Ant diary: Fourteen months

Growth check: None this month, I gave the accurate scale to Kate for when Luther is born. About 22lbs according to the differential in my weight holding Ant vs. not. I figure I'll report height/weight when we have our doctor's appointments.

Talking: Ant is acquiring words at close to an exponential rate. 16 the first month he was talking, 31 the second, and 58 this month. I'll list them all here, but I think this might be the last month I can do that! Ready? apple (ap), boots, bowl, bib, bubbles (buh-buh), brush (dush), baby, boo, beans, chair, control as in remote control (cohn), camera (carya), comb, couch, door, ears, fork (hork), fly (hy), granny (gangy), glasses (gah), gate, hey, hi, hands, hummus (hoom), in, ice, juice, Kate, knee, kiss, lock (ock), more(moh), nose (no), no, out, open (ohp), on, papa (Cup, Pup), pot (cot), Pooh, phone (hone), pizza (peetz), please (pees), puck (pup), rock (gock), spoon (hoon), Sami (hami), shoot, swing, turtle (turt), tissue (shoo), teeth (tooth), toothbrush (tooth), toes, truck (teesh), touch, tower (tow), two (after one), yogurt (gog). Phew! There are also another ten words that I think he might have, but not clear - I'll spare you those! He's also started to put together two word combinations, he's done it about five times now, which leads me to believe that it's a bit more than just coincidence. There are a couple I don't remember, but he has definitely said "key gone" when he can't find one of his favorite (i.e. the BMW) car keys. He said "mama hair" when touching my hair, and just tonight "hy gone" after Mark finally managed to swat the fly that has been haunting us for the last five days. (After which Ant proceeded to say "gone" another hundred times or so!)

Movement: Ant started learning to get off the bed and chair last month, then perfected it this month. Doesn't mean he always does it (like tonight when he basically just walked straight off the edge of the bed - Mark was right there so no worries), but he certainly can, with no prompting. Climbing onto the easy chair that's in his room with the little stool in front of it is also de rigeur. He started 'hopping' (i.e. jumping) this month. Doesn't get much clearance off the ground, if any, but he has the right motion, the knees bending, straightening, and bending again. He also stomps his feet if you ask him nicely. In terms of manual dexterity, he was actually able to get a straw back into a juice box after having pulled it out, with much less difficulty than I would have expected. That's a small hole to get the straw into! He is also starting to make the twisting motion required for screwing and unscrewing cap s - which is going to mean more babyproofing! He still doesn't seem interested in learning how to go down steps on his own. He just wants to walk down with us holding his hands.

Mental: So much going on in there these days. One fun thing is that he's started really imitating us - he likes to 'brush his teeth' (has let me *really* brush them once or twice), brush his hair, and also likes to help us with things - I've been taking my temp in the am to track my cycles which he's seen a few times, so now he enjoys picking up the thermometer and sticking it in my mouth! Also finds it highly amusing to feed us either with his hands or a spoon. I think he's starting to nod 'yes', although it's not 100% clear just yet. One really nice thing is that he does not seem to be in quite so much of a mommy phase. There have been a couple of nights when he has been SO excited to see Mark when he gets home - raising both hands in the air, running around, and squealing with delight. He also finally started holding out his arms to go to Mom when she arrives to babysit, and doesn't cry when I leave anymore. Somewhat bitterswe et ;-) The other things that are new are using the remote control with purpose to turn on the tv, physically turning on the tv (although if we ask him to he'll shut it right off again), turning the clock radio in his room on and off, and in fact just yesterday he really impressed Mark by opening up his closed laptop, then turning it off and on about 47 times. What's funny is that he'll often say "off" or "on" as he's doing it! Over the weekend when Michell, Kevin and Brendan were here, there were a few things that I was surprised by - first, that he wanted to play next to Brendan a lot. He's mostly been off in his own world before. Second, that fairly quickly he was able to understand their names - we could say "touch Kevin", or "touch Michelle", and he would go over to them and touch them, of course, saying "touch" as he did it. Finally, they had a little workbench that counted up, "one, two, three..." all the way to ten. He would push the button to make it say one, and then say "TWO". This went on all weekend, so it was definitely intentional.

Toys and games: More taking things out of containers - my pocketbook and toiletry bag were this month's favorites. The BMW car keys are almost like his lovies - we can give them to him when he's upset and he'll calm right down. Also gets quite upset if he wants one of them and can't find it.

Teeth: This month saw Ant's third eye tooth (bottom right) coming through on 10/17, fourth molar (top left) first cut through on 10/21. The last eye tooth seems to be on it's way with a bit more fussing than these other recent ones. Hopefully it cuts soon. Then all we have left are the two year molars!

Feeding: We are now solely on sippy cups, the bottles have all been washed and put away. No complaints at all, which is nice! We give Ant warm milk first thing in the am and for his bedtime, and cold during the day. Figure he might as well get used to it both ways. Not much else new in the food arena, except that he's starting to eat more veggies that are not pureed. He also likes salmon and scrambled eggs now, but only with ketchup. Definitely his father's son!

Sleeping: Routine is still mostly the same, although recently am wakeup time has moved from 5:45-6 to closer to 7. Which is key with the upcoming daylight savings transition! We're pushing everything back 10 min/day this week to try and make that less difficult. I also think that we're at the point where we could go to one nap at any time - Mom had him nap just once last Friday when I wanted to take Ant to my work halloween party and it worked out just fine. We don't need to fully transition until daycare starts at the beginning of Jan, but will probably do it mid this month, when the Rinaldis are back from FL.