18 months = 1.5 years!

My baby boy is a year and a half old!  When Evan turned 18 months old earlier this month we had his 18-month check up.  Evan weighed in at a whopping 25.7 pounds (68%) and he was 33.5 inches tall (85%).  This now puts him well above the 50th percentile for both weight and height; a new milestone for him.  The doctor's appointment went pretty good.  It was with a new doctor since we just switched our health insurance, but Evan sure seemed to think every aspect of the exam was torture--from having a stethoscope on his chest to being stretched out on the table to measure his length--all those things had him in tears and fits.  During each fit he kept saying "all gone", hoping if he said that it would be over right then.  When it came time for the real painful part (i.e the shots) he of course was still in tears and saying "all gone"; rightfully so in that case I think. 

Growth and Development:

The doctor said he was a very healthy looking boy and I couldn't agree more!  He talks so much these days, learning new world words at record speeds, and he's climbing, laughing, running, and even starting to do some skipping and jumping.  All signs that my baby is now a little boy.  He continues to experiment with his world by taking his toys down the slide with him for a ride or deciding what it feels like to walk with a different type of "shoe" on his foot (in most cases the shoe is not really a shoe but rather a box or a tub he found).  He cannot get enough of climbing inside little tiny boxes that he finds.  He still watches a lot of TV, probably a little bit more than I like would like him too, but he is also learning things from the movies and shows.  He is starting to learn some colors this past month and he started to use crayons for the first time, which has really piqued his interest in learning colors I think.  Orange ("oh-nich") is probably his favorite, but yellow ("lellow") has become a close second, along with blue, purple, and green being the other colors that he's learned how to say the words for. I can't quite say he understands which color is which yet, but I think he will be there soon given the pace at which he learns new things.   He also says most of his letters!  I am always so pleasantly surprised to hear him say a letter that he sees.  And, to my pleasure, he still loves to "nugel" and I could do that with him all day long if you let me.

Trying on a new "shoe".

Evan's recently grown obsessed with scaring the cat whenever he sees her.  He yells and then moves his hands around and waves his toys at her until she runs away.  This is to my dismay, of course, because for a little while there I thought the cat kind of liked Evan, but this certainly has started to make her question his sincerity.  Most recently, Evan has started to actually say "cat" when he sees her, and wants to run up and pet her again.  This makes me very nervous because the cat's probably gotten a little bit timid of him and maybe is more ready to swipe if he comes too close so we have to watch this very carefully.

Evan's still wearing size 4 Pampers diapers when we put him in disposables, which is shamefully happening more often lately.   He's still wearing mostly 18 month size clothes, although we are starting to pull out the 24 months and 2T shirts, especially because of his long torso.  For pants he can even still fit into some 12 month size pants if he's wearing just a disposable, and then in that case those tend to fit him better in length anyway.  Otherwise, he often sports cuffed pant bottoms.

Something new for us is that Evan's started to become scared of things this past month.  The wind outside blowing on the house or the sound of water draining down the tub drain are examples of things like that might make him wince and run to us for comfort.

Firsts:
-time "coloring" with crayons
-play date
-donut (don't get me started on that one)
-down his slide in the playroom all by himself
-feeding himself with spoon/fork
-going down the stairs on his feet (holding onto the rails and saying "careful")

One of Evan's creations (with some help from Daddy too)

Meal time:

Mealtime with Evan is still a hit or miss game.  Some nights he doesn't touch a thing while other nights he will get down even the most adventurous of foods.  He loves berries, bread, oranges, bananas, and cookies right now--those are some of the staples that he tends not to turn down.   He still likes his pouches, which is good because it gives him some fruit and vegetables at least and he loves his snacks!

Evan has started to use his forks and spoons to feed himself sometimes.  When he eats I can't quite tell what hand he's going to use.   It often is his left hand that he uses the utensil with, but if he has trouble getting food onto the fork then he usually uses the hand that's not holding the utensil to grab food and feed himself instead.

Sometimes Evan will say "cheese" for a photo now.  Sometimes.

Play time:

We had to put away some of Evan's paper based books recently because he was starting to rip the pages.  So we put them up high on the shelf in the playroom where he couldn't get to them unless we were supervising him; however he recently realized that those books were there and now has become obsessed with them again.  Some of his old favorites like "Dear Zoo", "My Aussie Dad", and "Spot Visits his Grandparents" are common requests, but we also have a new favorite book which is called "What the Ladybug Heard".  This book was given to me by a friend and it is an absolutely amazing colorful story that teaches about the animal sounds as well as just has a really neat moral and storyline behind it.  Besides wanting us to read these books over and over and over when we are in the playroom, Evan likes to go down the slide all by himself now.  He is certainly getting to be a big boy.  He likes to play with his mega blocks, throw his balls, and ride around on his riding toys, and lately he's become obsessed with his corn popper push toy again.  He pushes it around laughing hysterically, especially if I make the sound "pop pop pop".

Nothing like a little TV while flying on your airplane.

Sleep time:

Evan's been sleeping pretty good for us, although there've been several nights over the past month that he wakes up and John will go up and lay on the floor next to him, helping him back to sleep.  I'm not sure if something scared him, or if he hasn't been feeling well, or perhaps a new tooth is coming in.   He does have one molar that's popped through now and I'm sure that didn't feel good coming in, so if more are on the way I can only imagine he might be in pain overnight.   Luckily, he still goes down to bed every night without a hitch and he takes naps in his crib during the daytime.   His naptime is now right after lunch and he will usually sleep for about an hour to an hour and a half.  Sometimes if he still seems tired, but he's woken up crying, we will bring him into our bed and let him sleep in our bed for the rest of his nap.