IJG is 14 months old!

9.6.10

IJG loves to go swimming, or play in water in any other capacity, whether it's a splash park, bathtub, or bucket. He likes to watch his daddy mow the lawn and the dogs eating their meals from the back sliding doors. He is learning to put the wooden rings onto their stacking stick and to use his shape sorter. I still have to hand him a shape and put the correct hole in front of him, and sometimes reorient the piece in his hand, but previously he wouldn't even attempt to put them in and now he does. He also found his nostrils this month and will occasionally start jabbing the area until he hits a nostril and then keep pushing his finger as far up as it will go. We've been working on learning body parts and he can point to my nose and mouth when asked...and when in the mood. He also likes to point to my belly and will point to his own occasionally. He knows and reacts to several words/phrases such as books, go get me a book, dance, radio, bye bye, hi, and give me a hug. He also talks nonstop lately and has added to his sounds but still prefers 'dada' over others. He often walks around or plays while yelling 'Eeeeeeee' in a high pitched voice. He dances by bending and straightening his knees and will dance to music and any noise he hears.

I’ve been attempting to liberalize IJG’s diet this month. I'm letting him taste more foods away from home (where I can't control the ingredients). So far he's had naan, soft pretzel, various bakery breads from the grocery store, hummus, rice, and pita from Fadi's, and I even let him share an original/tart frozen yogurt from Swirll with me. New foods served at home this month include rye bread, waffles, acorn squash, sugar snap peas, pinto beans, tomato, dates, homemade matzo meal and fruit pancakes, homemade carrot and apple muffins, catfish, salmon, and shrimp. His love for throwing food on the floor intensified this month and he likes to clear his eating space several times a meal. It has no relation to him being finished eating, he just likes to swipe everything onto he floor and make me mop more frequently.

His routine has changed a bit. We’ve incorporated a morning snack this month and moved lunch (and nap) back 30 minutes. This was to get on the schedule of his new school, which he started the last week in August. He is going to school twice a week, from 9:00 am to 2:45 pm. I stopped working 20 hours a week and am now a casual employee. This means I can work up to 19.5 hours a week but get paid hourly for whatever amount I work each week. He has also chosen to start waking earlier again, often between 5 and 6 am. But, he will now sometimes breastfeed (in my bed) and fall back asleep until 6:30/7:00 am. He has never done that before, but that’s what we’ve been doing for the last week or so. It would appear he is only waking because he’s hungry, but I don’t know what to change to get him through the morning. Concurrently, he's going through another odd sleeping issue, where he was waking up and screaming once a night, anywhere from 9 pm to 3 am and will not calm down unless I put him in my bed. Once there he will roll around a bit and fall asleep on his own. I never know which type of night it's going to be. So, his new schedule is waking between 5 and 7 am for breakfast, 9:30 am snack, 11:30 am lunch, 12:00 pm nap (nap lasts between 30 minutes and 2.5 hours), 3:00 pm snack, 5:00 pm dinner, bedtime anywhere from 7:30-8:30 pm depending on how tired he is. He is breastfed at breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and bedtime. One improvement seen this month is his falling right to sleep during bedtime nursing. He hadn’t done that consistently for a while. His afternoon nap is typically 1.5 hours at home, but he went through a short 30 minute nap phase recently.

He has recently (this past week) really improved his walking. He can often walk between several rooms, down the driveway, and through stores without falling. He moves pretty fast also. He does still wobble and keep his hands out for balance, but he’s close to mastering walking.

IJG's canine teeth are still coming in and now all four molars are in some stage of coming in. Three are through the gums and one is just behind. With two of the molars he had a mouthful of blood while eating at some point in their growth. When they are all out he will have 16 teeth.

I gave him another haircut. This time I did more than just trim. We used the trimmer on a 1 inch setting and cut everything except the front upper bit. It looks far more blended than I expected it to. It took a while for us to get used to him without so much hair but we like it.

After crying at school every time I dropped him off for a few weeks, he abruptly stopped, hasn’t ever cried at his new school when I’ve left, and now puts his arms out for strangers to hold him! I don’t really like this behavior. He makes it look like ANYONE would be better than his own mother holding him.

For several months now he's been biting me when I do things he doesn't like. Mainly it's when I try to wipe his face and hands after eating or I don't give him something he wants. I've always told him 'No' when he does this but have recently had to step up my efforts because he has started biting other kids in school. He did it once at the old school and in one day, his third day of school, at the new school he bit two children. He hasn't done it since though. I know now that he knows he isn't supposed to bite. He will sometimes go in for a second bite after being told no but only put his mouth on my skin...showing some restraint. Hopefully by being consistent he will soon realize he can't bite others.

He was definitely sick once this month, with a cold and congestion, but hardly affected otherwise. Two other times he had a drippy/congested nose, but I wasn't sure if he was really sick because nothing else happened. So, he might have been sick up to 3 times this month, but each was very mild, produced only congestion, and he didn't mind much.