Ant diary: Fifteen months

Growth check: Ant is still a weed! At his doctor's appt today they measured him as 33.25 inches and 23lb3oz. 94th and 32nd percentiles, respectively. Head at 47cm, 46th percentile. I can't quite believe he's grown two inches in three months, although he lay nice and still for the measuring, so I'm pretty sure it's right.

Talking: Oodles more words this month, approximately 143. And he's very good at repeating things we say, although I don't count them as words until he's used them on his own, for the most part. We were reading a book the other day and I said "the lion is leaving - he's packed his bags to go on vacation", and Ant repeated "vacation" exactly right! Didn't repeat that, but I was impressed that he said it perfectly that one time! Also lots more two word combos, including "baby cwying" at the doctor's office today at various times when we heard that. Some of my other favorite combos includ "heen open" when he wants to open the washing machine (heen), "hone hinging" when the phone rings, and "mama/dada home!". Some other words I'm impressed by include "tainer" for container, empty, home, basement, broken, cooler, dark, fluff (huff), 'geen bean', monkey, oatmeal, pom-pom, power, raisins (hay-in), shower (hower), salmon (hamon), stuck (huck), and waffle. All of which he clearly understands the meaning of. My absolute favorite word though - happy. It has been said to me a couple of times totally out of the blue when we're snuggling on the chair in his room in the morning. SO sweet! He also says snuggle (huggle) although that one isn't official yet.

Movement: For a few days, Ant was practicing walking backwards, but I haven't seen that again for a while. He also really seems to enjoy turning around in circles. Lots of stomping for a while, but that also seems to have stopped for now. He's also learned to throw things a bit, and will say "trow" when he does. Cute! He's 'running' on occasion - not full blown running just yet, but definitely more than walking. Also likes to dance to the radio in his room.

Mental: More leaps and bounds here. He's started pointing out his own body parts if you ask him - he definitely does his hair, ears, bellybutton, knees, toes, and hands. He throroughly enjoys making towers out of objects, saying "towah" the whole time he's doing it. I'm also extremely impressed by his grasp of some very complex concepts - he's understood 'help' for a while, but he uses 'stuck' appropriately when his foot or hand is stuck in something, 'dark', 'home' and 'power'. He's also now got names for a lot of his books - some the actual name (Tails is Tayah, for example), others are something about the book that he gravitates towards. The ladybug book is 'home', because that's what's on the last page which is his favorite. Blue hat green hat is 'oop' (i.e. oops), because that's what we say when the turkey has his clothes on incorrectly. He also will say please when we ask him to, and just the last few days has started sayin g thank you (something like 'ca ca', but very repeatable) when giving something to us. So he doesn't quite understand that concept just yet, but still - the fact that he's saying it is astonishing. Finally, he's now saying "poop" before / while he's going! The other thing I wanted to mention is that he and Sami seem to be getting a lot better at sharing things.

Toys and games: Ant has started enjoying his stuffed animals more, now knows names for a lot of them. He's more into books this month, often bringing them to us to read, or asking for them by name when we're upstairs on his bed. He really likes containers, opening and closing them.

Teeth: The fourth eye tooth just cut sometime in the last day or two. Finally! I can't believe it's been over a month since the third one cut. Now all we have left is the two year molars. Probably get those in the 18-20 month range would be my guess.

Feeding: Pretty much same old, same old here. One thing that's been added is raisins, which he absolutely LOVES. Whenever he's fussy in the car (we still have him facing the back, btw, he really doesn't seem to mind), I just hand him back some raisins and he's happy as a clam. There's also a veggie/butter/seasoning mix from trader joe's that he really likes.

Sleeping: The daylight savings transition went totally smoothly, thank goodness. Although wakeup time has moved back to around 6:15. 6:45 was so nice! Those extra few minutes of sleep, or time to prepare for hockey/gym were very useful. We've been doing one nap on occasion. Sometimes it works well, other times not so well. I think we'll leave him with two aside from a couple of days a week, to mimic what it might be like when he goes to daycare. I don't think we need to push him to one nap every day until he's ready for it. There have also been a few times now when he's woken up in the middle of the night, we've given him a cup of milk, and then put him back in the crib again - and it's worked! We had been taking him into bed with us when that had happened before (which was fairly infrequent). But I tried that the other day and he was only interested in playing, which I was NOT, so I figured I'd try the crib . And it worked like a charm.