Mr. Man Turned 18 Months... A Month Ago

Can you believe I waited to post on this glorious milestone for one whole month? 

Without further ado... The stats:

Weight: 21 lbs 11 oz - 15th percentile. Woah! Did you see that jump? Up in the double digits here. Crazy stuff! He is still really light, but goodness, 15th percentile ain't bad!

Length: 30.25 inches - 2nd percentile. Poor short little child. He really is a tiny thing. There are several kids close to his age in our ward, but a few months younger. You would never know because they are just as tall, if not taller than he is. Hopefully he will hit a growth spurt some day.

Head cir: 47.5 cm - 52nd percentile. Right where he want him. His surgeon said his head just needs to stay around the 50th percentile and not drop below. So we are good there.  

This was an exciting checkup because it was his last shot before his kindergarten stuff, unless we opt for flu vaccines. No more shots! Yeah!!! 

He was incredibly serious this visit. I had just woken him up from a very brief nap, so he wasn't all that awake. As a result, he was stellar during the exam. In fact, the doctor couldn't stop talking about how well behaved he was and how if every 18 month old was like him, his job would be a synch. :)

The only point of stubbornness on his part was when the doctor asked to see him walk. I set him down and tried to coax him to the other side of the room, but he stood still as a statue with his arms folded across his chest absolutely refusing to budge. I finally got him to take my hand and start walking across the room. After that, he realized that he was free and we couldn't get him to hold still.  

He discovered the changing room and was pretty thrilled with the swinging doors. That kept us pretty entertained until the nurse came in with his last shot. 

Of course the real excitement with turning 18 months is nursery! We really weren't worried about him transitioning. He is not shy at all. We have spent some time with him in the nursery on different occasions, enough so that he knows there are toys there and is always excited when we pass by.

A few weeks before he turned 18 months, I asked if he could visit for a while to start getting him used to it. The few minutes I intended actually ended up being the whole nursery block as I begged them to let him stay. (It was my last week with the sunbeams and one of my sunbeams had been pretty abusive to little P the week before. It really was for his own safety.)

 So the truth is, this wasn't really his first time. But it was his first time being official! He simply would not smile for me... but that look wasn't a "I'm unhappy mom" look so much as it was a "get out of here mom" look. The moment I put him down he forgot I even existed.

He loves it. I snagged a picture with one of his teachers, and one of my friends, Heather. 

We are relieved that he is happy in nursery as this makes our lives SO much easier when it comes to class. As mentioned, a few weeks before nursery I was moved from sunbeams to the CTR 4s. It's a big class with almost all girls. Just one cute little boy. The class is wonderful, but they are 4/5 year olds - again - primarily girls... so that meant lots of doting on Pierscen. I couldn't get a single sentence into the lesson without one of them trying to feed Pierscen, or hold his hand, or guide him around the room. They were very sweet with him, but he was a huge distraction. 

We love this little 18 (19) month old. He is all boy! There is no baby left in this guy. It's a good and a bad thing. You miss the little baby things, but it is so much fun to see them grow and develop.

He is continually surprising us with how quickly he learns things. He has a pretty big vocabulary. He is great with identifiying body parts (head, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, teeth, fingers, toes, etc.) He can count... sort of. He knows "two" really well. So he counts to three by saying "two" three times in a row. Or something close to that. He knows Ring around the Rosie and loves the falling down part. He likes us to sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider and he will do the spider motions, just not any of the rest. But he is always great to clap at the end. 

He is a crazy climber. He loves to read.Brown Bear is probably his favorite book, though he loves any books with animals. His favorite food is dog food. And cheese. He loves to be outdoors, but I think we have probably lost half of our cherry tomatoes to his "helping" in the garden. He loves to Skype with Oma and Opa. He enjoys coloring, though he still likes to take a bite out of the crayons almost every time. He loves playing at the park and has no fear when it comes to the slides. He also loves to try and climb the ladders and does a pretty good job of it with a bit of help. He is incredibly outgoing and loves to meet new people. Each time we go to the park, he "adopts" a new mom. I'm not kidding. He will see another mom and saddle up to her, often holding out his arms so that she will pick him up. Silly kid. He will say hello to anyone and everyone and makes new friends easily. He met a little girl at the park tonight that he thought was pretty awesome, but she was less than enthused about his desire to be friends and spent most of the time running away from him. Sorry bud. I guess not every woman falls for your charms. :)

Here he is sitting next to a random lady he saw at the park. He does this all the time. He just parks himself right next to people and will strike up conversations with them, or more likely, offer them a handful of mulch or gravel. This is a true sign of friendship. :)

Catching raindrops

He loves the rain. We have had some amazing storms lately with the crazy lightning and thunder that shakes the house and everything. Instead of being afraid, he begs to go outside. Tonight it started raining while we were at the park. The first few drops hit him and he grinned and did and excited little shiver, then off he went while another kid ran screaming and crying because she was getting rained on. I love that he loves the rain, because I do too!

Lately he loves to grab the side of his shorts and hike them up really high as he walks around. Don't know what that's all about. He has a wide range of fake laughs and squeals. He has one fake scream that he does when he wants us to chase him around. He has a great cackle where he actually throws his head back as he laughs. He loves to torture Dodger. No, I take that back. He lives for it. The hitting has become troublesome and I am having a hard time getting him to stop. Ugh. He has 12 teeth and is working on his 13th. He enjoys swimming and anything to do with water. He has been saying "Thank you" for a long time, but we have finally got him to say "Please." This has been huge in helping him not to whine for things... but now it's a matter of teaching him that just because he said please doesn't mean he gets it. Now he begs. "Pppppeeeeeeeeee!"

He is smart and funny and entertaining - and I don't think it's possible to love him more than I do. We sure lucked out.