18 Months!

We're back! As you can see, Will and I had a little photo shoot this morning. I put his "Christmas sweater" on him to see how it fit. I thought I'd take a few pictures too, with hopes that one would be good enough to use for our Christmas cards and I could get them ordered. But that didn't happen. You'll notice the rest of these posted pictures have one thing in common...basically, I have about 100 pictures of Will with his tongue hanging out. I don't know why but that's his new thing when he sees the camera- the tongue comes out. I might have a tough time getting a good Christmas picture this year!

Since the last post Will has made great strides with new words. In fact, I'm not sure I can remember all of the words that are new. Just today he started saying "cookie," "pizza" and "car." He can say "Zoe" now although it usually comes out "oh-we" or "dough-we." He can say "uh-oh" which is really cute. He also has started to use some two-word phrases. A few times, when David is at work, Will has said "Da Da home." I'm not sure if it's a question or a command but he's used the phrase several times. Occasionally when he is referring to "milk" he says "moo." Although I think that's a coincidence- I don't really think he connects his milk from the fridge to cows quite yet. The most dreaded new word Will has learned is "no." That's right- the day I've feared is here. He can say no. So far he hasn't yelled "no" at me like I'm envisioning. But today we had this exchange:

Me: Will, can I have a kiss?
Will: No.
Me: But I want a kiss!
Will: No.

I eventually got a kiss- Will usually loves giving kisses and it's so cute when he does. There's a part of Elmo's World on Sesame Street where Elmo says "kiss kiss" to a baby and Will loves it when we do that to him.

We're still very back and forth between "baby" food and adult food. At the moment he refuses to be fed. I just worry because the list of things he will/can feed himself is shorter and less diverse than the list of things I used to be able to get him to eat from the jar. He did enjoy his pizza this evening and I've found that he loves grapes and tomatoes (along with his strawberries, blueberries and peaches). When I give him grapes I cut them in half so that he doesn't choke (they're one of the most commonly choked-on foods for toddlers). But he tries to put the halves back together and then shoves them both in his mouth at the same time.

At the gym this week I was horrified to walk out to the outdoor kids area and find Will at the very top of the playground equipment- by himself. I freaked out and ran over to get him. The Kids' Club worker, who was older, didn't understand what the problem was and she said he had been climbing up to the very top and going down the slide by himself several times. I had to explain that he's only 18 months old and he doesn't know to stay away from the parts of the equipment with an open 6 foot drop and he doesn't always know to go down the slide on his behind. I was pretty annoyed but she said that Will did well and was laughing all the way down the 8-ft curly slide. I was impressed that he was able to climb and slide by himself but I don't intend to let him try that again for a while.

Will also seems to have an improving sense of direction. When we go for walks I usually let him lead the way. For a long time we always did the same loop around a couple of streets. Then one day he ventured in a different direction and eventually found the playground. After that, when he is let loose he goes directly to the playground/pool area. He is always very upset that we can't actually go to the pool. It's still warm here and the pool is still filled with water so he doesn't see any reason why we can't swim everyday!

Interestingly, Will is suddenly a lot less concerned when he is disciplined. He used to get very upset when told "no" or when he got in trouble. Sometimes he is still upset but sometimes he is more amused. Like today he was standing on his little chair. I told him to sit down several times and he just stared at me smirking. I finally had to walk over to him and physically sit him down. He laughed and stood right back up once I was out of reach.

We seem to be having a very hard time adjusting to the daylight savings time change. Will has such an accurate internal clock and I've been very surprised how resistant he has been to changing sleep and meal times. Which means he crashes very early and we're up sometimes between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m. Today he did push back his nap later so I'm hoping that means we can put him to bed later and maybe get more sleep tomorrow. It doesn't usually work that way but we're holding out hope!

Despite his toddlerisms, Will is still a lot of fun. At this very moment he has David's tennis shoes on and is telling us "bye-bye" and waving. We wish we had ten more just like him! Or maybe just one more. ;-)