 |
| I didn’t have a chance to take any special photos on the day he turned 18 months, so all of the photos in this post are from our camping trip to the coast, which was only a few days before 🙂 |
Stats:
Henry had his 18 month well check last week and he is a growing boy! He is currently 26 lbs 13 oz (80th percentile) and 33.5 inches tall (85th percentile). (He’s also still in the 97th percentile for head circumference, which is no surprise since Cameron and I both have pretty big heads…ha!) As for teeth, he’s got a bunch now! I’m pretty sure he has 12 (6 on top, 6 on bottom – he never lets me count them though!) and he has all of his one year molars. He still has a few others that are in the process of coming in at the moment, but (thankfully) teething doesn’t seem too bother him too much!
Health:
Henry has been really healthy over the past few months! I feel like the warmer weather of springtime has helped bring an end to cold season and he hasn’t had any viruses for awhile, which has been so nice! (Though of course he does seem like he has come down with first cold in months this week, however, it could also be allergies? We’ll just have to wait and see…) I would say that the biggest health concerns with him right now are just minor injuries like bumps, bruises, and skinned knees aka the occupational hazards of being a toddler who loves to run, jump, and climb!
Likes:
-Running, jumping, and climbing…ha! Not to sound like a broken record, but those seriously are his three favorite things to do! He is a busy boy that likes to be on the move 🙂
-Books! He likes being read to, but he also loves just sitting and “reading” books on his own too, which makes me so so happy! He has a ton of books that are easily accessible at his level in his nursery, and then we have a bunch of books stacked up that he can easily get to in our family room as well. Literally the first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning or we walk in the door from being gone is to run and grab a book and sit down on the floor and start reading – seriously the cutest!
-The dog filter on SnapChat, he’s obsessed. Honestly this is one of the only reasons I downloaded SnapChat in the first place and it’s one of my go-to tools to distract him if he’s having a meltdown.
-Lola, and specifically, climbing into the chair in our living room with her…ha!
-The beach! Henry loves sand and splashing in the water, it’s his happy place for sure.
-Playing with my phone, the baby monitor, and any remote he can find 🙂
Dislikes:
-Taking baths! This is a new thing that has just started in the past few weeks, and it’s sooo frustrating! He used to love taking baths, but now, for whatever reason, he refuses to sit down in the bathtub and just stands there. And he doesn’t like when we use our moveable shower head to wash him off, so I end up just dumping cups of water on him while he screams to get out. Sooo needless to say, he’s not getting a bath super often these days!
-Getting his teeth brushed, which was another thing he used to like but now he’s not into it. Ugh.
-Just the general toddler disdain for being stopped from doing something that he wants to do such as being told he can’t hit his parents in the face or run in the street. We’re the meanest!
-When it’s time to leave the park/beach/etc. and he doesn’t want to 🙂
Wears:
Right now, Henry is mainly wearing size 18-24 month stuff; he has a few things that are 2T but it seems like most of the 2T stuff is way bigger and so he doesn’t fit into most of it yet. I’ve been getting most of his clothes at Old Navy lately and have had really good luck finding cute things there! I’ve also found some really adorable stuff at Oshkosh B’gosh and Baby Gap as well. I’ve probably been going a little overboard buying Henry summer clothes recently, but it’s hard not to knowing that we’re going to have another boy – I figure that (hopefully) most of it will get worn again 🙂 Seriously though, I’ve bought him so many bathing suits/rash guards, it’s a little out of control – ha! As for shoes, he’s been getting a ton of use out of his Keens! (He has these ones) They’re so great for places like splash pads because they provide really good traction. He’s currently wearing a size 5 in diapers and we’ve been using Honest ones during the day, and Huggies Overnights at night 🙂
Eats:
This is probably the toughest area for us at the moment, as Henry is very selective about what he’ll eat and he loves throwing food from his high chair. I try not to stress about it too much though since he’s obviously growing just fine and I know that a lot of it is just normal toddler behavior. For breakfast, he usually has either sweet potato pancakes or chia and flax seed oatmeal, and I’ll add in some almond meal to give it a little more protein. Lunch is often a peanut butter sandwich, just because that’s the easiest thing to feed him if we’re out and about. And then dinner, I try to give him whatever we’re eating, but a lot of times he just straight up refuses to eat any of it. He LOVES dairy though so drinking whole milk, along with eating yogurt and cheese. Seriously, he could just drink milk and be happy, so I think we’re going to cut down slightly on the amount he has per day to try and encourage him to branch out and eat more of other foods (per his pediatrician’s suggestion). He loves any sort of bread/crackers/cookies/carbs (obviously the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!) and while I try not to feed him this stuff too often, if we’re traveling or out at a restaurant, I’m not above giving him animal crackers to keep him happy 🙂 He likes apples, melon, clementines, and bananas, but (sadly) doesn’t really like grapes or berries too much. I think it’s because they can sometimes be a little tart initially, so I’m hoping that changes over the course of the summer! He does still love pouches, so I try to buy ones that have as much vegetables in them as possibly and he eats those as snacks on the go. It’s tough because when he first started eating real food, he’d eat anything and everything, and it wasn’t until about a year that he started getting more picky. I just keep reminding myself that it’s a phase, not to make it a battle, continue giving him healthy food, and hope that he comes around eventually! 🙂
Sleep:
No complaints here, he’s still an awesome sleeper! He goes to bed around 8:30pm and then sleeps straight through until around 8am. He takes one nap (usually around 1:30pm) and that lasts anywhere from 2-3.5 hours. I’m seriously praying that baby #2 ends up as good a sleeper as his brother!
Says:
I thought I’d add this category for this (and future) updates because I don’t want to forget any of the cute things he’s saying! Up until a few weeks ago, Henry was still pretty much only saying Mama, Dada, and No…ha! But I’d heard so many people say that language really starts taking off around 18 months and over the past few weeks, it’s like a switch flipped and now all the sudden he realizes everything has a name and he wants to identify things all the time! He’s constantly saying “car” and “truck” every time he sees one go by and since we live in the city on a relatively busy street, that’s pretty often 🙂 Like most people in Portland, we don’t have central AC but we have an AC unit in his bedroom and our bedroom, as well as a few fans around the house and he calls them all “cool”…ha! For whatever reason he calls milk “goo goo” and whenever I open the fridge or we go to the grocery store, he points and the gallon of milk and starts yelling “goo goo! goo goo!” He also recently started to say “Oh man” or “Oh boy” and that is pretty funny 🙂 There are lots of words that start with the same letter where he’ll kind of say the first part of the word and they all sound the same, especially for things that start with the letter B (book, ball, bowl, bottle, bed, etc.) he’ll kind of point to it and make a “ba” type sound…so he’s on the right track! I made a list of things he says where if you showed him a picture of something, he’d be able to identify it and I’d say he’s got about 30ish words at this point? Granted he’s not necessarily clearly pronouncing the full word so things like dog and duck would both sound similar, but he at least knows that the object has a name that starts with that letter. We’re still working on his animal sounds (the only one he consistently has down is monkey and hearing him do that sound is the BEST) and he’s getting better at identifying body parts (he’s really good with nose, mouth, eyes, ears, and toes and that’s about it so far). His pediatrician said that kids usually pick an area to focus in at this age, either physical or verbal, and typically develop in that more quickly. Henry is definitely very physical; he’s super adventurous and independent and is almost always running and loves to jump and climb. For the longest time, I would try to get him to repeat words and he just didn’t seem into it, whereas some of us other friends who were maybe a little more physically timid would parrot back tons of words. But now, Henry seems to finally be wanting to talk more all of the sudden and his pediatrician said that his language is right on track with where it should be for his age, and even though he is still super physical, it’s really cool to see him getting excited about language and wanting to learn so many new words all of the sudden!
Favorite Things:
He’s still enjoying the things I mentioned in his 15 month update, but a new addition is this slide we got him! He’s still all about the books and this recent addition to his library is a new favorite of both of ours. We use these Munchkin cups all the time, and lately has really been loving playing with this little Jeep. He also seemed to really like this sand toy set that I got him for our camping trip; I have a feeling we’ll be adding some more new toys as the summer goes on, so I probably do another post with some of his “summer favorites” in another month or two 🙂
Things I Want to Remember:
-He’s just such a happy boy and has such a zest for life! He gets really excited about so many little things that it really makes me want to slow down and appreciate things more.
-He still gets the most comments on his dimples, they seem to charm everyone 🙂
-We’ve been trying to “train” his hair not to go in his eyes, so every time he gets a bath, we always comb it in the same direction. (And I do think it’s helping!) Henry loves when we give him the brush so he can do it himself, even though he almost always puts the back of the brush towards his head 🙂
-Any chance he gets, the boy will run! If he sees an opening, he’ll just take off and it’s a little crazy how fast he is! When we were camping, he’d just run from our campsite down to other campsites and anywhere we go, if he’s out of his stroller or not being held, he starts running. (He also loves to bolt out an open door so that’s fun) And he finds it hilarious when we chase after him…ha! It does make me happy that he’s confident and independent, but I’m strongly considering getting him on of those backpacks with the leashes on it 🙂
-No matter what we’re doing, if he hears a plane overhead he always stops and points at it.
-He has such an expressive face and even though he’s just starting to talk, I feel like he communicates really well. It almost feels like we have this secret inside joke and all we have to do is look at each other and we understand what the other person is thinking.
-He is really great at playing independently in his play area, which makes my life a lot easier! I can be cooking or cleaning up the kitchen (which is where his play area is) and he’s perfectly happy to just read his books or play with his toys for an extended amount of time.
-He still doesn’t have a super long attention span for TV, but he does like Sesame Street. Whenever I ask him if he wants to watch Sesame Street, he always says “Mo! Mo!” (for Elmo…ha!)
-I feel like I say 100 times a day “Sit down please!” (when he standing on furniture) or “Get down please” (when he has climbed on the coffee or end table) and he always listens, and then I tell him good job for listening. But then he stands back up again and waits for me to tell him to get down and I think he thinks it’s a big game…ha!
-He loves babies and whenever he sees a little baby or even a toddler close to his own age, he always says “Bebe!” I’m hoping it’s a good sign for the fall when his little brother arrives!
-He loves pointing out when he sees stars on something and trying to say “star” – he has some sheets, a few clothing items (like his hat in the picture below), and some Goodnight Moon dishes that all have stars on them and he loves pointing that out to us.
-Right now, I feel like my biggest struggle is not wanting to totally squash his adventurous spirit and fearlessness when it comes to doing physical things, while also wanting to stay out of the ER this summer. He just doesn’t quite get the idea of consequences yet and so he’ll do things like climb to the top of the jungle gym and doesn’t even realize he could fall off the edge, so it makes me nervous!
-He’s pretty friendly and outgoing in public, but he can also be a little more unsure when a stranger says hi to him – it typically doesn’t take him too long to warm up though!
-Mama is still is most used word and he says it literally 500 times a day, usually like Stewie from Family Guy (no joke) where he’s all “Mama! Mama! Mama! Mommy! Mom! Ma!” 🙂
-He likes being the center of attention and wants to make sure people are watching him. I’ve taken him to a few gym classes and he loves when it’s his turn to go in the middle of a circle or under a parachute or whatever, and so we’re working the concept that other kids need a turn too and he can’t always be in the middle. He’s just really confident for his age and I’ll admit, I kind of love it 🙂
-He’s still into giving kisses so I’m constantly asking him for smooches!
