19 Months Old!

1. Ian finds the word "phew" to be very funny. He laughs every time I say it! :-)

2. He voices his objections VERY strongly when he doesn't get his way. I'm looking forward to him getting to the point where tantrums aren't quite such a frequent occurence. Thank goodness his vomiting problem was corrected before he reached the tantrum stage!!!!!

3. The only word he says clearly is "no." He even says it when he's doing something he is not supposed to do, so he definitely understands what it means. He also says "ello" when he's playing with a phone, "ya" or something like that for Larry, "Doh" for "go" (when he's running), "Na" when pointing to a picture of Nadia, and "Ba" for ball and Bob (the tomato). He also sometimes says "woah" and "yay." So he's making some progress although he's still not where he "should" be for his age.

4. He's still only napping in either my arms, the stroller, or the carseat. Lately he's been back to taking two naps a day although some days he still has one long nap rather than two shorter ones. Ideally I'd prefer he had one nap that was during the time Nadia napped. For example on Sunday (thanks to Motrin due to his fever) he slept in my arms for 3 hours while Nadia was also napping. Yesterday he only took a 15 minute nap in the car. That wasn't good! I never thought I'd have a 19 month old who truly had no schedule when it came to naps, but that's exactly the situation we're in now. Karen (OT) said today that we should just start letting him CIO and get him to spend 2 hours in his crib every afternoon. Hopefully that will be a reality before he turns 20 months old

5. Sometimes he still wakes up too early (4:55 yesterday morning for example), but he generally doesn't cry very much before he goes back to sleep. Most days I go get him around 6:30am. He goes to bed around 7:45pm. I think the room darkening shade is helping.

6. He loves to run! Running around the dining room table is one of his favorite things to do. He thinks it's hysterical! It's a problem when we're at a place like the library as he just wants to GO no matter where we are.

7. He's doing better with me clipping his nails, but he still has a complete meltdown when I cut his hair.

8. He does well in the stroller and the carseat, but lately he's not doing well in the shopping cart. He wants me to hold him, and that's hard to do while I'm pushing the cart!

9. He weighs 24lbs 4 oz (23.5 percentile).

10. He'll watch whatever Nadia is watching on tv. He likes to stand right close to the tv (not good) so instead I try to hold him in my lap on the couch. I think his favorite show is Curious George.

11. Crying and laughing don't cause him to throw up any more. PTL! He might gag from time to time on something I'm feeding him, which he doesn't like, but as far as projectile vomiting goes, at the most he does that once a week.

12. He has six teeth - two on the top and four on the bottom.

13. He prefers to wear clothing that has animals on it.

14. He loves to lick finger food - saltine crackers, Wheat Thins, pretzels, Froot Loops, Cheerios, Puffs, etc. I am one who really, really hates to waste food. I am not sure why it bothers me so much, but it does. At first I was encouraged when Ian liked to lick something. At this point I just see this HUGE pile of food he goes through (it's really and truly a large quantity), but he doesn't consume any of it. He just licks it and then discards it, and I have to throw it away. It's starting to feel like a big waste to me, but I'm trying to remind myself that this too shall pass. Some day he'll be eating food not just licking it.

15. Just this week I switched him from a high chair to booster seat. He made that switch at a younger age than Nadia did. He was the one who let me know he wanted to sit in seat!

16. He loves his EleCare. It can be unflavored, but he prefers vanilla. It must be warm, and it must be in a Munchkin sippy cup. He'll just go hungry rather than drink from another one. Tomorrow we're going to learn if he'll drink Almond milk because we ran out of EleCare today because the seller on eBay said he/she would ship the case on July 7 but actually didn't ship it until July 11. I went ahead an ordered another case today so we should be set for a month once these two cases arrive. I'm going to ask on Thursday how long Ian is supposed to stay on the EleCare as it costs us about $210 a month.

17. He loves it when we read books to him.

18. He loves vehicles. It always cracks me up how when we go to the playground Nadia pays no attention to the cars, trucks, and motorcycles that go by on the road that can be seen from the playground whereas Ian spends a lot of time watching all the vehicles go by.

19. Ian is back to screaming with almost every bite. Maybe he'll qualify as the most strong willed child this psychologist has ever worked with. Sigh. He can now eat applesauce and baby cereal without gagging as well as small bits of fruit mixed in with that which has gone through the Magic Bullet. He's definitely making tiny steps of progress albeit eating table food seems light years away.