18 Months Old!

Today Caleb is eighteen months old! And boy is he good at it!

His stats: 34" tall (91%), 26 lbs (52%) and 20" head circumference (98%)

Loves to eat: strawberries, apples, jelly beans, bananas, peas, corn, carrots with Ranch dressing (he may have some kind of allergy to it since his face turns red and blotchy for an hour or so after eating it), bean burritos with hot sauce, cheese crisps, pasta, peanut butter sandwiches, hot dogs, shredded cheese and Reese's.

He can eat his meals by himself with his spoon and usually eats whatever Allen and I eat. He always at least tries what we're eating before letting us know if he doesn't like it and gets upset if he doesn't get to try it. He can drink out of a cup very well but because he loves to throw things so often, he uses a sippy cup still. They need to rethink their advertising with those spill-proof cups... We have yet to find one that Caleb doesn't spill.

Loves taking baths, especially with bubbles. He loves all things bubble-related, and says the word bubble very well: blowing bubbles, if he points to the kitchen sink and says bubble, it means he wants to do dishes, bubble is also his word for soap, shampoo and toothpaste. He loves to brush his teeth and doesn't like help.

Loves to read. His favorite book for a few months was Dr. Suess's ABC book, which has just been replaced by Fish Out of Water over the past couple of days. He loves the alphabet! He flips through our Ensign (church magazine) not looking at pictures, but pointing out the capital letters.  Any clothing with letters on them are pointed to and said out loud multiple times a day. He can put his alphabet puzzle together. Grammy brought alphabet bath toys and if you ask Caleb to find a letter, he can find almost any of them but only says a, b, d, w, and i consistently.

He sleeps in a big boy bed and never used to get out until Mom or Dad came to get him in the morning or after his nap. Now he stays in bed when he wants to sleep but gets out to read books by the nightlight (he doesn't have any toys in his room). I've heard him get out of bed in the middle of the night, but he just reads and gets back in bed to go to sleep. Sometimes it makes for less sleep for him and a grumpier boy during the day, but now that getting out of bed is less of a novelty, he stays in bed more during the night and just gets out in the morning.

It has been a relief because instead of staying in bed and yelling for me to come get him, he is content to hang out by himself in his room while I feed Leila or get dressed or brush my teeth. It is really cute to walk in and see him just sitting or laying by the night light reading one of his books.

Some of the words he can say are: dog, truck, garbage truck, bus, light, Leila, mom, dad, drink, milk, banana, dropped it, where is it/she/he? (always with his hand up), duck, ball, stairs (refers to either downstairs or upstairs, whichever direction he wants to go), uh, no, yes, this, that, car, bye, hi, ... and he jabbers a lot. He also likes to point to thungs and have me say what it is repeatedly.

The word hot denotes any uncomfortable feeling or dangerous situation. If we're at the park and the swing is cold or when he holds an ice cube, he exclaims , "hot!". If he has a bad diaper rash and it hurts when we wipe him, he grabs and says hot! Anything that comes out of the microwave is hot and must touch it multiple times with his hand before eating it. We told him
When he gets really excited, he goes "dadadadadaddada" at machine gun speed, usually accompanied by flailing arms and running in place.

He understands and responds to almost everything. Sometimes we have to re-phrase how we say it before he gets it but he usually understands when we ask/tell hims something.

Animals other than cat, duck and dog are not called by name, just by what they say. Cows say mmmmm, a horse sounds like a laugh, a dog's woof is air breathed out through pursed lips, a pig's oink is just a breath through the nose and sheep sound is similar to a horse. A frog just sticks his tongue out.

Tangled and Despicable Me have taken a backseat to his current favorite movie: 101 Dalmatians (real people version). He loves to pet any dog or cat that will let him. There are a couple of grandmas we see walking their dogs frequently who know Caleb by name and let him pet their dogs. Sorry bud, we won't be getting a cat ever and will only get a dog if you clean up all of its poop and pay for its food, so just enjoy playing with other peoples' pets.

He folds his arms and bows his head when we pray and sometimes says something that sounds sort of like amen. Sometimes he likes to repeat prayers after us but most words just sound like "da".

He loves all types of transportation. He has very keen ears too and throughout the day will let me know when he hears a train, plane, truck, motorcycle or bus and he usually runs to the window or door to try to find it. No matter what we're doing when the garbage truck comes, we have to run outside to watch it. We wave to the driver and sometimes he honks for us.

While driving, if I hear Caleb getting excited I the back, I have to find whatever it is he is seeing and acknowledge that I see it too. He gets most excited about school buses. If we are at the park at 3:30 pm, there is a bus that ends its route there and checks for left bags before heading back to the school. He loves just standing there staring at the bus.

At home, he plays with his cars, bus, trucks and tractor all of the time. The farm animals, bouncy ball, finger puppets and binky get rides in the bus and tractor. He makes them go through the door on the bus instead of just setting them in through the top of the bus.

We got him a cozy coupe (the red and yellow Little Tikes car) and he loves it. My favorite part is that he picked up our hose nozzle and started "putting gas in" his car. I didn't know he was aware of that! He can't see us fill the car up from his car seat so he must just see other people doing it at the gas station and imitates it.

He imitates nearly everything we do. He knows what order to do the laundry... Put the clothes in, add the soap, push the soap dispenser closed, push the on button, close the door and push start. When we open the dryer, he takes out the lint catcher and empties it of lint before sticking it back in. Unfortunately he has stopped the washer and dryer mid-cycle a few times and has changed settings so we close the laundry room door sometimes.

Before Leila was born, our typical morning consisted of going from room to room to play with different toys. We would spend anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour in each room: kitchen (playing with cookie cutters or plastic cups or pots and pans on the floor, sitting in his high chair to color his coloring book), bathroom (brushing teeth, combing hair, dumping out my extra hair ties and bobby pins and putting them away again), piano room (cars, farm and basketball hoop, marching/dancing to the demo music on the piano), the toys in the living room, the toys upstairs, the study (spinning in Dad's office chair, typing on the calculator), etc.

But when Allen comes home from work, or on Saturday morning, Caleb has to show him all of his toys as quickly as possible. It is as though he doesn't know for how long he will get to play with Dad and wants to make sure Dad can see all of the things he can do and play with each toy with Dad.

Caleb is a loving boy. He gives hugs and kisses if you ask for them, sometimes he will spontaneously come over to give me a hug or kiss and it just melts my heart. Sometimes his kisses are just him leaning his head toward your head but other times he takes his binky out to give you a real kiss. When he blows kisses, he just puts his open palm on his tongue and then waves bye-bye.

He loves to sit on our laps to read or snuggle into us to watch a movie, but he never sits/cuddles for long. He has to move or grab a pillow or change positions or get a drink after a couple of minutes.

Plays hide-and-seek or peek-a-boo with the pillows and blankets. He likes to hide things and ask us where they are and then pull them out.

Excellent Easter egg hunter. Allen told him to put the eggs in his basket and off he went, excitedly finding egg after egg. He was even more excited after eating a couple of the jellybeans that were in the eggs. The next few days after Easter we did egg hunts multiple times a day, but without the candy inside.

He loves to run up and down the street and makes himself at home in everyone's driveways. He will walk up to peoples' homes and sometimes knock on their doors. He likes to throw/kick the soccer ball into the garage door to make a loud noise. He also loves when Dad kicks the soccer ball on the roof and then watches it bounce down.

He is warming up to Leila. If she starts crying, he lets me know she is upset and that I need to get her. He gives her kisses on the head, some of them are soft and some leave teeth marks... He still loves to grab her ears and prod her nose. He wants her to swing next to him at the park. At home, he pushes her baby swing extra high. He sat on her head, threw a ball in her face and used the broom to sweep her face all in one day. None of those were meant to be mean, he just doesn't understand that she can't play with him the same way that Mom and Dad do. He does has his moments of anger that usually result in Mom being hit or bitten and he gets to go to time-out. No other discipline has worked so far because he just laughs at us, but he sits in the time-out chair pretty well.