16 Months

Wow, I didn't post anything in a full month! Just pitiful! I'm working on getting caught up, but my Christmas post is just holding me up. But to keep from getting further behind, I'm going to at least keep up with the Pooh posts!

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Oh how I love this little boy! He cracks me up every single day! He has fully discovered how much fun it is to "ruin" my Winnie the Pooh pics! He sits patiently in front of Pooh just until I get the camera in focus. Then he flings himself back against Pooh, and wiggles off the couch, laughing hysterically the whole time. He's done this past months, but never with the enthusiasm I saw this month. So this month's pic is not uniform with the other pics. It drives this type A personality just short of cuckoo, but gotta take what I can get, right?

Seriously, how cute is this kid??


His official 16 Month Pooh pic




~New this month~

My boy is a secret teether! All month I've been watching his 5th tooth coming in. He was a little fussy at the beginning of the month and I attributed it to the tooth, knowing that based on how the 1st 4 came in, it wouldn't pop through for several weeks. It literally cut through the day he turned 16 months. But that same day I was holding him and he was laughing with his head back and I noticed he had something on the side of his upper left jaw. Color me shocked to discover it was a tooth! A molar to be exact! He skipped right over teeth 6-12!! So he's not only a slow teether, he's an out of order teether. He's also working on a molar on the bottom left. Nothing on the right though. So weird. No idea when it came in either. He doesn't really let you look in his mouth much, so who knows how long it's been there!

He's talking so much more. He's trying to repeat words when you ask him to. He's still not very clear and doesn't repeat the whole word, but I'm excited he's trying. For example if you ask him to say "Bob", he says "Baaaah". Actually most of what he says sounds alike but you can tell he's making an effort. He babbles more and more though. He's very adamant about what he's trying to tell you. Too bad we have no idea what's he's saying!

He's signing more and more too. He picks them up much quicker now too. He really only needs to see them 3 or 4 times and he's got it. You can tell he's proud of it, cuz he'll make sure you notice what he's doing. In particular, he really likes to sign "butterfly" and "dog" now.

To supplement his words and signs, he's developed a complex "grunting" system. It's really hard to explain, but basically he says "hmmmmm" but with about 15 different inflections. There's an inquisitive "hmmmmm", an affirmative "hmmmmm", an assertive "hmmmmm", a no "hmmmmm", an anxious "hmmmmm", etc. While I'd love him to use his words & signs more, I can usually understand most of what he wants. I'm probably the only one that can understand him though. The only time it's not acceptable is when he starts to get cranky and then there's a whiney one. We're working on asking nicely in those situations.

Still loves his video. His "sign" for video used to be one finger up in the air, because he got used to us saying "Okay, just one more." He also got into a bad habit of coming over and pulling your hand off the mouse and insisting on one video anytime you are at the computer. So to avoid this rude behavior, I insist he nicely asks to be picked up. (Reaches up with both arms and then says please) We're still working on being okay with Mom & Dad saying no at times. He seems to think that if he asks nicely enough, he should get anything he wants!

Austin loves to dance now. When I was pregnant with him, I would joke that he was going to be a "River Dancer". Funny enough, this is kind of how he dances! He stomps his feet over and over while and claps and bounces. He loves it when you join along. A video of this will hopefully be coming soon.

His problem solving skills are expanding in leaps and bounds! He loves his puzzles, nesting boxes and shape sorters. And it's amazing to see his improvement from day to day! His hand-eye coordination is getting better too. He has this toy where he has to hit balls through holes with a mallet. Man, does he whack the crap out of them! He can hit with either hand pretty darn accurately now. And of course, we need to cheer every time he does so! The boy does love affirmation! I'm hoping to get some video of his new toys skills but every time I pull out the camera, he gets distracted and just wants to play with it. I need to secretly record him!

Austin learned how to get off our bed and is horribly proud of himself when he does so. He lands on his feet about 1/2 the time. The other 1/2 he just sort of falls off towards his feet. Either way, he expects you to clap for him! He's usually giggling the whole time he's getting off too.

I think he's in the process of dropping to one nap, but I'm not really sure. He'll go several days without being able to settle down for his morning nap, but then just when I think it's completely gone, he'll take a 3 hour morning nap! These kids really need manuals!

His uncle Jemery will be really happy to learn that Austin is learning how to do "fist bumps"!

He loves it when Daddy comes home. He sometimes recognizes the sound of his car but when he hears a key in the door, he drops whatever he's doing and runs yelling toward the front door. What a wonderful way to be greeted after a hard day's work!

15 Months (On time!!)

"How am I on time this month?" you may ask. Cuz I planned ahead! Instead of making the list of Austin's new accomplishments by memory, I did it as the month went along. See! I have my smart moments! It also helped that his month-day fell on a weekend, cuz it's getting even harder to get a pic of this kid sitting still!




New this month!

Austin knows the sounds of several animals. Before it was just the cat, which made a very staccato "mao" sound. Sometimes it was even a silent cat and just his mouth moved. But now he knows dog, turkey, and lion/tiger/bear. Occasionally he'll do "cow" and we're working on a few others. One day we were going over animal sounds and I asked "What does a Moose say?" without really thinking and I didn't really have a good answer. So I put my hands on my head like antlers and said "I'm a Moose!" Well, Austin thought that was hilarious, so now that's what moose says in our house. He'll sometimes put his hands on the side of his head if you ask what a moose says.

My boy loves bubbles! We try to get out in the front yard or down to the park on dry days and chase bubbles. He really likes them inside the house too. Our carpet is like 12 years old and is just pitiful, so I really have no qualms about whatever damage the bubbles are doing to it! Plus there's the added bonus that the bubbles don't pop right away on the carpet. They sit there long enough for him to get them. And apparently it's almost as much fun to carry around the bubble container.

He is thoroughly enjoying his Christmas presents. Doesn't quite understand putting the legos together, but boy are they fun to dump out of the box! He's getting pretty good at his puzzles and loves to sit in his new big boy chairs that Nani & Papa got him. We are working on learning to color and the chairs help focus that activity much better than standing. Grandma Judy got him a ride-along dumptruck and he loves to be pushed around on that a bunch. It's so fun to see him discovering new toys. His new talking Elmo was a hit too.

He's become a picky eater! He used to eat everything you put in front of him, but now he will randomly decide that something doesn't even smell good and won't try it. Any suggestions here would be appreciated! I don't want mealtime to be a battle but I do want him to learn to try things. Thankfully there are enough things that he does like that he gets a small variety of foods, but I feel like the list is small and the same from day to day.

He just started loving to dance. The Elmo Live helped a bunch with this. He knows how to make it turn on and will dance to the music. It's so cute! But unfortunately he really only has me as an example of how to dance and sadly, I'm pretty bad. I'm afraid I'm teaching him bad skills! His daddy isn't much better, so hopefully someone will come along someday and teach our son how to dance well. What he does now is so cute, but I don't think it will get him far in high school!

Oh I love my son's laugh! One of my favorite games is "Kissy Torture" where I pin him down with his hands above his head and kiss him all over his face and belly. (It's similar to Tickle Torture but having been the victim of that game too many times, I vowed to not do that to my kids too much!! Sometimes tickling hurts! So that's why we do kisses.) The giggles and laughs that come out of him are just awesome! He laughs like that when playing with Brian too. I love watching them rough house!

He has a new game where he comes and pushes us down and tackles us. He makes this "Ahhhhh" sound as he does it, which we think is an imitation of us saying "Oh!! You got me!" Sometimes he'll just come and push on your legs and make that sound and he expects you to fall to the ground.

Like I said above, we're working on learning to color. He is much more interested in taking the crayons in and out of the box than actually coloring with them. He's a good little organizer, just like his daddy! Occasionally he will commit some art to paper though. We're making progress.

He loves to make other people smile. Everywhere we go now, he waves hello to everyone we see. And he will do so repeatedly until they see him and reciprocate. If they don't notice him, I can tell his feelings are hurt. Restaurants are fun - he makes friends with everyone around us. It's so fun to see him bringing smiles to other people's faces. What a wonderful gift! I hope he always brings people joy!!

He's learning parts of the body. He's known what hair is for a while, but anytime you'd ask him where something else was (nose, mouth, eyes, etc) he'd still point to his hair. I think he was focusing on the "Where" part of the question more than the whole question. But now he can point to his nose, ears, mouth, eyes, belly button, toes and stick out his tongue. He can occasionally distinguish between "Your nose" & "My/Momma's nose".

Austin is still very obsessed with Veggie Tales videos. If you're sitting at the computer he will come over and point and sign "please, please" and try to climb on your lap. We try not to overdo it - He gets to watch about once or twice a day and just a few 3 minute videos each time - but he definitely would watch all day if you let him! He gets very into the videos too. He bounces along with the beat and will clap at the end of the song and then ask for another. He got an actual DVD from Nani for Christmas and sits mesmerized at it!

He is just starting to enjoy being read to. He doesn't quite have the attention span for it, but he's getting better. He will bring you a book and turn around to be picked up. But he doesn't always let you read the book. He will sometimes close it after just a few pages, ask to get down and then proceed to hand you the same book and ask to be picked up again. Not sure what that's all about. Maybe I'm reading it wrong??

He's a sweet little kisser. Gone are the big messy kisses. (Well, most of the time!) If you ask for a kiss, he will usually promptly come over and give you a sweet peck on the lips. (I figure I better get my fill now while he's too young to be embarrassed by giving Mom kisses!) My favorite is when you ask him to blow kisses though. He blows a kiss into his hand and then puts his hand up for you to kiss too! And if there are several people around at the time, everyone is asked to kiss his hand! Sometimes he makes several rounds!

He's becoming quite the kleptomaniac! He will snag whatever his little hands can reach on the counter or the dining table. He's pretty tall and can reach farther than you think he should be able to. And if he's lucky there will be something on the floor for him to climb on to get just that extra inch or two of reach! It's funny to watch him flail his little hand back and forth until it hits something. He hardly cares what he snags - everything is a treasure! I have to be careful to put my purse far enough onto the table or otherwise he'll pull it down and start pulling everything out. Including my wallet and all my money!

Rewind A Bit - Thanksgiving in the Desert

I've been waiting on my dad to upload some pics from Thanksgiving so I can post. Yes, I do own a camera but no, I didn't take any pics while we were there. When you have a simple point-and-shoot camera and everyone else in your family has fancy-smancy SLR cameras, you tend to not take pics when they're around! I didn't even take my camera to Christmas! The only downside is being at the mercy of other people uploading stuff.

Every Thanksgiving since I was little my family has gone to Anza Borrego to camp. Some years Brian and I go out a few days late so that we can spend Thanksgiving Day with his family. That was the plan this year until Brian got horribly sick with a killer cold that started out looking possibly flu-ish. In order to attempt to not get his germies, Austin and I drove down Friday morning by ourselves. And Brian actually felt semi-good enough to come down Saturday. Lots of driving for the 3 of us (it's about a 3 hour drive - more if you take the wrong exit like I did!) And then we all drove home Saturday night. Short trip but we still had a great time visiting with family.

Since I didn't have a blog last Thanksgiving, here are some from Austin's 1st trip out to the desert! (Granted he didn't spend much time out in the desert - just mostly in the comfort of my parents' motorhome!)







This year we did about the same! Normally we go off-roading but being all big and preggo, I didn't feel it would be prudent to do so. If McKenna has any chance of not being as ditzy as her momma, we figured it would be good not to jostle her around a bunch and save all those precious brain cells. So we just hung around camp and schooled Auntie Susan in card games! We did make it outside a few times but Austin is about as impressed with sand as he is grass, so we didn't spend a lot of time outside!

Some favorite shots of the weekend...

You wouldn't think the desert could be beautiful, but I think it always is! I love this place!


A gorgeous sunset.


Me and my precious boys! (I heart Austin's beanie so much in this pic!!)


Austin playing with his Auntie Suz and cousins. (Yes, Boomer counts as a cousin!)


My brother was clever and brought a projector and screen and everyone had movie nights outside. We obviously camp the old fashioned way.


My niece and nephew pretending they are on Santa's sleigh. Boomer is the reindeer!


A gorgeous double rainbow


It's possible that Bryce's beanie is a little big.

Santa's Not Welcome 'Round Here!

Three weeks ago, Santa visited our street and we thought it would be fun to take Austin out to see him. I don't know if it was all the police cars there, all the people, the fact that we were a little rushed to get him up on the sleigh before they left, or if he just plain is scared to death of chubby men with big white beards all dressed in red...but no matter what the reason, Austin did NOT like Santa Claus. Even when Daddy went up with him, he was still not a happy camper. We got a glimpse of his "Get me out of here" look that we'd only seen one time before at his 1st haircut.




Thankfully we did get him to calm down slightly for a decent shot of three of them. No smiles, but no screaming either. We'll take what we can get!



The following week Austin was over at my parents' house while I was out galavanting with my gal-pals. (aka eating really really yummy and way too much Italian food with some of the best women in the South Bay!) That night Santa just happened to come down their street, so Nani and Papa thought it would be fun to take Austin out and see him. They did not know about his previous experience, otherwise they may have thought twice. He didn't even let my mom get anywhere near the sleigh, let alone up on that crazy man's lap.

You can just see the look of distress on my poor boy's face!



Hopefully next year he'll be willing to at least smile for a pic or two.

Evolution of Walking

I've been trying to get around to post video of Austin walking for weeks now! But by the time I get around to uploading video of him, he's already made more progress and I feel like I should post that video. So I decided to post a quick video of each "stage".

Pre-Walking


First Steps!


Waddle, waddle, up, down, up, down..
(Or as my dad calls it.."His boxer stance")


Almost a pro!


It's so amazing to me how quickly that all that progress was made. From a baby to a little boy in a matter of a few weeks!