19 & 20 Months

Well, Ian's nineteen month update on the blog didn't happen. I meant to, but I was right in the middle of the Days of Christmas posts and just didn't get to it. And then I forgot what I was going to post. Terrible, huh? Everything started running together with the next month. And now Ian is TWENTY months old! No longer a teen toddler. Sigh. My baby is growing up. After some serious thinking, I did manage to remember a few of his nineteen month updates, so I thought I would just throw them in with the twenty month ones. Without further ado, here they are!

At nineteen months, Ian:

* Now signs "eat" and "drink". In fact, that is how he greets me every morning. I go in to pick him up out of his crib and he immediately starts signing "eat" and "drink".

*Has all of the sudden started verbally responding to his movies at appropriate places. If something crashes (even off screen), he will say, "Uh-oh!" If something funny happens, he laughs! And this is with no prompting from us or from a laugh track on his movies. It amazes us - he almost always laughs at the right time and often it is when a joke is being told. He seems much too young to understand all that yet, but perhaps he does. He is at least picking up on musical and character clues to know what the intended response is.

* Loves, loves, loves the song "If you are happy and you know it..." He and I were driving one day and I heard a "doo-day" from the back seat. I didn't think anything of it, figuring he was talking to his book. A few seconds later I heard it again, followed by a third "doo-day" another few seconds later. I started tuning in to the music playing and realized he was "shouting hooray!" along with the other Veggies, who were singing "If you're happy and you know it". We had not sung this song to him except maybe once a long time ago, so I was pretty surprised to hear him singing along! It is now his favorite song though and he will clap, stomp his feet, point to his cheeks (for the "your face will surely show it" part), and shout hooray. We love singing this song with him and watching his little face light up.

* I'm sure there are a bunch of other things that happened this month, but I can't remember which month was which! Sorry buddy - Mommy didn't do a good job keeping track this month!

Moving on...at twenty months, Ian:

* Ian holds Mommy's hand from the car in the parking lot all the way inside the store!! This is a huge change and I love not having to carry him in to the store any more!

* STILL loves "If you're happy and you know it...". We sing this song A LOT! It almost always gets him in a good mood. :-)

* has really developed an interest in reading (if you can call it that...haha). When we came back from our trip to Grandaddy and Grammy Jen's house the last week of December, the first thing he did was sit down and read ALL of his books. Even if he pulled it off the shelf and just looked at one page, he had to touch every single one of them. We thought for sure he would have missed some of his other toys more! He's also getting to the point where he will let us read a whole book to him. His current favorite is "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" (which has several verses). He often sits in his wagon in the living room to read his books.

* cracks up at the puppets on the "My First Signs" dvd. He'll actually sit all the way through this dvd now. James put it on one day last week to see if he would watch it or if we should put it up for a while, and Ian watched the whole thing!

* has been on a wonderful sleeping schedule. After Christmas at Gramma K's, he started going to sleep around midnight and getting up about noon. This schedule worked GREAT for us and allowed James and I to catch up on some much needed rest! He usually sleeps through the night too (as long as James and I change his diaper before we go to bed).

* also has his morning routine down. When he wakes up, James will usually go get him out of his crib. He then runs into our room, hands me my glasses from the night stand (soooo cute!), grabs my finger, and pulls me out of bed to the kitchen for breakfast. I'll open the freezer, hand him a frozen waffle, and then pick him up so he can put it in the toaster. He'll also try and push the toaster button down, although he still needs a bit of help. He also knows when his waffle is done just by the sound of it popping up!

* is learning to sign "movie" instead of hitting the TV when he wants to watch something. We're making progress on him remembering to sign instead of hit!

* will eat Yogos any time day or night!

* helps with Mommy's chores. He's actually pretty good at stacking plastic plates from the dishwasher and putting wet clothes that I hand him into the dryer. I've decided we need to add "laying still during diaper change" to his chore list. Too bad he doesn't understand (or care!) that we would give him gold stars if he did this!

* loves to drink from "big boy" cups. He will carry a cup of water to and fro, set it down, take a sip, set it down again, take another sip, etc. He can be entertained for quite a while with a cup!

* has another new favorite snack - popcorn! He loves watching it pop in the microwave and will settle in with a big bowl to watch Veggie Tales or just chill with Mommy or Daddy. We've done a good bit of relaxing this month, so this picture sums up last month nicely!

I'm sure there is more, but these are the main things I can think of right now. Ian - you are growing and changing so quickly! You are definitely turning into Mommy and Daddy's little boy - you are not a baby anymore! We still love all the little hugs, snuggles, and kisses though! I don't think we will ever get tired of those!