22 months old!

As of today I only have two more months of having a one year old child. I have to admit that he has been acting more and more like a (terrible) two year old at times, even though verbally he is not as advanced as either of his siblings were at this age.

Giving Pop Pop "five" during Nadia's soccer game this morning

1. Oliver learned to drink from an open cup this month! We own zero sippy cups for the first time in five years. He's been drinking a lot more water than he ever did before. He hasn't yet mastered the art of being careful holding a cup when not drinking from it. We give him water in a sports bottle when we're out and about.

2. His 22 most frequently used words are NO, Mom/Mommy, Dada, hi, bye bye, cars, ball, cookie, cracker, cheese, uh oh, kick, book, tv, teeth, eye, knee, feet, ni(ght) ni(ght), Nadia, juice, and milk. I will be glad when he cuts back on how often he uses the word NO! I have just started working on having him say "please" and "thank you," hopefully those will be on his "most frequent" list next month.

3. He has an amazing "radar" for anything related to bastketball. It seems he can spot a hoop a mile away, ha ha! Neither of the other two kids have ever had such a strong interest in a particular sport. He likes all balls, but he goes especially crazy over basketballs.

4. He loves CARS. It's one of the words he says multiple times a day. He points them out when he sees one (could be a truck but he still calls it a car). Every time we are in the garage he wants to get in either his Little Tikes car or one of Nadia and Ian's motorized cars.

Eating ketchup by itself!

5. He adores ketchup. He is fine with eating it all by itself. He continues to be a great eater in general. Keep it up, Oliver, pretty please! He needs to work on using his fingers less and silverware more and to stop throwing food on the floor.

6. He gives the BEST hugs. I love it when he squeezes me super tightly. He's still maintaining a reputation as a snuggler. At the choir picnic on Wednesday night I had a hard time prying him out of Cheyenne's arms (a teenager) as he was cuddling with her.

7. His nap has gotten longer! Many days it is close to 2 hours long these days, and once recently it was close to 3 hours long! His nap is rarely less than 90 minutes long.

8. He no longer calls me "mama." Most of the time he calls me "mommy, "and occasionally he calls me "mom."

9. He loves cheese. He has at least one slice of white American cheese almost every day.

10. While we were on vacation he woke up WAY too early (between 5:30-6:15 every day in the Poconos), but at home he has been sleeping later than usual. Most days he wakes up between 7:15-7:30am, and a couple of mornings he slept a full 12 hours (all the way until 8:00am)! Oliver used to be the first child up in this house, but that distinction now goes to Ian.

11. In the past few weeks he's started putting some fingers in his mouth from time to time. It's not the traditional thumb sucking like Nadia, but I am trying to curtail it before it becomes a habit since at the age of almost six we are STILL working on breaking that habit with Nadia.

12. He weighs 26.25 pounds, which puts him at the 55th percentile for weight, and that's NOT using an adjusted chart. Way to grow, Oliver!