16 Months Old!

1. Ian thinks that all of the cars he plays with should have a driver. If he can't find a person (be that of the people that go with the doll house, one of their Little People, a Lego person, etc.), he will put any random object in the driver's seat of the car. It cracks me up! He definitely loves to play with vehicles. Sometimes he even makes sound effects for them. It's so cute!

2. The Robeez shoes were making marks on Ian's ankles so he's been promoted to "real" shoes. Until two days ago (when Grandma brought him his first pair of black Nike sneakers), he's only been wearing a pair of size 4 brown sneakers whenever we leave the house. A free box of shoes from Thredup arrived yesterday in the mail, so Ian now has several pairs of size 4 shoes.

3. We now know Ian is allergic to eggs. He also very prone to catching colds. He sneezes and coughs a lot and always seems to have a runny nose. If you aren't super quick with wiping his nose with a tissue, he will either use his hand (if he's playing by himself) or your shirt to wipe his nose.

4. For a few months I thought that "nana" meant Nadia. I became convinced of that a couple of weeks ago. I now consider Ian to have a 3 word vocabulary: Mama, Dada, and Nana. Nadia isn't pleased that he's saying her name because she wants him to say it correctly. No amount of explaining on my part has convinced her that it's sweet that he's trying to say her name. I guess it's just not something she can appreciate at her age.

5. He's now walking all over the place! Way to go, Ian!

6. Although we still have bad days, and although I'm still very limited in what I can feed him by spoon, most days I can feed him 10.5-16 ounces a day of baby food (fruits or veggies), pudding, or yogurt. He does pretty well with orange veggies as long as he gets a bite of fruit interspersed now and then. Green veggies must be REALLY diluted by fruit, or he'll gag.

7. Ian LOVES to get into my purse. Nadia has thus far never shown any interest in my purse. I need to find a new place to put it. If he realizes he's been caught red handed, he grabs one thing out of my purse (ex. wallet or calendar) and scurries off away from me. He cracks me up! The most annoying thing is if my coupons are in my purse because I have them separated in envelopes, and it's annoying to have to resort them all.

8. His favorite stuffed animal at the moment is Nadia's small Junior (Asparagus). Thankfully she doesn't mind sharing this one with Ian because her two favorites at the moment are Larry (the Cucumber) and Petunia (Rhubarb) also known as "Sweetpea Beauty."

9. Ian will not take any naps in his crib. He will cry for a full hour, but he won't fall asleep unless he's #1 in someone's arms or #2 in his carseat while we're traveling somewhere. In the past month he only took one nap in his crib, it was two days ago and lasted 40 minutes.

10. At night he typically sleeps from about 7:45 or 8:00pm to about 5:30-5:45am. He usually doesn't cry at all when I put him down. He does usually wake up at least once during the night and cry for a few seconds. He sleeps on his belly and as soon as he wakes up in the morning he stands up in his crib. This past weekend he woke up at 6am two days in a row, which was greatly appreciated, but then yesterday he woke up at 5:15am.

11. In addition to vehicles, his favorite toys at the moment are books, the ball popper (he's played with that far more than Nadia ever has), and anything he can push around (Nadia's doll stroller, the Mega Bloks fire engine, etc.). I've been very impressed lately with his attention span for playing by himself. His is longer now than Nadia's has ever been.

12. Ian can destroy a room in just a few minutes. He definitely makes messes more quickly than Nadia ever did. He loves to take bins of toys (ex. Legos) and dump them all out on the floor. I am very grateful that Nadia is getting better at helping me clean up toys because Ian is a one boy wrecking crew!

13. He enjoys playing with Nadia's dollhouse and kitchen. His favorite item of play food is an ice cream cone. Sometimes he carries that cone around for hours!! When he plays with the dollhouse his favorite thing is to put the people and dog in and out of the house by means of the front door. He prefers to play with that side of the dollhouse whereas Nadia prefers the other (open) side.

14. He LOVES to knock down towers (of blocks), and he really loves to be in a swing, which is a big difference from last summer when he didn't want to swing at all.

15. He now weighs 23 pounds. He's staying right along the same line on the growth chart (a little less than 25th percentile).

16. He loves to play with DVD cases. We always had the rule for Nadia that she wasn't allowed to touch a remote, CD, DVD, or DVD case. Well as long as the case is empty we now allow the kids to play with a DVD case. It's an instance of "choose your battles." It's such a big deal to Ian; so we changed our rule.