but doesn't help a lot for reinforcing what I've been hoping will be a return to the shorter version of the bedtime routine. :-P
... I started this post last week when we were still in the middle of the return to the shorter version of bedtime, and there was a lot of description about various non-normal evenings my kid has had to endure, but I can now report that we seem to have achieved sensible bedtimes for a second time, and his dad is on board with the plan!, so I feel great about - frankly, the next few weeks until whatever the next major upheaval in my kid's life disrupts his routine again and we have to go back to the drawing board. :-) But for now, whichever of us is putting him to bed - and it's usually his dad, but it can also be me - changes him into his jammies, gives him his vitamin drops, gives him his milk bottle (I would love him to complete the switch to drinking his milk from a cup, but he is reluctant to do this), brushes his teeth, reads him stories, sings to him (mom only), and then rocks him for a couple of minutes and puts him down in the crib before he has fallen asleep. Parent stays with him for a minute or so patting him reassuringly and then leaves the room! Before the kid is asleep! And he doesn't cry! It is like a miracle.
Tomorrow afternoon he's getting vaccines, so that might be the next disruptor I was talking about a minute ago.
The kid is talking more and more every day. We're convinced he's using complete sentences - the only issue of course is that we don't understand more than 5 or 10 percent of his words. (He's great at pointing to things and labeling them. Longer-form discourse, we're all still at sea.) He understands "No" and "Don't touch" but not really any other negatives, like "Don't throw that" or "No hitting" or "Please don't bite," so for anything other than "Look but don't touch" (the rule at our house re: live plants, one side table where we can't avoid having electronics he can reach, and the trash and recycling) we need to come up with affirmative things to tell him to do instead - like "Put that down right here" or everyone's favorite "Gentle hands." In an ongoing laugh line, when I ask "Can you say, 'I love you, Mommy'?" he replies "DADDY!" - although this weekend he did finally learn to say "Mommy" with prompting and of course I am reinforcing the living hell out of it.
Lately he doesn't like when my hair is in front of my shoulder. He keeps pushing it behind - often because he wants to put his head there and doesn't want my hair in the way, which is super cute, but it seems to bother him when my hair is there even when he doesn't want to put his head down on my shoulder. He's still in a Daddy-preference phase but is warming back up to me in a way that is gratifying. :-D
I'm still more than ready for him to speak in a way I can understand more reliably more of the time. But other than that: This is 18 months. I'm startled at how grown he is. ♥♥♥
The past month has been a lot of irregularity, which he's been pretty good at rolling with but doesn't help a lot for reinforcing what I've been hoping will be a return to the shorter version of the bedtime routine. :-P
... I started this post last week when we were still in the middle of the return to the shorter version of bedtime, and there was a lot of description about various non-normal evenings my kid has had to endure, but I can now report that we seem to have achieved sensible bedtimes for a second time, and his dad is on board with the plan!, so I feel great about - frankly, the next few weeks until whatever the next major upheaval in my kid's life disrupts his routine again and we have to go back to the drawing board. :-) But for now, whichever of us is putting him to bed - and it's usually his dad, but it can also be me - changes him into his jammies, gives him his vitamin drops, gives him his milk bottle (I would love him to complete the switch to drinking his milk from a cup, but he is reluctant to do this), brushes his teeth, reads him stories, sings to him (mom only), and then rocks him for a couple of minutes and puts him down in the crib before he has fallen asleep. Parent stays with him for a minute or so patting him reassuringly and then leaves the room! Before the kid is asleep! And he doesn't cry! It is like a miracle.
Tomorrow afternoon he's getting vaccines, so that might be the next disruptor I was talking about a minute ago.
The kid is talking more and more every day. We're convinced he's using complete sentences - the only issue of course is that we don't understand more than 5 or 10 percent of his words. (He's great at pointing to things and labeling them. Longer-form discourse, we're all still at sea.) He understands "No" and "Don't touch" but not really any other negatives, like "Don't throw that" or "No hitting" or "Please don't bite," so for anything other than "Look but don't touch" (the rule at our house re: live plants, one side table where we can't avoid having electronics he can reach, and the trash and recycling) we need to come up with affirmative things to tell him to do instead - like "Put that down right here" or everyone's favorite "Gentle hands." In an ongoing laugh line, when I ask "Can you say, 'I love you, Mommy'?" he replies "DADDY!" - although this weekend he did finally learn to say "Mommy" with prompting and of course I am reinforcing the living hell out of it.
Lately he doesn't like when my hair is in front of my shoulder. He keeps pushing it behind - often because he wants to put his head there and doesn't want my hair in the way, which is super cute, but it seems to bother him when my hair is there even when he doesn't want to put his head down on my shoulder. He's still in a Daddy-preference phase but is warming back up to me in a way that is gratifying. :-D
I'm still more than ready for him to speak in a way I can understand more reliably more of the time. But other than that: This is 18 months. I'm startled at how grown he is. ♥♥♥
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