(Almost) A Year and a Half

At some point, you stop counting the months and start rounding. It’s starts at half years, and then eventually it’s just full years. As an adult, I don’t go around telling people that I’m 27 and a half. (I’m not, I’m just 27, just turned so a month ago if you’re counting)

Jameson is 17 months. A neighborhood lady asked me, and I said “a year and a half.” He seems so grown up! (Don’t laugh)

This month was a special growing up month for Jameson since he began sleeping on a cot for naptime, lost his very first tooth and got his first real haircut!

In addition, he gave up the bottle, for the most part. We are still giving him a bottle at night before bed. Our intention was over this next month to wean him from that, but since our vacation was canceled so we could attend Brian’s grandfather’s funeral yesterday, we are waiting until vacation next month. Brian’s parents will be watching him, and we want to make the bedtime routine easy for them!

He has started using utensils more consistently. His teacher at school told me they think he is left handed since he grabbed a spoon with his left the other day. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she is wrong on a few counts.

He has been switching back and forth on hands for utensils that we have been giving him all this month; and children don’t settle on a hand for sure until they’re 3. So I read, anyway. Regardless, he’s getting pretty good and messy with the spoon and has fun with the fork. Jameson still doesn’t like us to help him a lot, he is very independent.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFbkaVrU7co]

Jameson does let us help him up and down high places and stairs, thankfully. He is also getting good making those steps, but he needs to grow a bit more before that will be comfortable for him. By that time, I’m sure he’ll be off and running up and down stairs like he’s been doing it for months (because he has, with our help!)

He loves to wave now. When I tell him to “wait” he often “waves” instead, mistaking my direction. When I tell him to say “hi”, he waves! I think that may count as a sign in addition to his “more”, “all done”, “no” (shaking head) and “eat” regular signs.

Yesterday, we discovered that Jameson also signs “please” now. He must have learned it at school, since we haven’t had sign language classes in a while. It was so gratifying to see that “please”, and so unexpected. Of course, he got more teddy grahams!

As for regular words, we can identify a lot of words when he is repeating us, but it is so much harder to tell what he is saying when he is babbling (though it seems he knows what he is saying). Words we have identified that he says with some regularity:

Cheeeeeese (for pictures, this is our newest and I think school taught him that), Yes/Yeah, Bath, Bottle, Bear and/or Blanket, Dog has turned into Doggie, Daddy which often sounds like Doggy, Mommy, Juice, Milk, Uh Oooooh, Yucky/Dirty

Jameson has been blowing kisses now for a couple months, but I love these pictures that capture him doing it.

Jameson is walking around everywhere confidently. He outgrew his very first pair of walking shoes, which he also made a hole in the toes last week (we thew them away, not a whole lot of sentimentality here). We bought him the same Stride Rite kind, in a different color half a size up. He’s now a 5, and in 5-1/2 shoes.

He recently likes to walk on his tippy toes which makes us laugh, though we are hoping he’ll stop that soon. We try to let him be barefoot more often at home since he’s in shoes all day at school.

Jameson has finally started mastering the real shape sorter instead of just the coins in the faux piggy (cow) bank which he mastered months ago. He used to give up, impatient with it, after the first try. We are starting to see some maturity (yes). He will sit still with it for longer periods of time, and he has begun putting his toys away when asked! He gets less distracted on the way.

He’ll even bring me books with or without prompting, and return them to the book basket when we’re finished. Right now, I have a singing book he loves. It is the longest book he’ll sit through that doesn’t have a touch and feel feature. It is the baby belluga book based on the Raffi song which I grew up with. I don’t need Raffi to help me sing along with this book, and Jameson will sit through me singing the whole thing, asking for more two or three times.

Shall I go on? I really could, he develops so much every day. Those are just a few highlights. I can’t wait to see him at 18 months, a true 1-1/2; it seems like each month is better than the last.

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