Eighteen Months

I figured I'd do an 18 month update just to be able to post something on the blog and to record some of Brock's milestones at this stage. We haven't been back to the pediatrician since his 15 month checkup, and he was about 25 pounds then but I don't even remember how long. We don't have another checkup until 24 months, so all I know about his height and weight at this point is that he is getting taller and he is too heavy to carry for more than a minute or two. The biggest physical change since twelve months is just that he has a lot more hair now.

Eighteen months has been a fun age to me. Really from about the 12 month point forward, every month seems to be a little easier and a little more fun. Actually it may not necessarily be easier, but just that certain challenges go away and are replaced by different ones. We don't ever really have sleep issues anymore, but we do have occasional issues with temper tantrums and throwing fits. We don't have much trouble with teething now (they're all almost in), but we do run into problems with eating (eating anything other than chicken and cookies, that is). We're figuring it out as we go though, and it's an interesting process.

Here are some of the things Brock likes and has learned to do between 12 months and 18 months:

• He started walking at 16.5 months. Kind of a late bloomer, but that's pretty much how every other physical milestone has been for him. He's either lazy like his mom or a slow, methodical learner like his dad.
• He likes to wear shoes but not clothes as you can see in the picture above. He loves to get in his shoe drawer and bring them to us to put on. He'll do this over and over until he's tried on every shoe that he can. And most of the time he is happy with just one shoe on his foot. He is not a fan of getting dressed though and gets really frustrated if it takes more than a second for me to put his shirt on, which it usually does because his head is so large.
• He can say almost all of his ABC's now. He needs a little help to get through the whole alphabet, and he still leaves a few of them out, but he can remember about 19 out of 26 of them.
• He can also do almost all of the numbers 1-10 now. He leaves a couple of those out too, but he's got the majority of them. Whenever he finishes saying the alphabet or his numbers, he always congratulates himself and says, "Jood job Brock!" (He can't make the right G sound yet so it sounds like Jood instead of Good)
• He can correctly pronounce most of the sounds of the letters now. We're still working on G, L, R, V, and sometimes C & K, but the rest of them he can pretty much say. This has been an interesting developmental process to me because I'll notice that he has trouble with a letter one month and then the next month can say it fine, so it is neat how they slowly develop the abilities to talk. We have an alphabet book we go through where we'll say, "A is for Apple, ahh, ahh, apple" and that has helped a lot with his pronunciations.
• He knows pretty much all of the basic shapes now (except rectangle and square) and can say them by name. He also can tell you what most of the common animal sounds are, like, "What does a dog say?" These are really useful distraction techniques when we're getting groceries or when we eat out and he needs something to entertain him while we're waiting for our food. He hasn't completely figured out his colors yet. He knows purple and sometimes blue but those are the only two he can consistently identify so far.
• One thing Blaine is really excited about is that Brock is learning some German. We have a German DVD that he has watched since he was just a few months old and that teaches basic German vocabulary. The other day Blaine started counting in German and Brock just picked right up and started saying the German numbers. We were both pretty shocked because we had no idea he had learned this, but he could almost do all of the German numbers from 1-10. His favorites are Zwei (2) and Funf (5). He also knows the German words for "eyes", "hair", "nose", and "sweet dreams". It is really clear that his brain is like a sponge right now because we tell him something and you can see him just adding it in to his data files and then he'll throw it back out perfectly later on.
• He says A LOT of English words now too. At about 17 months, he really started repeating everything we say and was adding a new word it seemed like every day. He's starting to put together two word sentences also like, "Daddy work" for "Daddy is at work" and "Piper treat" for "Piper needs a treat because we called her a good dog" and "Go outside" for "I want to go outside now because, much to my mom's dismay, that is the only place I ever want to be and it is all I ever talk about" (or "Outside Mimi" if I won't take him out because he knows his Mimi would let him play outside all day long so he wants her to come get him).
• He's a picky eater, unfortunately. Up until about 13 months, he ate anything we put on his plate, then something changed and he only wanted certain foods so I stupidly started giving him only those foods so he started only liking those foods and now won't even touch anything new. Not even cotton candy! I have to be tricky and buy applesauce or yogurt that has vegetables in it or make smoothies so he can get a serving of spinach. It's annoying. I'm hoping he'll grow out of it soon.
• He still uses his blanket and sucks his thumb (pictured above; he's covertly sucking his thumb, hiding it behind the blanket) to sleep, but here in the past couple of weeks he has wanted his blanket more frequently. Normally he only had it at nap time or bedtime, but lately he'll whine for it and wants to carry it around with him. We haven't yet had to take it out in public with us; it's just been an at-home thing for now, but I don't know why he started going through this phase.
• Just this past month he has started getting over his separation anxiety and now he will play and have fun at church when we drop him off. He still has a little bit of stranger anxiety and needs a minute to warm up to people, but he's getting a lot better about it.
• He loves treats but hasn't quite gotten the concept that you only get one treat and that it is for good behavior; you don't get more treats by whining and throwing a fit and saying "Treeeeaaaaatttt" over and over. I told him yesterday that he was never ever again getting a treat, and Blaine told me that I probably should not say that unless I meant it. 
• He has had to have a couple of pops on the leg in the past six months (I believe in spanking). Once it was for kicking me because he didn't want his diaper changed, and once it was for smacking at his daddy because he didn't want to sit in his high chair. There may have been a couple of other scoldings but those were the two most dramatic. Amazingly though, he has not once kicked at me again, and he has caught himself a couple of times when he wanted to hit out of anger and turns it into a flailing hand thing instead (like, "Oh I wasn't going to hit; see I'm just waving my arms around).
• He loves Yo Gabba Gabba still; as a matter of fact, we're all dressing up as Yo Gabba Gabba characters for Halloween. He has also recently become a big fan of the show Pocoyo. I still try not to let him watch a lot of TV, but he'll watch an episode or two of those shows each day and he learns from them too so they can't be all bad.
• He loves to read books. He would probably be happy if we did that all day long, especially if he can have his blanket while we're reading. 
• Since the time change in the spring, he has gone to bed around 9:00 and sleeps until about 8:45 or 9:00 every morning. He also takes a nap from about 1:00-3:00. When the time goes back an hour, bedtime will fall back to 8:00, which I'm a little excited about because that means I'll have more time to myself before I have to go to bed. But our summer hours have been nice because we can stay out longer and don't have to rush to get home for bed. 

Those are most of the highlights and the things I can remember for now. His developments are more mental than physical these days, but it still seems like he learns something new every week. I've enjoyed finding activities on Pinterest to make for him to play with, and it is neat seeing his coordination and his fine motor skills become more advanced. But that's what our 18 month stage looks like for the most part. He's growing up really quickly now it seems.