17 Months

William turned 17 months a few weeks ago - nearly 1 1/2!

17 months on the 4th of July in NC

The past few months have been amazing in terms of what William "gets" now. He's:

• Answering questions like, "What does a pig say?" <<insert pig noise>>
• Acknowledges me when I ask questions like, "Where is your green blanket?" Runs into his bedroom and pulls his favorite blanket out of his crib.
• Responds when I say, "Let's put your shoes on now." Grabs the nearest shoes, runs to the front door and sits down waiting for me to put his shoes on.
• He has a lot of body parts down - nose, ears, teeth, head. Whenever I get him up from a nap, he likes me to lean forward so he can point out mama's nose before leaving his crib.
• He knows a lot of words too - maybe he needs a translator (aka me), but says a good amount:
  Car, keys, Maggie, mama, dada, cracker, shoes, truck, dog, Maggie, cup, and all time FAVORITE word is ball. He spots a "ball" every where we go and it's not unusual for him to run up to strangers playing with a ball and try to intercept it.

A few of his favorite toys nowadays are -- any type of ball, his new baseball bat - He lifts the ball on the base then uses the bat to hit the ball, Legos are the newest hit - I bought a big bag for him and he sits there stacking them as high as they'll go, books - though he isn't the greatest at sitting still for the whole story. He loves to flip through by himself and point at different things then make funny noises.

The tantrums are popping up too. I can see the frustration in that he wants help, but can't express what he needs. He'll run up to me and just wail with a worried expression on his eyes - which means follow me, I need you NOW! The result being... sippy cup refill necessary OR my green blanket is stuck in my crib and I can't pull him out OR the ball is underneath the table and I can't reach it. 

He is VERY attached to Matt or rather "dada" nowadays. He went through a huge attachment to Matt a few months ago before we moved and it dissipated. Now it is back! The funny thing is the separation anxiety is when he's not even separated from Matt. He's upset if Matt is in the house and not holding him. Matt walks to another room (William is free to follow him if he'd like), but instead of just following for fun William breaks into tears. Once Matt leaves altogether William is fine though. It is very sweet how much he loves his dada!

Cuddling with dada

William's absolute favorite thing and can't live without right now is "Green blanket" - yes the most creative name we have for it. The blanket was a gift from one of my mom's friends in D.C. We didn't encourage the attachment, but William has grown very, very fond of it. So much so that our A++ sleeper the other night wasn't falling asleep for some reason (chatting away in bed) then we realized... oh, green blanket is here in the family room. Brought green blanket in and he went straight to bed. I have a mini green blanket (it's actually blue, but the same type) that sits in the car. The mini blanket does the trick with car rides when they're on the longer side. William still doesn't like to be in the car for long, so at least mini blanket makes him feel better. And he's still sucking his thumb when he's tired. As soon as he spots green blanket or a soft stuffed animal, he associates it with bedtime, pops his thumb in and is happy to hit the hay.

Green blanket and Dog. Ready for bed.

Mr. Independent. He wants to do so much more by himself, which is great! He wants to hold all his blocks by himself, he wants to hold the keys and try to unlock the front door. He wants to hold Maggie's leash when we're walking.

I'm gonna carry these all by myself...

He's also officially down to 1 nap a day. It was kind of tough figuring out the transition from 2 naps to 1 nap mostly because of swim. Swim was in the morning and it would wear him out. So his 1st nap was delayed due to the timing of swim and he couldn't hold on until the 2nd nap, so he was sleeping early - like, 11am early. Then not wanting to go down again later in the afternoon. It was weeks of not knowing exactly what he needed. He was tired, but not so tired for two naps... confusing, yes. Once swim wrapped up it became much easier to get him down later in the day. It started at 11:30a and now we are very close to 1p. 12:30pm is probably more the norm and hopefully we can get to 1p in the coming weeks before little sis arrives!

Speaking of teeth - lots of new ones popping through. 5 right now actually. He will have a full mouth in the next couple weeks. Those molars looked so painful coming through and definitely contributed to some crankiness - understandably so.

Overall, William is a super active little man. Very interested in every single thing in the world around him. He wants to run constantly and explore constantly. He loves clapping, he LOVES waving and blowing kisses at everyone (especially truck drivers ha!). Has a ton of fun at the Y daycare playing with all the different kids and toys, which makes me think he will adore school in the fall. He's super affectionate - not unusual for him to run up to me randomly without prompting at all and give me a smooch. He definitely reserves the most kisses for his mama :) Laughs hard and is quick to pick up new knowledge. He definitely impresses us each and every day!

Cracking up at the dolphin show at Seaworld

We haven't learned dolphin just yet! Cow, dog, pig for now.

Always running! How most pictures look nowadays.

This was a LONG post, but so much to report on William. His 18 month (1.5 years old!) wellness appointment is next week. I love those wellness visits. Can't wait to check on his progress!