Jenson update: 15 months

Jenson is 15 months!  We had a great Christmas season, though the year ended with him having a really bad stomach bug.  Luckily he got to see all of our family before that got too bad.  He still didn’t “get” Christmas, but he had fun and loves all of his new toys.

We had some holiday fun, including St. Nicholas Day, Zoolights, Santa, Christmas crafts, and picking out and decorating our Christmas tree.  And of course, Christmas morning.

Major changes included Jenson learning to walk – he was able to take 1-2 steps through the month, but shortly before Christmas he figured it all out and just started walking across the room.  He also learned even more words, including counting to 10!  The doctor said he should be saying 3-4 words….ha!  How about 40 or so?!  He started to exercise his opinion much more strongly – whether he wants to cling to me or doesn’t want to eat a particular food.  After he was sick, he became very clingy to me, and hasn’t quite stopped. (I don’t really mind…)

Monthly Jenson update:  December  7 – January 6, 2015

Age:  15 month old

Weight:  21 lbs. He lost weight when he was sick, so he just gained back what he lost.

Length:  30 inches

Size:  He’s wearing 12 month clothing, and some 18 month clothing is starting to fit well enough.

Diapers:  Cloth diapers, except at night.  He moved up to size 5 diapers for disposables even though he’s way under the weight limit for those, because he was leaking at night and that is suggested.  We started putting a cloth cover on top too, and that’s helping.

Hair and Eyes: His hair is growing super fast!  It’s time for another haircut already.  I don’t know why I didn’t expect this to be a regular thing.  I better learn how to cut hair – it’s gonna get expensive!

Teeth: Still just two bottom teeth and four top teeth.  No more signs of his 1 year molars.

Sleeping: Still sleeping through the night.  He wakes and cries out through the night, and moves all over the crib, but settles himself. He goes to sleep around 715-730 p.m. and wakes between 5 and 630 a.m.  I bring him into bed and nurse him, and he often goes back to sleep for a bit.  We are going to work on weaning him from nursing, so we’ll probably stop bringing him into our bed until he’s completely done nursing.  That’s going to mean that Lo has to get up early with him until he gets used to it (if I do, he’s just going to want to nurse).  He’s down to 1 nap per day usually, unless he’s extra tired for some reason and then he’ll take a short one at some other point. (some of this has already been accomplished.)

Eating:  He’s gotten pickier this month, but we manage.  Sometimes we just stir some applesauce or hummus into whatever he’s refusing, and then he’ll eat it.  We still don’t give him sweets or junk food, so I’d like to stick with that as long as we can get away with it!  People always seem to want to give him sweets (with or without asking us), and I don’t get the obsession – why give him something that he doesn’t know he’s missing and doesn’t need?  He’s perfectly happy to have some apples or puffs.  I know a little isn’t going to hurt him, but he has years to eat sweets and I don’t want to start having to fight him about that now.  We aren’t going to keep sugar from him forever – we eat plenty of it ourselves that it would be impossible, and I don’t want him to see it as forbidden and extra desirable.  He just doesn’t need it now.  He still nurses before bed, in the morning, and before some naps on the weekend, and the goal is to wean him from that during the next month.  Lo is able to put him to bed or nap if I’m not around, so he doesn’t “need” it…just wants it if I’m there.  He usually has 2 cups of milk while we are at work, which are mostly cow’s milk, mixed with some thawed breastmilk from my stash, but we are cutting that down too, as my stash is pretty low and he’s doing fine with cows milk.

Movement: He’s a walker for sure.  He still crawls when he wants to get somewhere fast, but he started walking pretty well just before Christmas.  He LOVES dancing too – he can’t fight the music.  He claps and dancing when he hears it.  He likes playing “chase”.  He’ll crawl or walk out of the room and when we say “where are you going” or “you come back here”, he turns around, smiles, and either comes back or starts to crawl away so that we’ll follow him.  When we start to come after him, he stops and just cracks up until we get to him.

Words & Sounds:  Dada and daddy, Mama, Bff (Boof), Nana, Yeah!, BapPap (repeating Pappap), papaw, all of his colors, toothbrush, ball, blue, duck, cheeseburger, tickle.  He vocab exploded this month.  He mocks so many words that we say, including his name, and says sock (and sockie), doggy, Max, jumpy and bouncy, Sadie, bye bye, night night.  I pretty much stopped keeping track each week because he says so many words – probably at least 40 words.  He knows what a lot of words are too, like duck, ball, and sock.  Football, basketball, baseball, soccer, get it, thank you, please, more.  Get down (to boof).  Oh…and he can count to 10!  Obviously he doesn’t know what counting is, but he knows the words.  He picked that up listening to Braxton learn, and just started doing it one day while I was counting to him – no one knew that he could!  He’ll mock my sound effects too, which is always funny…things like “bloop” and such.  He knows a lot of animals sounds, especially the ones from Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  Goldfish is his favorite – we ask him what a goldfish does and smacks his lips together to make a popping sound.  When he does it, he wants us to as well, so he looks around to make sure we are all doing it.  And when we tell him ‘no’ – he repeats it back to us (but often still listens).

Milestones

• walking
• counts to 10
• stomach virus
• can successfully wear shoes (his legs wouldn’t “work” before when we’d put shoes on him)

Favorite Toys/Activities:

• Bathtime
• Playing with and wearing hats

• Books!  Especially books with flaps.

• Clapping and dancing
• Loves kisses (giving and receiving) and having his face stroked
• Looking at himself in the mirror
• Playing with Braxton
• Playing in “his” plastic container cabinet in the kitchen
• Looking at pictures and videos of himself on our phones
• Swimming in the pool
• Playing in the bathtub
• Riding in his wagon around the house or just sitting in it and playing
• Playing with all of his new toys
• High 5’s and touchdowns!
• Throwing balls

Dislikes:

• Not getting his way (like every kid)
• Getting his diaper changed when he has something better to do.

Looking forward to:

• Jenson’s twin cousins will be born this month (born on January 16)
• Swimming lessons
• Playing in the snow – it was so cold recently (like highs of 10), so we didn’t end up taking him out while the snow was on the ground.