18 Months!

Where in the world has the time gone??? 18 months ago (yesterday) my beautiful baby boy was born. See that picture over there to the left. Yep. That's when Boo was just hours old, being held by his Poppa. My but he was tiny! At least compared to my running, talking, fun and trouble making little guy I have now. Unfortunately, I didn't get dragon pictures yesterday. (Kat got stuck at work late, so Grammy dropped Zoe off at Gak's work on her way to work and we hung out there and then went to Chick-Fil-A for dinner... and by the time we got home it was bed time...)

There are days I miss the constant snuggling of a newborn. Then I remember that it was just a series of nurse, change, sleep repeat with very little awake time. And none of the fun games and beautiful smiles and heartwarming giggles and belly laughs we have now. These stages come and go so quickly, and I love them all. I wouldn't have missed the newborn stage for anything, nor would I trade this part of toddlerhood away either. (I'll probably say differently as he gets closer to 2 and starts throwing more fits because his language and his needs/wants don't match up and he doesn't want to hear "no" yet again.)

Tomorrow we have his 18-month appointment. It should be a fairly good one. I'm pretty sure he gets more shots, and we'll get the results of his bloodwork back. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that last week. Back at his 12 month appointment they do a standard test for iron and for lead. Well, the led was fine (none), but the iron was low. We were encouraged to get him to eat more high-iron foods and see if that helped. By 14 months he'd stopped eating anything with beef in it and eating much in general if you remember. Since he'd lost weight and wasn't eating well at his 15 month appointment, we were given a new list of things to try and iron containing vitamins for the boy and a script to get bloodwork done before his 18 month appointment. So, last week while I was on vacation we got that done. Back in June it was just a finger prick to get a small vial of blood. Well, this time it was a full blown stick in his arm. Can I tell you how disturbing it was to see a tourniquet around the tiny little arm of my son? He did very well. He screamed when they stuck him, but he didn't try and twist away or anything, but just sat there crying. I was very impressed with him and the two flabotomists doing the draw. (With little ones the more people the faster and easier it goes.) Hopefully they'll say his iron is back where it should be, and he's gained a good chunk of weight, he's up near 25.5 lb or so, maybe closer to 26. He was 23 back in September.

Anyhow, Boo is thriving. I've lost count of the number of words he has, "ball" being a favorite of the moment, as is "mine". "Eat" will suffice for anything having to do with food... as does "mmmmmm" when he's eating something he enjoys. Most of his talk is still babble and a lot of his "words" probably only Gak and I really understand from context and hearing them all the time. But, at this stage it's not that he's speaking words perfectly that matters, but if he's using something approximating a word for something.

My boy can walk and run with ease. He can roll and throw a ball and even try and "kick" it. It's kinda cute, if he connects it's by pure luck, but it appears he understands the concept. He can climb onto the sofa and his rocking chair and has made a "space" for himself in the corner of the living room. He's formed bonds with people other than Gak, myself and the daycare ladies. He's decided that Zoe is great. He can feed himself with a fork or a spoon if he wants to, although we don't do anything too runny with the spoon, especially without a bib right now. He still only eats a handful of different things for me, but he will eat well at day care. As long as he's getting in one, good, solid meal a day, I'm pretty happy. He'll eat fruit until way after it's a problem, but has decided veggies are ick, unless they're in his soup. (I partially blame myself for that for after he went off the pureed baby food, I haven't been good about offering them again and again....) I really need to get him eating a wider variety, if only for my sanity. But, as my brother reminded me, we both survived (and so did Mom) and we weren't exactly the eaters of everything ourselves. I keep reminding myself that I was about 20 before I really had a variety in my diet and that I did just fine. (And it wasn't until around then that my weight really got out of control... I was a skinny mini until puberty hit and then when I went to college, all hell broke loose....)

I know there are a hundred other "developmental milestones" he's met or surpassed, but I can't think of them right now and it's almost time for me to head out the door. So, my boy is thriving and is in such a cute, fun and wonderful stage. I'm so glad I had last week off with him. Even though he gets trying at times, he's such a wonderful little guy and he just melts my heart with that smile of his or that wonderful belly laugh.

So, on that note, I must wrap this up. I do have a couple of belated birthdays, Ed's was on Saturday and Abi's was yesterday. I did remember to tell them happy birthday on the days.

Peace to all and may your life keep growing and changing.