Tuesday, August 02, 2011

15 Months

I decided that after Owen turned one, I would just do updates on him about once every three months. I'm not sure that is such a good idea, because he has changed SO much in the past three months and has developed so many new skills. So this will be a long update on all of his "recent" accomplishments and behaviors as a record for myself.

Here are his stats from his 15 mo check-up:

Head: 18.5 in. (40th percentile)
Length: 31.25 in. (60th percentile)
Weight: 25 lbs. (60th percentile - up from 20 lbs and 15th percentile at a year)

Sleeping:
Owen typically sleeps for about 10-12 hours. It seems like he goes through phases where he will sleep longer and later, and then slowly creep up his wake-up time, earlier in the morning. I was loving it when he would go to bed between 7 and 7:30PM and not wake up until 7:30 or 8AM. But all good things come to an end. He goes to bed really well right now, too. I go through our nightly routine (bath, flouride, brushing teeth, story, and song) and lay him down. Sometimes he will play in his crib for up to an hour or so and then go to sleep on his own. It's fabulous. I seriously could not love it more.
Over the past three months, his naps have been all over the place. At one point he was taking one 2 hr + nap and another 1 hour nap. Those were great days. Sometimes he would take one really long one (2-3 hours) and skip his afternoon nap. Then he went back to shorter naps (45 min - gag) and would take two during the day. Now it's kind of hit or miss. He generally takes a 1 1/2 hour nap in the morning and depending on what time he wakes up, what our day is like, and what his mood is like, he may or may not take a second nap. Sometimes he desperately needs one though, and I keep at it until he goes to sleep which sometimes means he wakes up later, pushing his bedtime later. I don't really prefer this because he seems to sleep better/longer when he goes to bed earlier.

Eating:
Owen will eat pretty much anything we eat. Well...I at least let him try everything we eat. He, however, is rather picky and will either not like it at all or take 3-5 bites of it and decide he's done. Case in point...here is Owen with 5 graham crackers he took out of the package. He took 1-2 bites from each and then decided he was done.
I've been struggling with him at meals lately because he seems disinterested in baby foods, but doesn't eat very much table foods, so I worry about him getting enough to eat. I recently tried letting him feed himself. He seemed to like it ok at first and took a few bites (with my help) but now he refuses to eat food off his spoon when I turn it toward his mouth and only wants to play with the spoon and the food. This does help in distracting him though so I can feed him without him putting up a fuss. However, it often ends in messy meals with food in his hair and all over his face, arms, and hands.

I'm trying to be ok with letting him eat what he wants, when he wants. I think I have some PTSD from when he was a newborn and my milk supply was low and I was basically starving him causing his weight to be so low. Obviously, his weight isn't a concern anymore, and it seems I've been pumping him with food the past three months since he's gained five pounds. So I'm working on letting it go. It's hard, but I'm making progress.

On to all his crazy antics...

Owen gives open mouthed kisses when we ask for a kiss. It is the cutest thing ever and I love it. However, lately he's become stingy with them and will often turn his head away and refuse to give kisses. Sometimes he laughs when he does this and thinks it's a funny game to play.

He grunts when he wants more of something to eat or drink, or when you have something he wants. This has recently turned into screams/screeches when he wants something. Sigh.

On June 5th (about 13 mo) he finally started clapping. No matter how much we tried to get him to do it, he wouldn't and did it spontaneously when he was ready.

He holds the phone up to his ear/the side of his head/face. I guess he sees us talking on the phone a lot.
We had a humidifier in his room that he loved to play with and splash in the water. He would crawl toward it shaking his head "no," knowing that he shouldn't play in it and had been told "no" a number of times. He also does this when I call his name in a way that says, "Owen...you're not supposed to be doing that..." and will stop what he's doing and shake his head "no."

Whenever there is clapping on a show (like SYTYCD), he starts clapping with the audience.
For a while, during meal times, he would blow raspberries on his hand or arm. He has stopped doing that, but now he blows raspberries on my leg. It's hilarious when he goes to do it on Dada's leg because he puts his face up to his leg, gets a mouth full of hair and recoils with a disgusted look on his face. So Dada doesn't get any.

He is very expressive when he sees things he likes. He often points and says, "Ooohhh" or "oooooo!" It's darling. I love it when we are somewhere new and there is a lot to look at and it's a constant stream of oh's and oo's.When Owen was in the in between stage of walking and crawling, he would frequently "walk" around the house, upright on his knees. My Mom said that Auntie Kerry used to do that a lot too. Luckily I was able to get some video of it before he stopped doing it all together.He loves to pull things out of drawers - all of the tupperware, the pots and pans, his clothes, diapers, etc. If he can open and empty it, he will.Owen took his first steps around 13 1/2 months. Right before I left for California, he took a bunch of steps a few times in a row. I figured he'd be walking by the time we got back. But while we were there, he really showed little to no interest in walking. It wasn't until the middle of July (around 14 1/2 months) that he decided he wanted to walk. It seems like he just started one day, and took off. He hasn't gone back to crawling since. I guess now, he is officially a toddler. Kind of makes me sad. :( Although it is cute to watch him walk around with his wide-stanced gait.
He likes to pat my mouth while I make an "ah" sound so that it does the "Indian" call. He lets me pat his mouth to do the same.
He figured out how to lay flat on his tummy (often with his little bum up in the air) to look under bed, couches, etc to find and pull things out.

He can say: Thank you, uh oh, Mama, Dada.
He has learned how to climb up on low couches, tables, stools, etc and climb down backwards. He basically taught himself (which is nice...and safe). He also loves to climb up and down stairs. Sometimes he's too daring for his own good though and will want to step down off a single stair or ledge. Thankfully he hasn't tried that down a full flight of stairs.
We tried to limit his pacifier use for a while to only bedtime and naps. Then he got sick and I didn't want to take it away from him. That was a big mistake. Now he doesn't want to give it up and cries when I take it away. I forsee some pacifier weening in the future....

Owen loves drinking out of a cup and will attempt to drink out anything that resembles a cup.

At the end of a meal when we say "all done!" and do the sign for it, he claps. He has also learned how to do the signs for: all done, more, and sleep. He usually gets sad and does a whimper when we do the sign for sleep.

It seems like when he's eating, if ever his hands get dirty, he automatically sticks them on his head and gets his hair all dirty and messy.


He's very good at helping to get undressed and will try to pull his shirt off from over his head.
He is such a boy. Whenever he races cars around on the floor, or walks down the hall with his "walker" he makes growling noises. I promise we didn't teach him that. I guess it's just innate in these little guys.Often, when I go in to check on him at night before I go to bed, I walk in to find that he has thrown out all of his stuffed animals from the crib, and is usually laying down totally opposite of how I put him in the crib. He must just have a party in there before falling asleep! :) Obviously this is not one of the times he threw out his animals:

Owen's personality is coming out more and more and I LOVE it! He is a total tease and has such a sense of humor. He loves to play games with you. For example, he'll run away when you say, "I'm gonna get you!" and throw himself on the love sac or run to his room into the chair. He'll always look back to make sure you followed. He also loves to turn or run away from me when I'm trying to dress him. I'll say, "Hey! Get back here!" and he just runs off, laughing the whole way. He also thinks it's hilarious to turn away from kisses. And he loves to play peek-a-boo either by hiding himself under a blanket or hiding me. He also likes to pretend like he's going to throw something at you and not let go. He thinks it's hilarious to fake you out. Those are only some of the things he does. All day long, I am seeing his goofy little side come out. Just this morning, he woke up early (4:15 AM) and I went it to hug and rock him and lay him back down. While I was holding him, I had to sneeze. I tried to hold it in, but my body still shook with each sneeze. On the third sneeze, he started giggling. He's such a goon. I love him to pieces!

1 comment:

Tiff said...

What an adorable little chubster! And all those things he does that you seemed not too fond of? Sounds like he's right on track! LOL. ;)

Just a suggestion (take it or leave it): A lot of babies take a really good morning nap because they're still well-rested from the night sleep (sleep begets sleep) and then they struggle through the afternoon nap because the morning nap was too long. When my little ones hit the year-old mark, I limit their morning nap to only 45 minutes (sometimes only 20 minutes). Not a second more. Then they still take good 2-hour afternoon naps, which make them stay pleasant through the evening and still give them a decent bedtime. If it interests you, I could go into more depth... but if it doesn't, just ignore this last paragraph. :)