Jenson update: 22 months

We had a big month in July.  Summer and Max flew to Columbus and stayed with us for a few days, our parents came for the weekend (and the big car show), and then we drove up to my parents to visit everyone else (and our husbands joined us later in the week).  Max and Jenson had a lot of fun together – they hadn’t seen each other since November, so they are both toddlers now and had a ton of fun.

It finally stopped raining so much about halfway through the month so he got to play outside a lot more.  He’s getting braver about climbing on things.  He’s started to test limits…just to see what we’ll do.  He’ll smack at us or Boof (not hard), or will throw things that he knows he shouldn’t (or at us).  We just try to be firm with a “no” and the reason he can’t do that, and if he tries again, we’ll move him from the situation.  We are working on teaching him to say “I’m sorry” when he doesn’t something like that.  Sometimes after I correct him, I won’t pay attention to him for a few minutes and he can tell that I’m displeased, and he’ll come over and start saying “hi”, “hi mommy”.  He definitely knows that he shouldn’t do those things, so he’s just seeing what reaction he’ll get.  He’s so sweet and luckily isn’t “testing” on other people or kids.

He loves being goofy with hats and stuff, and being silly with us.

He’s still really shy around people for at least 30 minutes, but once he warms up, he’s talkative and asking everyone to read to him.  He’s very persistent.  It’s possible that this is the first time my dad read a kids’ book – I think it helped that it was about an old truck (Little Blue Truck).

Monthly Jenson update:  July 6 – August 5, 2015

Age:  22 month old

Weight:  24 lbs.

Length:  31ish inches

Size:  He’s in 18 and 18-24 month clothing

Teeth:  He has all of his baby teeth except the 4 that are right in front of the molars.  The top two were starting to come in late in the month, but they haven’t come in very far.

Sleeping:  Sleep remained rough for much of this month, as we had company and were out of town for close to 2 weeks.  It took a few days after we got back for things to go back to “normal”, which still meant about an hour to get him to sleep.  We started putting him in his crib after rocking for a bit and sitting by the door where he could still see us.  Eventually he’d go to sleep.  I started being consistent about putting him down for his naps in his crib once we were home.  It’s much easier when he falls asleep during lunch, but if not, sometimes I’d lay down in the spare bed in the room for 20 minutes until he fell asleep (gave me a little nap time too).

Eating:  Not much to update here STILL.  He’s so picky and there’s no sign of relief.  No veggies, no meat.  For breakfast he eats oatmeal with berries (or pancakes or cereal) and yogurt.  For lunch he has a 1/2 of peanut butter and jelly usually, plus some fruit, but he’s started falling asleep during lunch so he doesn’t always finish it.  Snack is usually crackers, fruit, his leftover lunch, or a smoothie.  Dinner is rough…if we are lucky, some sort of bread product, cottage cheese or cheese, and fruit.  We give him other things, but he hands them back to us and says “here ya go”.  He’ll just keep yelling that until we take it.  Sometimes he’ll eat mac and cheese, avocado, or beans.  We give him a veggie/fruit pouch if he really isn’t eating much else – just to get some veggies in him.  He asks for applesauce at pretty much every meal.  We give in every now and then, but try to stick to cooked apples instead.

Word Up:  He repeats almost everything that we say, and talks and sings constantly.  He can count to 20 now – and will sometimes go a little higher if we prompt him.  He counts objects – usually to 7-8.  He knows his ABC’s and quite a few songs, including Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the chorus of Peaceful Easy Feeling, words in Levon and Jesus Loves Me.  He’s started to request Rockbye baby, and always asks it like a question.  His animal noises have expanded to include most farm and zoo animals, and if he doesn’t know when we ask him one, he says “Ee ah” for the noise.  When he wants to give me something (lint, food, whatever) he says “Here ya go, baby”.  He usually will tell us when he poops and will lay down for us to change him.  He’s getting easier to understand and is more communicative with us.

Milestones:

• Throwing fake tempers (that turn into real crying sometimes)

• Started to warm up with story time and will sit on the rug (without me) by the end of the session.  Sometimes it’s not until literally after the last book has been read.  We made a friend with a Mom and her son there.  Ellis is a little older than Jenson and will help him (like if Jenson is too shy to put back the props that they were using and stuff).  Jenson will sit by Ellis on the rug if I’m nearby.
• Learning about sharing.  He’s never really had to share much and if Max would take something he wanted, he would look so sad and not know what to do about it.  We would talk to them both about sharing, and then Jenson seemed to think that if he wanted something that Max had, he just had to say “Max, share”, and he’d automatically get it.  He spent a lot of time hoarding toys that he didn’t necessarily want,  but that he didn’t want to share.

• First wasp stings (twice by the same one)

Favorite Toys/Activities:

• Bathtime – he insists on one after dinner every night.
• Playing outside with dirt, rocks, and sticks, and in the water table or pool

• Reading.  His favorite book is still “Little Blue Truck”.  He’s constantly asking everyone to read to him.  “Read, read?”
• Story time and playing at the library
• Bubbles – he’s not good at blowing them…he just puts the wand against his mouth.  I think he likes the taste!

• Going to the Zoo and talking about the different animals.  Kangeroos (Roos), fishes, and pink flamingos (Mingos) were his favorite this month.

• Music, especially kids’ songs/cds
• Picking flowers and strawberries
• Watching Sesame Street (“Elmo”) and Daniel Tiger (“Nana Cyder”)
• He has two boxes of tiny picture books and he loves stacking them and putting them back in the cases – and reading them of course.
• Tractors and trucks.  He calls most tractors “backhoes”

• Coloring
• Playing with his toy food
• Organizing and kissing his stuffed animals

Dislikes:

• Not getting his way
• Meat and veggies
• Waking up from naps – he wakes up fine in the mornings, but just cries and is grumpy after nap unless it’s extra-long.  He perks up if he gets to watch Elmo or Daniel Tiger and has a snack.  Boof perks up too.

Looking forward to:  Already a month behind, but some highlights of the next month included my birthday, Jenson had a weekend overnight visit with Nana (and had a blast)