Will is 18 months old!

Congratulations to Will. Somehow he has managed to make it to 18 months old, even with us as his crazy parents. We celebrated his 1 and a half birthday the same way we celebrated his half birthday. With Cake! The lucky little guy actually got to eat the cake this time.

Excited about Cake

Developing Fork Usage Skills

According to BabyWorld.com... What your baby can do:

• Understand that other people and even toys like his teddy are different and therefore enjoy play that involves make believe and pretend

Will is starting to pretend. It is very cute. He pushes cars and trucks around and makes "vrooom" noises. He also puts a cup on his foot and says "shoe" then laughs when I say, "That's not a shoe!" At school he wore an apron and chef's hat and pretended to bake cookies.

• Begin to understand the concept of time and ideas like later, tomorrow, soon, after tea

We tell Will that things will happen "IN THE FUTURE" in a dramatic voice. I am not sure if he understands exactly what that means, but he does seem to understand "Wait" means a slight delay of gratification.

• Begin to help dress himself but not yet able to deal with buttons or zips. To avoid frustration dress him in the simplest clothes he can pull off himself

We are working on this some. He will take his shoes off on demand. He will try to take his pants off when we are running the bath. He understands when we want him to put his arms up to take off his shirt. And he tries to put his pajamas on sometimes.

• He may want to brush his own hair or try to clean his own teeth

Will doesn't just want to clean his own teeth, he is amazingly good at it. He goes into the bathroom, climbs up on the step stool by the sink, takes his toothbrush, and brushes his teeth. Back and forth. Then he says he is "all done" and gives the toothbrush back. Of course, part of the toothbrush success is due to the fact that he has bubble gum flavored toddler toothpaste and he sucks that off the brush.

• He can help you and often likes to do the same as adults; he will try to sweep up a mess with his own dustpan and brush

This makes it kind of hard to accomplish cleaning tasks. Sometimes he is helpful and will take the silverware out of the dishwasher and put it in the silverware drawer. But sometimes he will put his toy train in the dishwasher. Or decide that dirty dishes should come out of the dishwasher. He also does laundry pretty well and will remove laundry from the dryer or move clothes from the washer to dryer. But he won't let me sweep anything. He wants to do it himself. He also helps with baking by licking the spatula when we make cookies.

I use my tongue to help!

• Turns pages in a book, three or four at a time

"Harry the Dirty Dog"

• He may now discover he can run as well as walk. Prepare for scraped knees!

Will has been running for a while. Like since March. He's pretty good about avoiding the scraped knees. It probably helps that I put him in pants a lot so that he can run around in our back "yard."

• Language begins to develop rapidly now and he will take pleasure in learning and saying new words.

See prior post on Will's first 50 words. Even though we don't count the words that he simply repeats back to us, he is expanding his vocabulary all the time and may even be up to 100 words by now. He still gets frustrated when he can't let us know what it is that he wants, but hopefully he will work on that more before his brother is born.

• Ask questions when you are looking at books together: ‘Can you see the dog?’, ‘What’s this here?’

He points out dogs, babies, mommies, daddies, balls, trains, and sometimes other stuff. However, if we ask him, "What's that?" He sometimes answers with "What's that?"

• Send him on simple errands; he’ll enjoy getting it right and being helpful. ‘Can you find your hairbrush over there and bring it to me?’

This is a great developmental stage for a pregnant mom who has trouble getting up and down sometimes. "Will, go get mom's water bottle." "Here, take this to dad."

• Crayons: chunky wax crayons are easy to grip and they make a mark no matter how they are held. Initially your toddler will grab a crayon in his fist and make lines from side to side. Up and down lines, dots and circles all come later. It’s the joy of producing a mark, not what it looks like, that matters

Will is all about drawing these days. He will go over to his little table and draw on paper with pens, pencils, and crayons. We may have to get him some coloring books, but for now, our reams of office paper seem to do the job. Will even performed his first "wall artwork" using a pencil (fortunately) to scribble on the wall. We are removing all ink pens from his reach now. I also need to buy a large eraser.

Will's Drawing Table

Missed the Table, Scribbled on the Wall

• Balls: large soft balls to kick or throw. A beach ball or foam ball is ideal. Just as with everything else, the more fun practice he has, the quicker he’ll develop his skills

Balls are good, Will kicks, throws, and dunks. However, we may have to tone down on the usage of baseball bats. He has two baseball bats, one is a little wooden one that came from Spring Training in Phoenix. If it doesn't get hidden earlier, we will have to remove it before his brother is born. It's just too much fun to swing around. Will also likes blocks. He hasn't quite gotten the idea that he needs to push them together to keep them straight.

Building with Blocks

• Ride on toys: he will now be able to sit astride a four-wheeled riding toy and maintain his balance while he pushes himself along with his feet

We tried a tricycle at Target the other day. He got mad when we took him off of it. I think it is time for us to get him a tricycle.

Will is a super developing little guy. Other stuff that we are working on include bed and bath time. Bedtime goes well. He gets all of his stuff (animal, blanket, water cup), gives us kisses, then tells us bye-bye when we put him in his bed. He is sleeping on the bottom bunk of his bunk bed these days. He has finally learned not to stand up and bump his head on the top bunk. When he wakes up in the morning, he will say "hey" "hi" to let us know he is awake, then when we go in to get him, he will army-crawl over to us until he is clear of the overhead bunk.

Bath time is currently a time of transition. We took his little tub out of the big tub and are making him take a bath in the big tub. It is very traumatic for him. He still has all of the same bath toys available, but for some reason the big tub freaks him out. He is just getting too long for the baby tub. It seems that we waited too long to do this transition. If anyone has any tips on how to make it less traumatic for him, let us know. We have tried bubbles, but maybe we need to try more singing. Will likes singing "Row-Row-Row your boat" in the tub.

Dan took Will to the doctor today to get his final shots until he is 3 years old. I'm just glad I don't have to take both little guys at the same time for shots. Dan says that Will is 33.75 inches long and weighs 26lbs 5oz. That is the 94th percentile for height and the 66th percentile for weight. The main impact of this is that since I am pregnant, our big little guy gets to walk everywhere. He can even get out of his car seat after I unbuckle it. It is quite convienent.