18 Months of Bliss

My Boy is growing up! He is 18 months old. He has been to nursery at church, and LOVED it. He has been to the doctor for his 18 month check up and was pronounced, "Smart, Curious and Healthy".

Here are his stats-

Height- 34 inches 90% (Average height for his age is 32.3 inches)

Weight- 26.5 Pounds 60 % (Average weight for his age is 25.9 pounds)

Head- 18.9 inches 57% (he is getting a big head- at 2 weeks old his head was only 20%)

I found out that he is a normal 18 month old.

He uses 8-10 words regularly, though some of those words are not full words like Ba for Ball and Bu for Book, he knows what they mean and that is what counts. I am also counting "Ta Daaaa" which his dad taught him how to say and I hear several times a day- when do I hear "Ta Daaaa"? 1-when changing a diaper- it is always nice to hear "Ta Daaaa" right after you pull back a diaper and discover a stinky mess. 2- when Baby J has climbed onto something high like the back of the couch, the kitchen table or the piano, at least he announces it so that if I am in the other room I can go get him down. 3. Whenever he feel like it, "Ta Daaaa" is usually accompanied by his winning smile. It is pretty cute.

He is also become a picky little eater on occasion, which I have been assured is perfectly normal for a kid his age.

Baby J's doctor encouraged us to start using Time Outs on a regular basis. He said that we should pick two or three "Behaviors" that we would like to change, like Throwing food, Biting or

digging in the Trash, and enforce a time out when these behaviors occur. Time out should last 1 minute for every year of life, the child's life not the parents and he recommended using the child's bedroom as the time out location. I saw a flaw in this, mainly the loft. Yes I could take the ladder to the loft down, but where would I put it? There really wasn't a good place, so I decided to buy a Super Yard, basically a free standing pen, it comes with 6 panels, I removed one and Voila! A perfect Gate to keep a very monkey like boy off the ladder to the loft when he is alone.

It wasn't too much later that we heard some rustling in the kitchen and found this.

Yes, he had gotten into the flour, apparently flour is yummy..............and fun to spread all over the floor. I have said before, his cuteness is only equaled by his naughtiness, this picture is proof.

So to his room for 90 seconds of time out he went! We quickly discovered that his room is not quite baby proof.

Yes, that is Vaseline, he would grab a hand full of Vaseline and then try to get it off his hand, the only thing that worked was throwing it. Yeah, Vaseline on the Carpet.......... we decided that we were not quite ready for more time outs. I knew he could open cabinet doors, but he had never opened that one before- it was totally off my radar. Baby J has better Radar than me.

The next day I heard him playing with the silverware, pretty common, I don't have issues with it, but this day he added to his routine- apparently the silverware (or plastic spoons in this case) needed a little Salt. You can't really see it, but about 1/4 of the shaker is now on the spoons.

He is my Boy, and I love him. In the week since the first Time Out I have moved the Vaseline from the cabinet beneath his changing table. I am now in the process of completing the baby proofing for the kitchen/bathrooms/and his bedroom. How we made it this long without having child locks on everything, I don't know.