Myles Monthly: 19

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. 

 February 15th- March 14th, 2014

Health
Finally nothing bad to report here! After the last two months (17 and 18), I very much welcomed a month with no new sicknesses. He did get two new teeth (his top eye teeth) this month, but per usual, it wasn't that big of a deal. His hair was as crazy, beautiful as ever (see pictures below) and we just generally had a really good month!

Eating
Finally got this kid to eat more! He still really wouldn't eat much for breakfast (usually just fruit) because he nursed for a while when he first woke up. He would eat a really good lunch. Dinner was hit or miss. Sometimes he would eat a lot and other times he barely touched any of his food. I never really made a conscious decision in regards to how I would handle eating situations with Myles; I really just fell into the thought of not pushing it on him. I don't see any point or reason to force him to eat or punish him for not eating. I ask him to please eat more or try a certain food, but when he tells me he is done, I let him be done. 

Some of his new favorites this month: eggs, cheese, fries, fruit snacks, jello, and noodles.

Sword fighting with corn on the cob :)

Turkey dogs and fries (we shared)!

He also got to taste his very first ice cream cone. I actually didn't plan on getting him any because he never ate any when I would offer him some at home. I bought a cone for myself and then gave it to him to let him try... and I never got it back! He has yet to ever do this again though.

 Still breastfeeding of course. In the morning he would wake up crying. I would go get him and bring him back into bed with me to nurse for about an hour (mixed with playing). Then he typically wouldn't nurse again until nap time. I talked last month about how we were weaning our daytime nursings and that continued to go well. It was very rare that he would ask to nurse during the daytime now. He would nurse throughout nap time and then again right before bed for 10 minutes. 
I was very happy to finally be down to 3 times a day. It was beginning to take a toll on me when he would still want to be nursing all day long. It took a couple of months because I really just let him do it on his own (with a little distraction and redirection from me), but he did great and we adjusted well.

  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.


Saying

He continued to add many new words this month (words that he used consistently): 
Cheese, Dobbey (our dog's name), doggie, flippy (for skateboard), rock, milk (the word he used for any liquid even though he didn't drink milk other than breastmilk directly form me)

Animal noises: added oink noise
Began using two words together like: daddy's shoes, Elmo wet

And true to toddler form his answer to everything was "NO!" even when he really wanted to say yes :)

Outings

• At the beginning of this month I took Myles to the Exploratorium to celebrate his half birthday. Okay.. I am sure some of you may think that is a bit crazy but I love to celebrate any/all milestones. It's not something I will do forever, but at this age with so much growing and learning, even just every six months can feel like a whole year has gone by. He didn't get gifts or a cake or anything; just took him to a fun place. We invited our friends Cameron and Leesa to come. The Exploratorium is a hands-on, science based museum. So even though most of the stuff there was way above their age, the boys had fun with what they could play with. Myles, of course, spent most of his time playing with the beach ball that was being held up by air. He couldn't figure it out and would get mad until I dropped the ball down far enough that he could reach it. He couldn't understand how the ball was up so high in the air. Pretty much the greatest part of my day!

•  We also spent a day at a small little amusement park with Cameron this month. They loved the train the most and Myles enjoyed this carousal ride.

• Lots of park time, of course. Our dog is getting very old and can't walk a lot so we don't take him to the park very much, but when we do it is a total treat for Myles. This was the first time he got to 'walk' him around and he thought it was the coolest thing ever! 

• My dad came to visit us this month too! We loved having him and Myles loved that there was another person to take by the hand and lead around to every place he went all day long. We took a trip to San Fransisco, lots of outdoor time, and playing around the house.

   Milestones/Skills

• 99% of all the parks out here have climbing walls. It wasn't ever anything I noticed in Illinois, so I guess it is just a popular apparatus in California. Myles had wanted to climb up this wall so badly the first couple of times we went to this park. I am not tall enough to help him get very far up, so when daddy and grandpa came along, he took full advantage of their height. He was so happy and proud of himself for making it up. And in true Myles fashion, he wanted to do it over and over and over!

• Okay so this is a really silly mommy moment, but I had to. No Myles is not going to school or daycare... I just had to buy this cute Elmo backpack for him (since I stopped carrying a diaper bag) and when he asked to put it on and walk down the street, I had to take pictures. So ridiculous, I know, but also ridiculously cute!

• Lifting weights of course! My dad is just as goofy as us so we love having him around. He put Myles' shoes on the end of a metal pole and told Myles it was for lifting weights. One of the cutest things I have ever seen!

• We finally got Myles his first basketball hoop and he made his first basket!

Funnies and Favorites

•  Just another testament to my dad's goofy and fun nature is the fish 'tank' he set up for Myles. For some crazy reason, he came up with the idea to put some goldfish into Myles' water table! So we picked up some at the pet store and Myles literally had the time of his life. He was utterly amazed by the fish and couldn't stop trying to touch them and pick them up! (more fish playing shenanigans)

• We also used our water table for some bird seed playing. Mark got me a bird house and seed for Valentine's Day and Myles quickly took to being the resident bird seed handler. First we played with it like sand, then we sat in it, and then we grabbed handfuls and reached to the sky to try and feed the birds!

• Getting goofier by the day I tell ya! Astronaut bag head and nap time in basketball hoop boy:

•  I wanted to take some pictures of Myles in this sweater because it was my absolute favorite and he was about to grow out of it. So we did a little mini photo shoot in the house and this is what he gives me:

• Myles has always been really obsessed with our cat. However our cat is not one to like to be messed with or touched more than just a pet on the back. I feel so bad for Myles because he wants to play with him so badly, but anytime Myles gets close to him he runs away. So this is a very rare photo:

 

What are new milestones your kid(s) are reaching?