Eighteen Months
Parker Holt, you are 18 months old - 1 1/2 years old. Six months from now we'll be celebrating birthday #2!! How is this possible?! You are getting so big and growing so fast.
Three months old...
And what a difference TWO years makes. Here is Mommy pregnant with you two years ago at this same time of year - late August 2011.
(Note - I know this is a lot of write-up, but I want to document what Parker is up to these days)
You will go to the doctor on September 4th for your 18 month check-up and shots (boo!). I am anxious to see how much you weigh and how tall you are - it's been a while since we got your measurements. The last time you were weighed was at the end of June.
You will go to the doctor on September 4th for your 18 month check-up and shots (boo!). I am anxious to see how much you weigh and how tall you are - it's been a while since we got your measurements. The last time you were weighed was at the end of June.
You are wearing size 4 diapers. The majority of your clothes are 18 months. However, there are a few 12 months shorts and pants that still fit due to your small waist. But you are also able to fit into some smaller cut 24 months items as well. Several of your adorable pj sets are 24 months since they run a little slim and snug. Mommy is always keeping your closet and dresser cleaned out and ready for the next size. I'm always looking for bargains for the sizes to come so we are prepared as you grow out of stuff.
We usually give you a bath around 7:30-7:45 each evening, sometimes later if we have something going on. We both give you a bath and get you all ready for bed. We put your nighttime diaper on, rub you down with lotion, brush your teeth, give you teething tabs when necessary, clean your ears out and brush your hair. We read you a story together and then you and Daddy rock and read another story while I get your cup of milk ready - you still like a cup of milk before bed. Daddy rocks you for a little bit while you drink your milk and he lays you in bed - usually between 8-8:30pm. Mommy gets to rock you, put you down for a nap or hold you while you sleep in the afternoons sometimes so Daddy likes to do it at night. You are an early riser and get up usually between 6:30-7am, but sometimes that varies earlier or later.
Naps are a bit of an issue mainly because you do not want to nap in your crib for some reason. You will sleep great in there at night, but you want no part of it during the day. Lately, you have been napping on the guest bed. Sometimes I will rock and snuggle with you after you wake up (I am going to enjoy it while I can) and you will go back to sleep for a little while. You also love to nap with your Daddy in the recliner on the weekends.
Your eating - oh your eating. This has probably been the biggest struggle in your little life. There's so much I could talk about, explain and share about this, but I won't for time sake (plus those reading this may get bored - if they are still reading at this point, ha!). At the end of June, you had tounge surgery and had your frenulum clipped. You did beautifully and handled the surgery so well. You recovered in no time and were playing not too long after we got home. Now you can stick your tounge out, make more mouth noises and try to push food or your toothbrush our of your mouth. You also went through about 5 months of therapy to help us with some of your eating issues.
We have just come to realize that your aren't really a picky eater, you just aren't a big eater and you'd rather be playing (or doing anything out of your chair) than eating. You tend to eat better when you can run around and eat or graze. So many people have said that you aren't going to starve yourself and when you get hungry enough, you will eat. Well, we aren't so sure. You might just go hungry if we never made you eat. It's just not on the top of your priority list. But we keep trying at each meal and get you to eat at least a little something. Hopefully one of these days you will just start eating like crazy.
You talk SO much - your vocabulary is really coming along and you've had no problems talking. With your tounge issues, it's such a blessing that it never affected your speech. I would list what words you can say, but there are so many. What once was a short list of about 10-20 words you could say is now a rather long list of words. We talk to you a lot and name things that we see throughout the day to help you learn more words. You are really good about trying to immitate what we are saying. Just this week you started saying "hammer" as you've seen Mommy using one to take nails out of the wall. There are several words that you know if we say them, but you can't quite get your mouth/tounge to move the right way to say them just yet. You also can recognize several letters, numbers, animals and shapes we are trying to work more with you on all of those. You also know a lot of animals sounds too. We can say, "what does a kitty cat say?" and you will make a "meow" sound! You are very smart and amaze us each day with the new things you learn.
At the stage of the game, you prefer looking at books over playing with toys. You have tons of toys and you do play with them each day, but you love looking at books and having us read to you - which is awesome. You've learned so many of your words from reading the same books over and over. We also go to the library and check out books. You go through phases with your toys where you will play with a few things for several days or weeks and then something else will spark your interest.
You also really enjoy "helping" us around the house. We will say the word "help" as in, "Do you want to help make the bed?" or "Do you want to help start a load of laundry?" (and other tasks) and you usually come running to us. The neatest thing you have started doing recently is you want to put groceries onto the conveyor belt at the grocery store. I know I talked about this recently, but it's so cute. You actually get upset if I don't hand you items to put on the belt. As soon as you lay something on there, you reach for something else.
Your absolute favorite thing (except maybe Mommy and Daddy), without a doubt, is the "Bubble Guppies" - you are a fanatic, that's for certain. You would watch it all day long if we would let you and it's the only thing that keeps you still. Otherwise you are blowin' and goin' nonstop all day. We usually let you watch a couple of episodes in the morning after breakfast and maybe another one before bed. It's also what you want to watch whenever we use the DVD player in the car. You have a collection of Bubble Guppies DVDs, books and toys. You say "Bubble" whenever you want to watch them. You also like to look at pictures of them on the computer in Daddy's office. You usually want to do that a couple of times a day. You will go to his office door and say "Bubble" - super cute! If you stay on this track, I see a "Bubble Guppies" birthday party happening in February. It will be fin-tastic and I already have a couple of ideas.
You also still love when we vacuum. You do your "happy feet" (your cute little dance) when we get it out and just love watching us vacuum. You also go to the closet it's kept in and want to get it out, but sometime we have to tell you it's "night night". Even if the carpet dosen't need it, sometimes we will vacuum for your simple entertainment.
You are also still a little fish and adore the water. You enjoy your bath each and every night and have enjoyed the times you've gone swimming in your little pool. You even love to wash your hands and splash in the dish water in the kitchen sink. Your other loves include "Nunnies" (Bunnies) and "Guga Gugas" (Trains) and being outside.
At Christmas, Santa brought you a little music activity table. You played with it for months and then kind of quit playing with it for a while, but have recently gone back to it. At Christmas, you were 10 months old. I took some recent pictures of you with the table so we could compare how much you've changed since Christmas over the past 8 months.
We usually give you a bath around 7:30-7:45 each evening, sometimes later if we have something going on. We both give you a bath and get you all ready for bed. We put your nighttime diaper on, rub you down with lotion, brush your teeth, give you teething tabs when necessary, clean your ears out and brush your hair. We read you a story together and then you and Daddy rock and read another story while I get your cup of milk ready - you still like a cup of milk before bed. Daddy rocks you for a little bit while you drink your milk and he lays you in bed - usually between 8-8:30pm. Mommy gets to rock you, put you down for a nap or hold you while you sleep in the afternoons sometimes so Daddy likes to do it at night. You are an early riser and get up usually between 6:30-7am, but sometimes that varies earlier or later.
Naps are a bit of an issue mainly because you do not want to nap in your crib for some reason. You will sleep great in there at night, but you want no part of it during the day. Lately, you have been napping on the guest bed. Sometimes I will rock and snuggle with you after you wake up (I am going to enjoy it while I can) and you will go back to sleep for a little while. You also love to nap with your Daddy in the recliner on the weekends.
Your eating - oh your eating. This has probably been the biggest struggle in your little life. There's so much I could talk about, explain and share about this, but I won't for time sake (plus those reading this may get bored - if they are still reading at this point, ha!). At the end of June, you had tounge surgery and had your frenulum clipped. You did beautifully and handled the surgery so well. You recovered in no time and were playing not too long after we got home. Now you can stick your tounge out, make more mouth noises and try to push food or your toothbrush our of your mouth. You also went through about 5 months of therapy to help us with some of your eating issues.
We have just come to realize that your aren't really a picky eater, you just aren't a big eater and you'd rather be playing (or doing anything out of your chair) than eating. You tend to eat better when you can run around and eat or graze. So many people have said that you aren't going to starve yourself and when you get hungry enough, you will eat. Well, we aren't so sure. You might just go hungry if we never made you eat. It's just not on the top of your priority list. But we keep trying at each meal and get you to eat at least a little something. Hopefully one of these days you will just start eating like crazy.
You talk SO much - your vocabulary is really coming along and you've had no problems talking. With your tounge issues, it's such a blessing that it never affected your speech. I would list what words you can say, but there are so many. What once was a short list of about 10-20 words you could say is now a rather long list of words. We talk to you a lot and name things that we see throughout the day to help you learn more words. You are really good about trying to immitate what we are saying. Just this week you started saying "hammer" as you've seen Mommy using one to take nails out of the wall. There are several words that you know if we say them, but you can't quite get your mouth/tounge to move the right way to say them just yet. You also can recognize several letters, numbers, animals and shapes we are trying to work more with you on all of those. You also know a lot of animals sounds too. We can say, "what does a kitty cat say?" and you will make a "meow" sound! You are very smart and amaze us each day with the new things you learn.
At the stage of the game, you prefer looking at books over playing with toys. You have tons of toys and you do play with them each day, but you love looking at books and having us read to you - which is awesome. You've learned so many of your words from reading the same books over and over. We also go to the library and check out books. You go through phases with your toys where you will play with a few things for several days or weeks and then something else will spark your interest.
You also really enjoy "helping" us around the house. We will say the word "help" as in, "Do you want to help make the bed?" or "Do you want to help start a load of laundry?" (and other tasks) and you usually come running to us. The neatest thing you have started doing recently is you want to put groceries onto the conveyor belt at the grocery store. I know I talked about this recently, but it's so cute. You actually get upset if I don't hand you items to put on the belt. As soon as you lay something on there, you reach for something else.
Your absolute favorite thing (except maybe Mommy and Daddy), without a doubt, is the "Bubble Guppies" - you are a fanatic, that's for certain. You would watch it all day long if we would let you and it's the only thing that keeps you still. Otherwise you are blowin' and goin' nonstop all day. We usually let you watch a couple of episodes in the morning after breakfast and maybe another one before bed. It's also what you want to watch whenever we use the DVD player in the car. You have a collection of Bubble Guppies DVDs, books and toys. You say "Bubble" whenever you want to watch them. You also like to look at pictures of them on the computer in Daddy's office. You usually want to do that a couple of times a day. You will go to his office door and say "Bubble" - super cute! If you stay on this track, I see a "Bubble Guppies" birthday party happening in February. It will be fin-tastic and I already have a couple of ideas.
You also still love when we vacuum. You do your "happy feet" (your cute little dance) when we get it out and just love watching us vacuum. You also go to the closet it's kept in and want to get it out, but sometime we have to tell you it's "night night". Even if the carpet dosen't need it, sometimes we will vacuum for your simple entertainment.
You are also still a little fish and adore the water. You enjoy your bath each and every night and have enjoyed the times you've gone swimming in your little pool. You even love to wash your hands and splash in the dish water in the kitchen sink. Your other loves include "Nunnies" (Bunnies) and "Guga Gugas" (Trains) and being outside.
At Christmas, Santa brought you a little music activity table. You played with it for months and then kind of quit playing with it for a while, but have recently gone back to it. At Christmas, you were 10 months old. I took some recent pictures of you with the table so we could compare how much you've changed since Christmas over the past 8 months.
And from your "birth" day to today...
I could just go on and on about you Parker boy - there are so many neat things to share about you. You are just the light of our lives and bring us pure joy and happiness every single day. Yes you are indeed starting to have some toddler tendencies and your energy wears us out sometimes, but it's all worth it!! We are incredibly blessed to call you our son and be your Mommy and Daddy. You are so fun and curious. You have the most infectious little laugh, the biggest and brightest blue eyes and the best smile ever! You are so happy and playful and it gives us such delight to see you take on the world. We love you so very much!
Until we meet again...
Riley
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