Tyler: 15 Months

August 24-September 23, 2011 (14 to 15 months old)

What's new with Tyler?

• He experienced his first airplane ride!  (vacation post to follow)

• This child is always on full speed ahead. I don't recall ever seeing him take a casual stroll, he's always speed walking or running.

• He's gotten a lot tougher over the last few months as he rarely cries now when he falls, and falling is still a frequent event around here.

• He started climbing/standing on his table and chairs. Problem is he walks right off them like he's only a few inches off the ground. He took one spill off the table and landed on his arm. I held my breath waiting for the screams and dreaded a broken arm, but we lucked out and escaped both.

• He walks right off the stairs like there's no gravity. Thankfully he's never had the opportunity to go down them on his own or we may have ended up in the ER. No fear!

• His no fear continues at the park. He goes down all the slides on his own, runs all over the gym equipment and walks right off the stairs. I'm sure I'm quite amusing to watch as I'm constantly running all over preparing to catch him at any moment.

• He just learned how to open our interior lever doors. I think I need a second job to cover the cost of baby proofing.

• He loves opening/closing lids on containers. He's starting to learn how to screw/unscrew lids.

• He's obsessed with pushing buttons. He turned on the cd player and receiver and just happen to hit the right buttons to play his cd. He thought he was hot stuff.

• He's fascinated with light switches. He begs me to pick him up so he can flip them on and off. He flips it and then looks quickly to see the result.

• Last month Tyler decided he liked shoes. Now that we're getting into cooler weather, I got the socks out and quickly discovered this child hates socks. He tries to yank them off the entire time I put them on. He still loves wearing the shoes, just don't put socks on him! I guess he assumes I also dislike socks as he now pulls my socks off.

• He also hates long sleeves. Every time I put a long sleeve shirt on him, he starts biting his arms.

• He's a little high maintenance and wants to be held ALL THE TIME! While I love holding him, it is very hard to get anything done. If I don't pick him up, he will hang on my pants fussing until I cave. He loves being up close and observing from our level. Sitting him up on the counter and handing him some utensils occupies him very well, but then we can't walk away.

• He started kissing himself in mirror.

• He gives the biggest hugs. He's given hugs for quite awhile, but now he squeezes our necks. Loving it!

• He's been kissed by a girl! Our nanny's daughter, Matilda, loves kissing Tyler. She leans over and kisses his forehead and arms every time I change his diaper. The next day Tyler started kissing her back. So super sweet!

• Kerry is now mama as well despite us calling him daddy all the time. Kerry said he's taking it as a complement as only his VIP peeps get called mama.

• The diaper stripping continues. It was quite funny one night, at least it started out funny... we checked on Tyler via his video monitor shortly after putting him down for a nap and found him walking around his crib butt naked! After having a good laugh, I went up to put his diaper back on, but it was a little too late. He had peed through the crib slats, all over the floor and on his stuffed giraffe.

• He discovered his nose holes. Often enough we find him just sitting there with a finger up his nose. Seems it's always when we're out and someone stops by to say hi to him.

• I burped one day after lunch and then he started mimicking me by burping himself. What's so funny is that it wasn't just a burp sound, he would actually swallow air and produce a real burp. How did he figure that out?

• His 3rd and 4th bottom front teeth are finally coming in. He also has a few molars just barely peeking through. Oh this is not going to be fun!

• He refuses to eat without nursing first. If I put him in his highchair, he signs milk really fast and pushes all his food/water away.

• He can eat pretty well with a fork now. He stabs at his food aggressively and if he doesn't succeed, he hands us the fork to load it up. The spoon is a different story, he dumps the food off before it makes it to its destination.

• He loves feeding us. He gets the biggest pride-filled smile after putting food in our mouths.

• He throws food on floor when he's done. He looks right at us while he's doing too! The splat mat is getting a lot of use these days. After trial and error, I've found it's better to ignore it and clean up later. When he gets no attention whatsoever, it's not as fun.

• He'll wipe his face with a paper towel when you ask him to.

New foods this month:

Thumbs up:

• Mashed potatoes (he kept handing us his spoon for more)
• Pickles (this one surprised us!)
• Whole Foods fig newtons
• Go Raw chips (seeds and fruit compacted into a chip)
• Multiseed toast with organic butter (this trumped his beloved banana)
• Sunflower butter
• Multigrain pancakes
• Grilled cheese (we've discovered if it has cheese, he will love it)
• Boulder's BBQ potato chips (he snuck a handful out of my bag when I wasn't looking, nonetheless, he loved them)
• Juice (I let him have the last few sips of my juice that is 50/50 water/juice.  He sticks his tongue in my glass and laps it up.)
• Chocolate almond milk (I caved on this one, he begged to have a drink of it from my glass, and like his mama, he loves chocolate!)
• Ice

Neutral:

• Applesauce
• Yogurt
• Raw Revolution health bars

Thumbs down:

• Brown rice

I'm finding that many of his favorites are now refused like butternut squash, and his dislikes are now favorites like raspberries and cherries. Keeps the grocery shopping interesting as you never know what he's going to like month to month.

Language:

New animal sounds:

• Monkey
• Elephant

New words:

• Outside (ow sy)
• Kitty (kit-tay)
• Giraffe (jaff) - Every morning, he wakes up, walks back and forth in his crib and excitedly points to all his stuffed giraffes and says jaff, jaff! 
• Diaper (di-per)
• All done (ah-dun)

New signs:

• Milk - I'm finding he wants milk all the time! It's heart wrenching when he's crying in his car seat and looks at me all pitiful and signs milk and I have to tell him no.
• All done - He signs and says all done when he's done eating, doesn't like something or is wanting out of his car seat.

• • 
    
  He loves his Signing Time dvds, he sits on the couch and just grins as he watches them. If you get in his way, he leans over and looks around you.

This month in video:

Video:  The boy loves his raspberries!

Video:  1st time signing all done

Video:  Tyler dancing

Video:  Ba-ba-baaing on the couch