16 Months!

Can you believe it? Isn't he adorable in the outfit Aunt Ginny got for him? He gained a few ounces this last month, he's been eating like crazy. The other day, he ate almost an entire papaya, the big ones! Well, I helped, but still... he ate a lot. He LOVES his fruit and if you don't make him a smoothie he will point at the blender and grunt (like the motor sounds) or he will find a cup and signal "please" over and over. He has learned even more signs, too many to keep track of... giraffe, cow, clean up, again, car, zebra, tiger, ball, blueberry, strawberry.

He's been talking a little more, saying things like: Roman, ball, thank you, nose, digger (back hoe), tiger, good job, sun, tree, poop and no. Many of them don't quite sound right, but we know what he means. He also says, "mmmm...mmmm....mmmm" and "yum yum" while he eats, it's pretty funny.

Another tooth came in and he is pottying and sleeping better now then he did last month. He very much enjoys standing up to pee now, and he will sit on the pot in the morning for up to 15 minutes, reading his books and then he'll poop and hold his little hands way up in the air and sign, "finished" and he says, "di di" which is what finished sounds like.

He is getting better at throwing balls and kicking. And he insists on using his fork for everything he eats now. He loves to tickle us and say, "tickle tickle!" Oh, and I'm very excited that he is a little more independent now. I can be in the kitchen and he will go off to his room to retrieve something; or I can walk out of the room and he doesn't even bat an eye.

This is a picture of him playing with his puzzles. He was able to do the brightly colored one (at the bottom of the pic) a couple of months ago; it's edges are very smooth and easy to fit. Recently, he's starting doing his barnyard and jungle animal puzzles as well as the one with trucks and cars. The letters and numbers puzzles on the other hand, he just dumps and leaves. Obviously, he is VERY interested in animals and trucks.

He likes to carry around the word elephant too. After he started doing his "elephant" incessantly, I wrote the word down for him and now if you show him the card, he will do an elephant for you. Pretty cool that he can remember words like that, or "read" but I'm still on the fence about whether to bother him with too much "whole language" as oppose to phonetic learning, or picking it up as we read together and sounding things out. I'm sure a little of each won't hurt. : )