James is 1.5 Years Old 2012!

Happy half birthday, James! My little guy turned 18 months old this weekend. As previously mentioned, I think he's awesome. He understands a ton of words, and it feels like says more than last month, but I think he might just be saying different words with regularity, and stopped saying other ones. It still seems like he says about 15 words, but oh boy, does he get his point across to me! His new favorite word is "no," which he pronounces "no-ww." He also seems to be singing along to songs sometimes and the tune seems right but I think he's mostly making up his own words.

Making some important calls.

His pretend play cracks me up. Even though I rarely talk on the phone, a couple times a week he pulls my landline phone off the table and starts conversing in babble. He pretends to feed me with his spoon and cup. He turns the pages in his book and points to the words like he's reading it. He's plays peekaboo even when we're not actually paying attention to him. He hides under the kitchen table like it's a fort. He redecorates with any furniture he's strong enough to move. He even fluffs my hair into funny hairdos. Best of all, he continues to be super affectionate.

James being affectionate with Nomar the cat.

I set him up to draw on his own this month, but even with washable markers it's a huge mess because he draws on his hand and any non-paper surface he can reach. As for what he gets on the paper, well, clearly he's studied Jackson Pollock.

Art project. He would do this all day if I let him.

He's getting big! He's in 2T shirts, 18-month pants, and size 7 toddler shoes. The doctor says he's 35 inches tall. A year ago, he still didn't even have hair. He doesn't grow as quickly anymore so we try to buy things for the current season in his actual size and not a size up. Since he's outgrown all his gift baby clothes, we've been having to shop for him now, and it feels like the season always catches off guard so we're always buying pants when they're off the shelves already, or shorts when there are only pants in the store.

One of our new battles has become getting the pacifier away from him. We don't oppose pacifiers generally, and we think it's been useful to him while he's been teething (for the last 15 months) and it soothes him and keeps him from putting random things in his mouth. Now his baby teeth are almost all out, and it's getting annoying because: 1) he can't talk to us when he has it in his mouth, 2) he freaks out at night if he loses it, and frankly 3) vanity (people judge).

Who taught him to jump on the bed? I'm looking at you, Dada.

Besides getting rid of the pacifier our baby wish-list for the next 6 months includes: taking naps by himself, going to sleep at night by himself, and staying asleep until morning. Of course, daylight savings time next month is going to throw all of us for a loop. Pray for us, and for toddler parents everywhere.

Enjoying a book on his own before bed. It's not even upside this time!

Here's my cute boy taking his first ride on the New York City subway on the day he turned 18 months. Of course, he demanded to sit in his own seat instead of on my lap. More on our Manhattan adventure in the next post.

Taking a ride on the NYC Subway at 18 months