16 Month Recap

August Recap time! Hard to believe our little boy is inching his way towards 18 months. Things really just keep getting better and better with him - He is so much fun!

Nolan Lucas - 16 Months

August 2013 was full of friends visiting with their kids (lots of playdates for Nolan)! We had Steve, Amy, and Owen as well as Kevin, Virginia, and Cylar over earlier in the month, and Mike, Katy, Natalie, Josh, and Luke over later in the month. We had some time off due to Labor Day and Nolan's teacher work day the Friday before labor day that we used to visit the Adventure Aquarium in Camden. We also did some fun things as a family such as visiting the Italian Market in Philadelphia, go for a "real hike" (no stroller!) in the woods at Ridley Creek State Park, and of course, lots of trips to our favorite playground and library.

Nolan still smitten with the swings

Who says only kids can swing?!

I wrote about how thankful I am to have our precious little boy in our life (maybe it's the extra sleep talking!) and we happily kicked off another Penn State Football season!

We Are... Penn State!

Here's a glimpse of Nolan at 16 Months:

Talking: This has probably been the biggest change this month. Nolan is mimicking us like crazy and will try saying many new words. He is also grasping the meaning more, and continues to amaze me when he can follow semi-complicated commands (such as throw out that tissue, which requires going to another room, opening up the trash can and throwing the tissue inside!)

List of words:

• Dada
• Mama
• Dog (A Favorite - he points to Dean dozens of times a day and loudly proclaims "DOG!")
• Baba (Bottle)
• What's THAT?
• Yeah
• Uh Oh (A Favorite!)
• Whoa
• Ooooh!
• Oh
• No (NEW - the beginning of toddler tantrums, I'm sure!)
• Bubble (NEW - said more like Buhbuh)
• Ball (NEW - he will go find and throw balls when you ask and can point to them in a book saying ball)
• Hi (NEW - adorable when he says it to strangers in a loud high pitched voice!)
• Bye (NEW - He definitely knows the meaning and will say it loudly whenever he hears "cues" that I'm getting off the phone and makes me laugh every time)
• BUH-Bye (NEW - practicing for a gig on SNL, maybe??)
• EIEIO (NEW - Old MacDonald!)
• Belly Button (NEW - sort of sounds like Bay-Buh, but will point to it if you ask where it is!)
• Boom Boom (NEW - our code word for poop since Nolan has been making similar sounds since he was really little by "buzzing" his lips)

A Man of many words.

Nolan's Yeses and shaking his head are starting to actually MEAN yes or no now, which has been really nice. For the most part if you offer him food and he shakes his head, he actually does not want the food. However I will repeatedly ask him if he went "Boom Boom" (aka poop) and he'll ALWAYS say no, even when he most definitely has. 

Motor Skills: The climbing trend continues from last month, and he is now able to successfully climb onto some of our chairs/couches. He listens very well to the "sit" command (I'm sure this is from daycare) so he is able to scoot on his butt to get down. Climbing the stairs has gotten better and I rarely have to catch him anymore, but still diligently spot him as he goes up. Going down the stairs is still a challenge but he is learning to butt scoot down. A newer skill he has acquired is to walk backwards. He can do it while maneuvering his many push toys around the house - he can steer really well now! He also loves crawling through tunnels now - which makes some of the tunnels at the playground more fun! Of course, he's still running all over the place (often yelling Ohhhhh! while going down our hallway). 

Climbing on the playroom couch (and throwing things in his pack n play, which is SO FUNNY!)

Climbing all over the indoor playground at the King of Prussia Mall (good for a rainy day!)

He loves his roller bag and wheeling it around the house!

Eating:
No drastic changes here. He is getting better and better at using utensils. In fact we recently discovered that he actually likes bananas (he would never eat them before) if he doesn't have to touch them - weirdo! Favorites are still pasta, pizza, and dumplings. Macaroni and cheese may have taken over the #1 spot. He can eat a ton in one sitting! Snacks are cheese sticks, apple sauce, mandarin oranges, raisins, goldfish, and graham crackers. We've had to stop giving him the pouches since he's figured out it's much more fun to squeeze them everywhere instead of eat them. For veggies, we will eat edamame, peas, green beans, and zucchini, although I always give him a taste of everything on my plate and things can be hit or miss. Breakfasts are usually on the go weekdays since he sleeps so late and consist of English Muffins/Bagels/Waffles in the car.

Nolan has been enjoying high chair time a lot more now and Joe and I finally don't feel like we are racing against the clock to eat our dinners. He loves being silly and chatting it up with us at the table these days.

The Silliest Eater

Sleeping:
I can't say enough about how AMAZING Nolan has been sleeping lately. It's such a turnaround from his first year of life. Although he may be harder to get down to sleep these days, especially when we are not at our house, once he is down he reliably stays down. For a good 12-13 HOURS. We've had several weekends where Nolan has slept until 10am (I KNOW!). Guess he has his mama's non-morning genes :) We're enjoying it as much as possible because who knows what the future brings (ahem, winter colds!)

Champion Sleeper!

Favorites:

Things to remember at this age:

• A funny "non-word" Nolan keeps saying is "Abadar" which makes Joe and I laugh because all we can think of is Arnold Schwarzenegger mispronouncing "Avatar" at the Golden Globes which was widely made fun of :) We have yet to figure out what Nolan is trying to say!
• This kid is in LOVE with his DOG! And I can't stop taking photos of them together because it just melts my heart. What handsome boys I have!

Inseparable

Thank you Dean for being so tolerant!

Best seat in the house



It's an indoor/outdoor seat

Favorite activity - feeding Dean his food or treats

So Furry!

• Yes to EVERYTHING! Do you want to go outside? Yes. Do you want to go to school? Yes. Do you want your bottle? Yes. You get the point. It is a very short and sure "Yes". I'm enjoying while it lasts because I'm sure everything will be No very soon.
• An end to the Clinginess. As much as I loved all of the attention/cuddles, Nolan is much more independent now. He is great at daycare dropoffs and immerses himself in his toys/teachers as soon as he gets there giving me a happy wave goodbye right away. He also has been asking for "Dada" a lot more often! It has made it (a tiny bit) easier to get some things done around the house while Nolan is awake since he doesn't want to be held all the time anymore.

Back in Dada's arms!

On a mission in Philly (Italian Market)

Walking with Dada in Philly

• His silliness. It's so fun to watch Nolan's sense of humor develop. He "gets it" that when he does certain things it is funny. We've had many "conversations" in the car just making silly noises back and forth to each other and mimicking each other while laughing. He loves grabbing Mommy and Daddy's glasses and sunglasses off our faces and (just recently) realizing it's funny if he puts the glasses on himself. I love his sense of humor and love how he fits right in to our goofy family.

Ready for the big screen

• Sippy cup graduation. While Nolan has been using sippy cups since before he turned one, we had mostly been giving him the soft spout ones from Avent for milk (he was drinking water from straw cups), Nolan recently moved up to the hard spout sippy cups without handles. He's been doing great and daycare is happy now that he can't purposely spill his milk by banging the soft spout against the floor. Bonus - I found him a Playtex Muppet-themed cup, which makes me happy and nostalgic :) He still gets bottles before bed though although we will probably start phasing that out.

Still love those bottle cuddles!

I'm sure there's more to say, but that's all for now - this post is late enough as it is and it's past my bedtime :) I'll close by saying (again) that I absolutely love this age and thank my lucky stars every day to have Nolan in my life. I feel privileged to get to be with him every day and look forward to many happy days full of laughter and amazement to come.

My boys. How lucky am I?

Nolan and me. 16 months