Andrew at 15 Months

Time for a little Andrew update!  Our baby boy is 15 months old now.  And he is SO MUCH FUN!

Our favorite activity as of late is to go on picnics.  He gets to explore in between bites and I don't have to clean up any crumbs.  Win-win!

He's doing a lot better with his eating, although we still have a long way to go.  I can sometimes even get him to eat a couple of baked chicken nuggets.  That is HUGE!

On one of our recent picnics--in a move that is sure to win me mother of the year for healthy feeding--I packed a 'trail mix' of Trix and marshmallows.  I thought the little guy would be ecstatic.

Do you know that he picked out all the marshmallows and ate only the Trix?!  What's wrong with him?

And lest you think too badly of me...Proof of healthy eating!

I believe homemade zucchini and banana breads are wholly responsible for the hulking Drewsky breaking 20 pounds at his 15 month checkup.  20 pounds, 14 ounces, in fact!  Pretty exciting stuff.  That's just the 5th percentile for weight, but his 31 1/4 inches put him at the 50th percentile for height, so we know he's growing well.

The most fun change between 12 and 15 months has been language development!  The little guy is adding words all the time, and seems to understand almost everything we say to him.  Newest words on the list...girl, car, uh-oh, Dada, Daddy, dog...and TRASH!  He probably asks me thirty times a day, "trash?  trash?", with some piece of tissue or lint or my favorite shirt in his hands.  If I confirm it to be trash, he is off on a tear to the trash can to put it in its proper place.  This obsession can actually be quite helpful around the house, but when we're in a national park, it kind of makes my stomach turn to see what he'll pick up in hopes that he can throw it away.  A few more years and, thanks to Andrew, DC will be entirely free of litter.

He's gotten to be quite independent when we're out and about, as long as he knows exactly where I am.  When we get to a park or playground, he'll just take off on his own to go play.  And he has a ball!

We've been on a one-nap schedule for about a week now.  I was dreading the change, because I feared I would never bathe again, once we dropped his morning nap.  [I do realize that there are plenty of mothers who bathe with their toddlers just playing nicely in the bathroom, but this boy is a tasmanian devil.  Any time I've tried to do something like that, it's ended with all our clean towels in a heap on the floor, the toilet paper unrolled across the room, the trash can upended, and so on.]  But our new schedule has turned out ok.  We pick out a few toys and books for him, turn on a children's show, and he goes into the play pen for my dressing time.  This is the first time he's watched TV intended for him.  And I confess that the big purple dinosaur has entered our lives on two mornings.  Yuck.  But desperate times call for desperate measures.

I think we're going to enjoy the extra time to play outside, now that the weather is nice. 

What else can I tell you about Andrew at 15 months? 

He has a great sense of humor.  Laughs and smiles all the time.  He'll raise his arm to invite an armpit tickle, and will sneak up and tickle our feet.  He used to sneak up and bite our feet.  I'm glad he outgrew that.

He loves firetrucks and buses.  In this regard, he's very lucky to be a city baby.  We hear sirens all day long and he can see three bus stops from his favorite window.  When we're out on the street, he points at every bus that goes by.  And there are a lot.  And then he waves bye-bye to each and every one.

He likes to have the 'piggies' rhyme done on his toes. 

He's a climber, and it's pretty scary. 

He can show us his mouth, nose, eyes, head, hair, feet, hands, and bellybutton.

He hates diaper changes.  With a passion.  He will bite my hand, shoulder, whatever he can get, when he knows we're headed for the changing table.  We're working on this. 

If you wink at him, he'll wink back with both eyes. 

He chases birds and squirrels.

He was doing really well with animal noises and then I think I gave him too many at once and now he's all mixed up.  He thinks a horse says 'bzzzzzzzz.' 

He loves to spot dogs.  And run up to them with no caution whatsoever.  Totally different than his mama.

He is our greatest treasure.