So instead, on the in-between months, I'll post a favorite pic of the month so that I do have some photographic record of what he looked like that month. But the next Winnie the Pooh pic will probably be at the 2 year mark. That is, unless he gets jealous of McKenna getting to do Winnie the Pooh pics and suddenly decides to sit still!
New this month...
Dang, has this been a rough month nap wise! For the last 3 weeks solid, Austin has only been able to nap an hour or so at a time. Then he wakes up bawling! We are fairly confident that it's teeth related. His gums are pretty swollen where his canines are coming in. Of course, more so on the left than on the right. The bad sleep coincided with him starting to chew on his fingers, which he has never done before. But it's been going on for so long now that we just aren't positive. He had a small ear infection last week, but I suspect he gets ear infections when he's teething, because that happened the last time he was sleeping badly. He doesn't seem to be having nightmares or anything along that line. We think he just isn't sleeping as soundly and when he wakes up, he's so exhausted still that he becomes hysterical. We've tried Ibuprofen, rocking him, letting him up and trying again later, etc. We've finally had to just start making him cry himself back to sleep, since nothing else was working. And he needs to nap. He's a disaster in the evenings and all the way to the next morning. Breaks my heart to do that, but sometimes it has to be that way. I feel like we might be on the upswing now, but I'm not going to start counting my chickens yet. When he starts waking up a happy boy again, I'll be a happy momma!
He is still big on his puzzles. I bought him a simple wooden jigsaw puzzle. It's definitely still over his head, but he is starting to figure out how to put the pieces together, if I tell him which ones to do. His alphabet puzzle is hardly entertaining for him anymore! But he still does it daily, I think. He likes me to "time" him. We set out all the pieces and I say "Go". Then as he puts the pieces in, he says "go" to himself. We are spending more time on the actual letters now. I would say if he had the patience to go through them all, he could identify about 1/2 to 3/4 of the letters. He can only say "J", "N" and "O", but he knows the picture that goes along with each letter. So if you show him an "F", he does his fishy face. That shows me he's definitely recognizing letters. Each day I give him one of the letters while I'm changing his diaper and I tell him as many words as I can think of that start with that letter. I'm hoping that will reinforce the sound and recognition. Along those lines, "J" is his favorite word, because it stands for "juice", (OJ) which is probably his favorite thing in the world, (a boy after my own heart) and still probably my favorite word that he says, cuz it's just so darn cute!
Words - So many more words. He's signing less and less now. Mostly just "more", "please" and "water" at this point. Oh and of course, strawberry. His favorite! It is such a joy to hear his little voice. And even more so to be able to understand it! He still babbles a lot, but his individual words are better. He will actually repeat a good amount of what you ask him to say. It's usually just the "sound" of what you said and not really the syllables but I'm just glad he's trying. What gets me is the random words that he says pretty darn clearly that it doesn't seem like he should be able to. Just recently we were going through a book with shapes and he can't say circle, square or triangle with any clarity whatsoever, but oval was clear as a bell. He learned "owl" at my parents' house a few weeks ago. At first it was a sound that doesn't occur in the English language, but now it's pretty recognizable.
Strawberries & Peanut Butter. Thank goodness for strawberries and peanut butter! Otherwise, I'm sure my kid would be severely malnutritioned at this point. When he's tired, he's more picky. And he's been tired A LOT! But strawberries and peanut butter are almost always a sure bet. Even if he won't eat his PB&J sandwich (where the jelly is of course strawberry), I can give him a couple spoonfuls of just the PB and he's a happy kid. I figure it's better than nothing - good fats & proteins! With strawberries being in season, he's a happy camper.
He's being such a good big brother. He gives McKenna her pacifier when she cries and brings her her blanket. He'll often climb up on the couch next to her and pat her head. He doesn't understand that he can't lean on her quite yet, but he is doing sooo much better about being gentler. He still will take her pacifier out of her carseat or off the couch even though he knows he's not supposed to, but he's getting better about that too. Only occasionally does he bolt to the kitchen corner with them! That's his naughty spot. You can be sure that if he runs there with something, it's definitely something he really knows is wrong!
Austin officially has all 8 front teeth cut now. (Putting his total to 12 with the 4 molars) The right two are still small but within another week they should be fully in. I'm looking forward to a full smile rather than his lopsided one!
He has learned to scowl. I have a few pics of it that I need to post. We have a book with pics of babies showing different emotions. So he learned what "angry" looks like, apparently. With his lack of sleep, he's pretty cranky a good amount of time. In the morning he'll sit in his high chair and just scowl. It's coupled with turning his head away from me too. Sometimes it's pretty fake though and I can usually get him to smirk though his scowl. It's so odd to not have my nearly perpetual happy boy! I want that kid back!
Austin's play with Brian is just the best thing to witness! That's when I still get to witness my joyful little guy. The giggles that escape him are just awesome. Pure exuberance! He rides on Brian's back like a cowboy, or they play hide & go seek, or chase. Peekaboo over the top of the couch is still an absolute favorite.
We had our first call to the Poison Control Center. Hopefully our last! Austin definitely knows that he can get away with more stuff when I'm feeding McKenna. One, I can't see as much and two, I'm less likely to get up because I don't want to interrupt her. So the other day, I could hear him rifling through the diaper bag as he does often. He likes to pull out diapers and clothes and papers that I have in there. I noticed it was a little too quiet and peeked over the couch to see him put the sunscreen stick in his mouth! He had taken a small, but not insignificant chunk out of it! I didn't think it was too big to be dangerous, but did the responsible thing and called just in case! Thankfully he'll live!
"Go, go, go, gooooooooo". His #1 spoken phrase! Whenever he gets bored, he wants to go. Doesn't matter where, I don't think. He just wants out of the house. Some days he's yelling this by 9am! And if you put his shoes on him, he thinks it's time to go now. So shoe application is a carefully timed step. I try to take him to the park as often as possible so he can run off all his energy. Even if it's a quick trip, it makes a difference.
I'm amazed by how brave he is! At the park, he loves to go down the slides by himself. He carefully turns around and goes down belly down, feet first. The other day, he insisted on going down the giant big kid slide over and over. The park we go to has ducks too. The 1st time we fed them, he let a duck eat out of his hand. And even when he got pecked in the hand slightly, he kept doing it. The duck was just about his size too!
We're making obedience progress. Still doesn't "come", "stay" or "stop" but he does stay by me a little better. But on other obedience issues, I'm seeing improvement.
Austin loves to drop money into the money jug! Whenever we have change, we give it to him and he dutifully runs over and drops it in and then begs for more! Some days, I dumb out a lot, just so he'll have some to play with. Thankfully he has stopped dropping other things in there! Like spoons and cars and small blocks!
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