Myles Monthly: 18

As you may know, I didn't decide to start my blog until my son Myles was about 8 months old. And well... now he is over 2 years old! I'm still trying to get caught up with the monthly updates and monthly favorites, so I can get, and hopefully stay, up to date. 

 January 15th- February 14th, 2014

Health
After getting his first real sickness last month, I thought it was only fair to have at least a month free of any complications. Poor guy needed a break, as did I. But thanks to travel and major climate change coming back from Illinois, he caught a cold. He never really had a long lasting fever, but he had a runny/stuffy nose for 3 weeks! Our Nose Frida literally never left our side for that whole three weeks. It was so frustrating because so many times it seemed like it was getting better, then he would wake up with any even worse runny nose than when we went to sleep. He didn't have any problems sleeping at night and never had any other symptoms. But eventually, I decided to take him to the doctor. She checked him all out and everything was fine, except his 3 week runny nose had turned into an ear infection. 18 months and his first ear infection :( We got medicine to give him 2 times a day for 10 days. It was rough getting him to take it at first, but the last couple of days he finally chilled out and realized it wasn't actually bad. Once the medicine was all gone, his runny nose also finally went away! Thank goodness, because I was feeling so bad for his little red nose and cheeks.

 
In happier and cuter news: hair!
 I was scared to cut Myles' hair for the first time in fear that his curls would go away. It was something that everyone told me would happen and I didn't want to lose one of his best features! Lucky for us, he has taken after his dad and the curls have stayed! I am slightly obsessed with that beautiful mess of a mop on that little boy's head!

Eating
Really no changes since last month's update. Same favorites, and still trying some new things here and there. One new favorite though... pizza:

Rosy cheeks from being sick :(

He also loved to share his food. He thought that feeding adults was the funniest thing ever. He liked to chew/gnaw on apples, but I had to take the skin off first!


As far as nursing goes, he was still going strong... I am not sure if there will ever be a time that this changes! I was working on weaning the number of times that he nursed throughout the day though. Last month, he started weaning his evening nursing time himself, so I just tried to stick with it as much as possible. He did pretty well and I would only give in maybe once a week, if that. Since that was going pretty well, I tried to cut back the day time feedings as well. I noticed that if we were busy throughout the day, he wouldn't need to nurse at all between morning and nap time. Once I noticed that happening more and more, I knew that he didn't need it for nourishment during that time anymore. And so began my efforts to wean daytime nursing. If we were busy (occupied), it was no biggie. However if we were at home just hanging out, he would ask for it a lot. So it seemed like it was mostly out of boredom. I would try and distract him or get his attention on something else to occupy his mind. That worked well most of the time, but of course there were days when he really needed to nurse for whatever reason and eventually I let him. Throughout the month though, we made huge progress!

  Sleeping 

I honestly can't really remember any specifics this month on sleep. His schedule has pretty much been the same since he was 12 months. Bed time from 9pm-8am and one nap from 1pm-3/4pm. I also finally posted his nursery update at the new house.


Saying

He continued to add many new words this month (words that he used consistently): 
Wet, Dark, Burr, Stuck (if he was stuck or in something he didn't want to be in like his highchair or car seat), Truck, Papa, Uh Oh, Outside, Shoes, Socks, Hat, Soapy, Bubbles, Santa
Animal noises: 'moo', 'baa', and 'who who' for monkey

Loved saying goodbye to people, but only after they/he left. He would wave and yell goodbye to inanimate objects all day long as well: fan, TV, train, vacuum, out dog, etc.

Trying to catch a couple of his words on camera.. not an easy task!

Outings

• We started hanging out with our buddy Cameron a couple of times a week this month! We met at the Little Gym a couple months before, but with the Holidays over and such we were able to start getting them together more. They were still mostly into the parallel play thing, but the moments of interaction were too cute for words :) 

• We continued our time at The Little Gym. Myles was still having a great time running around, climbing on everything, and playing with the balls. He did start to get a little removed from practicing the skills and group activities though. At 18 months, he was at the top of the age range in this class and I could tell he was getting a little bored with some parts of the class. I was looking forward to him moving up into the next age group to see if he would do better then. 

  Milestones/Skills

• This month Myles had his very first playdate sans mom and dad. Cameron's mom Leesa offered to watch Myles on Valentine's Day for us since her husband had to work. I was really nervous since Myles had never been with anyone but close family before this and he hadn't been away from us since we moved to California. Normally, I would have found some sort of excuse to not actually go through with it, but I knew that Myles was totally comfortable with Cameron and Leesa. I wasn't sure how the drop off would go, but I figured if he started playing with Cameron, he would be just fine. Funny thing was, he let us leave without even a bat of an eye. He was off and running the second I put him down and never looked back! Even when we picked him up, he didn't run over and yell 'mommy' or anything; didn't even notice we were there again! Official best friend status:

• This month Myles hit a HUGE milestone for Mark. Since Myles was a newborn, Mark did the pound with him, but called it 'boom, boom'. He did it all the time, several times a day, and was waiting for him to finally do it back to him one day. Well it took 18 months, but on January 8th he finally did it! These pictures were from a few days later when I was able to catch it on camera :)

• Myles started getting into imaginative play this month and it was so fun to watch him start to come up with ideas and scenarios all by himself! We were out to eat and I caught him making a cop skateboard!

• This one was a big one for me: out of no where one day he started stacking his blocks! We were sitting in his playroom and he just walked over to his table and starting playing with his block all on his own. I had never seen him do this before so I was shocked. I ran and grabbed my camera to document this awesome first!

• Following in my younger brother's footsteps:

• I finally bought some chalk for Myles' Ikea table and I let him play around with drawing. This was the first time I saw him really try to make a 'drawing/picture'. It was just lines and such, but I could tell he was really thinking and trying to make something.

•  He also found his first favorite TV show! As I have mentioned before, Myles was never really into TV, but this month I put on a couple of shows to see if he would like them. To my surprise, he was instantly hooked on Handy Manny. I really liked that one too :) He watched it once a day or every other day, but he would always go up to the TV and say 'Manny'. 

Funnies and Favorites

• We celebrated Myles' second Valentines Day with a mini photo shoot!

• Ever since I started using my real camera for taking pictures, he became such a ham! He would pose and say 'cheese' for me all the time!

• My most favorite new habit: holding my hand! He started the 'grabbing my hand and taking me where he wanted us to go' routine. I loved it at first.. so cute.. It does get a little tiring after a while though, but he was learning and doing new things, so I always went along with him.

•  Trouble: I learned that having a 'lock' button on the fridge water/ice dispenser is very useful! He could finally reach it and would make a mess with the water everywhere. Also still loving to climb anything and everything... and he was very proud accomplishments!

• Being so animated and having a blast with his Turbo:

• Still loving balls the most: 

 And just because this was too cute:
 

What are new skills your kid(s) are learning?

 

Come back to check out my favorites from months seventeen & eighteen!