23 Months Old

1. Ian's favorite pair of shoes used to be his blue Winnie the Pooh sneakers. Now his favorite shoes are a pair of brown sneakers. Ian loves to wear shoes. He sometimes wants me to put them on even when he's wearing footed pjs! He wears shoes just about any time he's not in his crib.

2. As soon as he gets out of the car (while in the garage), he takes off his jacket. The rest of us wait until we are inside the house to shed our coats. At the moment his favorite jacket is a maroon windbreaker. Unfortunately the weather is not always warm enough for me to let him wear that one.

3. He loves to sing! I don't always understand what he's trying to sing, but I love hearing his sweet singing voice. I can tell that he has memorized a lot of lyrics to a lot of songs. Some of his favorites include The Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Twinkle, Down by the Bay, and the VeggieTales theme song.

4. He also has memorized some of the words to some books such as Miss Mary Mack and Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?. My guess is that he's memorized far more than I realize.

5. He had a big breakthrough over the past month in his nap. There are still days when he takes a short nap (23 minutes yesterday, for example), but a typcial nap for Ian is now 50 minutes!!! Unlike his sister (who is getting up WAY too early every morning), he made the DST switch and is sleeping until 7:00am (with the exception of this morning when he woke up at 4:45am, but he went back to sleep after crying for several minutes).

6. Thanks to the Duocal, he's gotten back up to 25.25 lbs. I am adding 300 calories a day through Duocal. This puts him up at the 20th percentile (he was at the 12th last week at the Dietician).
7. He has been really attached to his stuffed animals lately. When I put him in his crib, I have to put a stuffed animal under each of his arms (he sleeps on his belly). He hasn't been consistent in which are his favorites. For awhile it was two dogs (one is a husky), but he also has been clingy with a kitty, pig, chicken, monkey, etc.
8. He's now drinking rice drink  (32 ounces a day) in addition to pureed foods. Milk, soy, eggs, peanuts, oats, and cinnamon are all currently on the "to be avoided" list. I have found that almond milk works better than rice drink or coconut milk for making him pudding. I add rice cereal to almost every meal.

9. His favorite shirt is one with a moose on it. As for his Sunday clothes, he prefers the vests that have vehicles on them. He has VERY strong opinions about what clothes he wants to wear. Many tears are shed while I get him dressed.                                          10. His vocabulary continues to explode. He has tried to count to ten. He usually skips some numbers in the middle, but he'll say 7, 8, 9, and 10 at the end.

11. He knows the colors yellow, orange, red, blue, and green. He's correctly identified a couple of letters (E, H). He can correctly identify quite a few shapes: triangle, moon, heart, star, square, etc.

12. He says a variety of two word phrases such as "my shoes, " "clean up," "thank you," "wear it," and "all done."

13. He cries when I'm feeding him anything other than pudding, and sometimes he even cries with pudding. Once when that happened Nadia said to him, "For Pete's sake, it's only pudding, Ian!"  On Tuesday Karen suggested that I start crushing some Gerber puffs and give him that by spoon so that he can learn to eat solid food that's not mixed in with a puree. He's just been throwing up whenever I try that, and in fact I think that's the reason he's been regressing this week. Yesterday I had to change his outfit after every meal. It was all I could do not to burst into tears during dinner. It's no wonder Paul doesn't come home from school in time for dinner. Dinner isn't a pleasant place to be given Nadia's aversion to all vegetables and Ian's aversion to everything that's served via a spoon. A lot of crying takes place at the dinner table. Thus far it hasn't been from me, but some days I think I'll make it a trio.

14. He has gotten better about throwing pretzels on the floor after he's done licking them. I started to make him clean up the mess after every meal, and this strategy worked wonders. I should have thought of doing it this way a few months ago. He now knows to ask for "more" when he wants more pretzels (instead of just crying). He goes through a LOT of pretzels every day.

15. He's started hitting Nadia, unfortunately. Thankfully it's really a very gentle touch (doesn't hurt one iota). As he does it, he says "ow." I am trying to teach him that we don't hit! I think most of the time he does it to get her to chase him. He loves to be chased!!!

16. He can't stand to walk through leaves. I couldn't get a picture of him sitting or lying in leaves. He will go out of his way to walk around them. If I hold his hand and he has to walk through leaves, he screams (even though he's wearing shoes, socks, and pants). I have no idea why it's so traumatic.

17. He's also gone back to crying when I brush his teeth and making it almost impossible to trim his nails. It's also a tragedy when I change his diaper in the morning. He often has a full blown tantrum. It's a challenge to clean him and put a clean diaper on him while he's screaming, kicking, and arching his back! He also stands by the gate and cries whenever I go upstairs even if I'm only gone for a minute or two.

18. He loves to watch VeggieTales. He asks to watch it every time I put him in the car. I only turn it on if #1 I am afraid he will fall asleep in the car (particularly if it's around 11am or noon) or #2 if we're going to be in the car for more than an hour (which doesn't happen much any more now that we can go to local doctors).

19. He's getting much better at going up and down the stairs. Sometimes he goes up and down by walking (instead of crawling). I have to hold his hand to keep him safe.

20. His puzzle skills have greatly improved in the past month. He can now do peg puzzles all by himself!

21. He's gotten better over the past month with not crying as much when I drop him off in the nursery on Sunday mornings. He's also been doing better lately with not crying while I shower and get dressed in the morning.

22. He loves to hold my phone when we're talking to one of his Grandmas. He still constantly tries to get his hands on the tv remote and my purse (in particular my wallet).

23. He still loves vehicles of all types! It comes in  handy as I can throw several matchbox cars in the diaper bag, and that keeps him entertained for a large portion of Nadia's gymnastics class. I do let him play on the equipment for part of her class. He does really well on the balance beams!

In only one month my baby will turn two years old! Gasp!