Evan--14 months old!

Firsts:

--First steps!
--First major fall :(  (see scary mom post)
--First text message!  John got a text from one of his students asking him what the message he got meant.  When John checked, a text from his phone had gone out saying "ddddwwddd".
--First two-word phrases
--First time "blowing kisses"...Since Evan's learned how to show us where his mouth is (putting his whole open hand over his mouth) it didn't take much more for him to learn how to move his hand away from his mouth to mimic us blowing kisses to him.  He's a bit overzealous with this new trick though, as he often brings his hand back to his face (after blowing his first kiss) so quickly and haphazardly that he nearly smacks himself in the face.

My little boy is getting so big!  He even smiled for the camera today when I told him to say cheese!

Growth and Development:

Evan is now walking around like a pro.  He spent the past month practicing walking all over the house and anywhere else we'd let him down to walk.  Sometimes he would spend time just going back and forth between two points in the house and if he fell on the way would crawl back to the starting point and try again.  Now he can even get back up in the middle of the floor without having something to pull himself up on.  He's also got a lot of maneuvers, like turning directions on a dime and even walking in circles (which he did to music the other night, like it was a new dance move).  He sometimes even gets up speed while walking, to the point that I'd say it's borderline running!

Videosof back and forth: Walking practice #1 and Walking practice #2

He is still wearing size 3 pampers disposables, 12-18 month clothes (have to roll up most of his 18 month pants as they're too long for him).  In disposable diapers, he can even fit into some of his 9-12 month pants though.

Words and communication milestones: Evan has started saying what seems to me to be two-word phrases this past month.  The most common one I hear from him lately is "da da go", which coincidentally was my first phrase!  I love how he changes his intonation when he says go after da da, to help distinguish the second part of his phrase (da da is normal pitch and go is much lower).  He also tries to repeat phrases that I say now too, like "bye bye squirrel" and "bye bye balloons".  Squirrel sounded like "sco" in his low tone like go in da-da-go.  Balloons sounded like a bunch of k's crammed together.  Not sure how that was balloons, but in his mind he was copying what I said.  He really understands so many things we say now too, and his babbling is getting so cute (see recent post More Words for more details on his language this past month).

Tantrums are becoming more common (though it seems like some days are worse than others) and he really doesn't like diaper changes.  We have to bribe him to lay still with our cell phones or toys to distract him, but even that doesn't always work.  He often wriggles away mid-change and runs around half naked.

Mealtime:

New foods: fish (white fish), french toast, hummus, spaghetti with sauce (didn't care for it as much as plain pasta the first time, but recently won't eat plain pasta and prefers the spaghetti with sauce!), canteloupe (nope!).  Evan's not eating his vegetables much lately.  He loves pouches though, so if we get ones with veggies in them we're okay, but most have fruit in them too.  The best thing about the pouches is that he can now feed himself with them!  He loves fruit and I worry he's just getting so much sugar (natural at least) if he's eating more fruit than anything else.

He's drinking 4 oz of organic whole cow's milk three times a day (around 9am, 1pm, 4pm), and I'm still nursing him first thing in the morning and before bed at night.

Evan's also throwing food on floor a lot now, usually to signal he doesn't want that food, thus he's become a very picky eater.   He definitely wants whatever we're having, so we have to be careful that what we're eating we'd be willing to give him too.  At this point we will give him pretty much everything we eat, except spicy foods.  He's pretty much had everything I'd worried about allergies for now except peanuts.  I think we'll try peanut butter soon though.  Either way, having him throw away food that we put in front of him is very upsetting, and so we're trying different tactics to try to get past it, but I hope it's a phase.

We're at a bit of a slump when it comes to what to feed him though.  Luckily daycare provides lunch, so we're now letting her provide him with whatever she's feeding the other kids and that's one meal a few times a week we don't have to worry about.  But even for meals for us, I feel like we're in a bit of a slump, just lacking creativity on what to cook for dinner.  The key characteristics of these meals need to be: quick to fix (it's so hard to cook anything when watching Evan!), it doesn't require too many ingredients (or else we may not have them all on hand), it is healthy and nutritious for us and Evan.  I think we're probably starting to fail on that last one with some of the meals (example: mac n cheese is so tasty and Evan loves it, but I tried sneaking veggies in once and he spit them out!).

Sleeptime:

Evan's doing great at sleeping through the night from 8pm to 6am (sometimes even til 6:30am or so).  He is also still taking two naps per day, though some days he's skipped/fought one of them.  This typically happens when he has an exceptionally long morning nap then he skips his afternoon nap, or if he sleeps in a bit later than normal (to around 7am sometimes) he'll skip one of his naps too.  I still don't think we're ready to give up on two naps, but he may start transitioning that way on his own.  We're in no rush to switch since our in-home daycare lets him nap on the schedule we set.   The fan that we bought for his room to have on during naps also really helps him nap better because it drowns out the daytime sounds that have so often woken him up prematurely in the past.

Playtime:

Evan seems to spend most of his day having play time now.  He likes moving objects from one place to another, very methodically.  An example was when he was taking his folded pairs of socks from the couch (where I'd just finished setting all of his nicely folded clothes) and throwing them on the floor, then picking them back up one-by-one to put back on the couch, and back and forth.  He now also stacks his stacking cups (inside one another) and has also figured out how to squeeze his bath toy whale that squirts out water.

Favorite toys: He loves to play with his choo choo (the train engine from the train set we got him for his birthday), his ducky (a wooden duck on a stick that I brought back from Germany for him...the wings flap up and down when he pushes it, and he can actually push it while walking now too!), and his new stacking rings.  Also other random things he may find around the house can become toys now too...case and point below.

This empty Cheerios box was pushed and carried many places around our house.

Pushing ducky.

Evan and his choo choo.

I think he was trying to make a call with the rings.

He loves to have us read books to him and will often bring us a book, we'll read it, then he'll get another one, and we'll read it, and so on.  We can read 4-5 books at a given time sometimes.  See this post for a list of his current favorites.

Carefully selecting the book to read...

"Ah ha!  I found a favorite!"

Making a bee-line for mommy (usually he carries it over while walking these days though)

"Here mom, read me this book!"

We regularly go for walks, often to the park for him to play on the equipment.  He is so observant and well-behaved on his walks, so it's a great way to spend some time getting exercise, enjoying the nice fall weather (while it lasts!) and letting him explore the outdoors.

Evan also has an obsession with corners and loves to hang out in them.  Whether it's a corner of his crib, the kitchen cupboards, or a place where two pieces of furniture (like the ottoman and chaise lounge, come together), he walks over to the corner, turns his back to it, and slides down to sit with his back in the corner.  Then he just "chills out" there for awhile.

Evan got his finger pinched in the kitchen cupboard recently (even with the childproof things they still open a little bit).  It seems like he's getting hurt a lot more now and makes me so nervous.  As he walks around, all I can see are potential hazards that he could fall into if he fell at that very moment.  We added foam strips to our entertainment center, which eased my concerns when he's playing around it, but he loves to pull it off!  He's also showing us other places in the house that still need childproofing by constantly going to them to "play" (i.e. play with wine bottles on rack, finding cords behind the entertainment center, etc).  He had previously not bothered with these things so much so we'd let them be (somewhat hidden), but he's found them now!

While he's definitely entering more dangerous territory, which can be exhausting to keep up with him and deal with his tantrums, he's also just becoming so much fun to play with too.  His laughs are so cute and so many things can bring them out.  He makes the cutest sounds as he walks and plays and his babbling is just precious.  I definitely want to try to give him as much freedom to explore and be creative and imaginative as possible, since I know he's learning so much when he does that.  Thus, the wine bottles are being packed away this weekend, and we're buying more childproofing items, to help keep him as safe as we can.