18 Months

Where has the time gone? This little guy... is now this big guy. (Just practicing drinking from a water bottle... we still have a ways to go.)

Charlie now weighs in at 27.7 lbs (70%) and is at 34" in height (90%). It is looking more like he will be long and lean.

This past month has brought some definite fun and definite frustration. On the fun front, Charlie's verbal skills are really coming along. It is like the flood gates opened and now he will attempt to say almost anything. He now will call for "mama" or "dada" from his crib, will tell us if he wants the lights on, and will tell us if he wants juice/milk/snack verbally. It's fun to hear his attempts as sometimes they don't come out perfectly. He talks about his teacher, Ms. Mary, often... except that it comes out "Manny". Pretty cute. His favorite book still tends to be "Charlie's World" where he can look at all of his family members and call them by name.

On the frustration front, he is definitely at the stage where he is pushing the limits and trying to see what he can get away with. One day he decided to stand on his slide and jump up before sliding down to see what Patrick would do, so Patrick kept putting him in time out because he wouldn't "sit on his bottom". The next day he tried the same thing out with me. (At this point I didn't know he had tried it with Patrick just the day before.) I just let him do it knowing that either a) he would fall and get hurt or b) he would be doing this time and time again as boys do, so he really needed to learn how to do it without getting hurt. After 10 million times of standing on the slide without getting hurt (and scaring me every time), I just kicked the slide over and said "Uh oh, slide broken" and he moved on to something else. Lately though, my biggest saving grace has been to offer choices. We are now in the phase where eating is not a priority to him, so to get him to eat and not throw a fit, I offer many choices. Do you want to sit in the little chair or the big chair?, Do you want this plate or that one?, Do you want want this bite or this bite? (I have 2 different utensils with 2 different things on them). It's a challenge to always stay ahead of the game and "plan" out the choices, but it is totally worth the sanity that it brings to my day!