18 Months Old

On March 10th, Austin turned 18 months old! This is a huge milestone because he can finally go to nursery at church. It has been SO challenging to bounce Austin back and forth between myself and Matt because of my calling as Primary president and his calling as a Primary teacher. Austin is too busy and just wants to wander around and distract, so I feel like I haven't been as effective in my calling these last several months. For his first day in nursery, he cried bloody murder for the first 35 minutes and then calmed down and was fine the rest of the time. He has a very patient nursery leader who was determined to win out the crying battle. One of the things that helped him stop crying was when his friend, Jonah, popped in for a few minutes. Jonah's mom is the Primary secretary, so Jonah (13 months) and Austin have become friends over the past several months. Austin can be very tender to those younger than him, and Austin LOVES to give hugs to Jonah. As soon as Jonah came in, Austin ran over to give him a hug... and didn't let go!

Here is Austin and his other best friend and cousin, Novalee. They have become good buds during preschool. Austin runs to give her a hug first thing, and he loves to lay on her. She's a big girl and holds her own with his love and attention!

"Cheese"

At 18 months, Austin can say the following words: hot, doggy, froggy, mommy, daddy, ball, bubble, thank you, and stuck. He had his well-check visit, and everything checked out fine. He freaked out when the pediatrician tried to look at his ears and listen to his heart.

My concerns about Austin at 18 months:

• He is more accident-prone than my other boys. I can be right next to him, and he will have a slight stumble and get a new bruise.
• He's not interested in milk so I've had to find other ways to get some calcium in him.
• He refuses to eat whatever I make him for dinner. The foods he will eat well are pasta, chicken nuggets, Rice Krispies, and sometimes he will eat scrambled eggs. I know if he would just try the foods that he could like them. The other day I finally was able to get him to try some tomato basil soup I made. He loved it. He also finally tried cauliflower last night and loved it. Hopefully we're turning a corner because I've resorted to keeping the veggie/fruit pouches on hand in order to get something nutritious in him. 
• He still has a large soft spot (so did Bryson)
• He still uses a pacifier. Breaking Caleb of his pacifier was so hard that I didn't even bother introducing a pacifier to Carter. I think I tried to use a pacifier with Bryson but he didn't care for it. Austin, quite honestly, has been such a whiny momma's boy that the pacifier has come in so handy to plug him up. I'm trying to cut back to just offering a pacifier at bed/nap time. 

My Little Stud

Posing for the photo shoot

Caleb is 18 months old today! Although it's a little dry for other people to read, for my own purposes I have to post another 'Caleb Update', especially for my siblings that don't get to see him very often. At his check-up this past Friday, Caleb weighed a little over 25 lbs (44%) and was 32" tall (43%). His growth is steady and average. I tend to think of Caleb as 'small' because his cousin 6 months younger than him weighs the same as Caleb! If he's not already, he's very close to being taller than Caleb as well.

New words Caleb has added to his vocabulary: up, ball, cat (dat), and doggy. Going on walks in our wagon is so fun because we are constantly looking for cats and dogs. He gets so excited when he sees one and says the words 'cat' and 'doggy' over and over and over again. From our walks, he is starting to recognize airplanes and helicopters (we've only seen one) as well. Caleb is also becoming very good at doing puzzles. We have a shape toy where you drop the shapes through the correct hole. He has mastered those shapes (circle, square, triangle, cross, and star). We have 3 different puzzles that we work on daily...one is types of vehicles (ambulance, train, motorcycle, etc.), numbers, and sea animals. He really does learn by miles everyday, and I love that I'm a stay-at-home mommy so that I can work on all these things with him. Alphabet will be next.

As far as nursery goes, he's improved a lot. It really takes some adjustment and learning. We play with playdough almost daily so that we can work on not eating it when we're at nursery. It's definitely still a work-in-progress. He's so good at holding onto the rope when we're taking a walk around the church building. Caleb is improving each day about drinking from a cup too. He can now throw his trash away all by himself after eating a snack, and although there's still more work to do, he'll sit on his carpet square for a little bit during the lesson and songs. Matt subbed in nursery with me today, so he got a taste of what the last two hours of church are like for me each week! It can be exhausting and frustrating, but there are so many sweet moments when you see a kid learning or singing with you or excited to see you that make it fun.