Hellobee

Month 19 of Charlie’s life brought about the biggest changes to date. There must be a reason that a lot of the daycares in our area only accept toddlers from 18 months and up — I think that’s the turning point when most toddlers really start communicating effectively verbally.  Charlie is now talking up a storm and actually making sense!

Talking

Charlie had a language explosion not only in terms of learning new words, but also in how he uses them. He regularly puts 2-3 words together to form sentences (where go car, mama my wawa, etc). Previously he would mostly use his words to associate them with objects, like pointing to a pair of shoes and saying “shoes,” whereas now he is usually communicating something like asking us to take off his shoes.  At 15 months he could say 7 words, at 16 months 20 words, 17 months 30 words, 18 months 40 words, 19 months 50 words, and at almost 20 months he can say almost 100 words. He’s learned about 50 words in the past month — more than one new word every day. Some of his new words are sit, outside, rice, wash, cow, moo, owl, hoo hoo, jump, knock knock, blocks, yes, where, clock, all done, and bus.

I have a friend whose baby is about a month and a half older than Charlie and the past two times we’ve hung out, I’ve been impressed with how many words her son knows. Then the following month Charlie has a little language explosion of his own (months 15 & 18) when he’s the same age as my friend’s baby. One month really does make a huge difference at this age. Charlie regularly puts two words together but still has trouble with three syllable words. I think he’s about average when it comes to his vocabulary — he can say a lot more words than some toddlers his age, but his little girlfriends are already speaking in sentences. Girls just seem to be way faster with language than boys.

Now that Charlie has a decent sized vocabulary, he has become much more adamant when he wants something because he knows we understand him. He is always asking to go outside, be picked up, be put down, hold his hand, or for us to sit next to him. Whining has become more frequent when he doesn’t get what he wants, which have shown me how little patience I have. It could be that I’m pregnant, but it’s more likely that I’m just not a patient a person when it comes to tantrums. But then I feel guilty for getting mad and in the end he wins because I’m a pushover.

I think it’s definitely harder now than when he was younger because he’s walking/climbing/running/making mischief + talking with plenty of his own opinions when he wants something.  But it’s also so much more fun and rewarding at this age, and this is definitely my favorite stage to date. Charlie is still a happy baby that cracks us up everyday with what he does and says. He was in such a good mood yesterday he was just dancing on the sidewalks for blocks. We were out at a restaurant and the owner commented that Charlie had the best laugh he’d ever heard. He’s so affectionate and it’s so apparent how much he loves us. I’d be happy if we have another Charlie.

Sleep Training

Since sleep training the second time last month, Charlie’s sleep has been back on track at bedtime and naptime. The only sucky part is that he’s been waking up at 5:10am most days. Sometimes we get lucky and it’s 6:00 – 6:30, but he’s pretty much been a clock the past couple of weeks… how does his body know it’s 5:10am? You can cry it out for early morning wake-ups, but the couple of times we tried Charlie just cried until it was time to wake up for the day. If he can only sleep 10 hours at night, I don’t think we can force him to sleep 11-12. Early morning wakeups are the hardest sleeping problems to solve. I’m hoping he starts sleeping in when it gets darker in the fall, and because he’s more tired from being at daycare.

Eating

Charlie still hates eating, which is my biggest concern once he starts daycare. He always eats better when he’s around other children though, so I’m really hoping daycare fixes his eating problems. He eats such little quantities that he gets hungry every 2-3 hours, and they’re just not going to feed him that frequently. The boy has to learn how to go a 4 hour stretch!

I’ve been trying to introduce as many new foods as I can to stuff his little face, and now he eats a pretty decent variety. The problem is that even with foods he likes, sometimes he’ll eat it all, sometimes he won’t have a bite, and sometimes he’ll just have a couple of bites. We pretty much have to force him to eat for most of his meals so that he’ll eat enough. What I’ve been doing lately is just offering small amounts of food in 2 oz containers, but lots of variety. It often results in a lot of food that’s thrown away, but I gotta get the boy to eat. This is everything he will eat: crackers, string cheese, yogurt, blueberries (dried and fresh), blueberry pancakes, broccoli & cauliflower sauteed in soy sauce, cucumbers, breakfast sausage, garlic bread, croissants, seaweed soup, beef porridge, turnip soup, rice cake soup, rice, and dried seaweed.

TV

Charlie has never shown much interest in tv. People said we were lucky, but I wanted him to like tv so he could sit still for half an hour while I cooked or got things done. Lately he’s super into Youtube videos! His favorites are musical ones with Elmo, the Muppets and Teletubbies. He’s not really into actual cartoons and seems to prefer puppets. It’s been great because he’ll watch 30 minutes of videos in the morning and the evening and it gives us a chance to rest, and also stuff his face with food because he’s so into watching the videos.   Now he asks for us to play them by name.  He sings! He dances! He’s a little character.

Potty Training – Charlie had been pooping and peeing on the toilet pretty much every morning since the second day of potty training for a couple of weeks. But then one day he decided he didn’t want to sit on the potty anymore, and we haven’t been pushing him hard at all out of laziness.

Charlie’s loves me and Mr. Bee more and more.  As soon as our nanny brings him through our front door he’s always yelling, “Mama!” or “Mommy!” He gives me great big hugs all the time. He constantly wants to hold my hand and drags me wherever he wants me to play with him. He loves sitting in my lap and reading books. I feel like he loves me so much! This is what makes parenting so rewarding. It’s hard not to love him!