James is 14 Months 2012

Playing in the backyard

For family and friends who ask, James is wearing 18-month clothing. James is 32 inches tall now, and his reach is much higher than that so we have to place things quite high up to keep them out of his little sticky hands. He's got his 8 front teeth, a molar, and a second molar coming.

Check out my teeth!

I'm most obsessed with James's language skills or lack thereof. He does not, as previously reported, say "leche," the Spanish word for milk. Or he did and he stopped. He does say "mama," by which I think he means milk, not me. He says "da-T" and he probably actually means Kevin. He often tries to repeats things we say. This is happening more and more and we get pretty excited when he does it, but there's no indication he means anything by it. On the other hand, a couple of days ago I said the word light in Spanish and he pointed up at the ceiling light.

Why do I need to talk when I get everything I want through cuteness?

He gives smoochy kisses finally and I collect as many as possible. He's a very affectionate baby and he's not above giving kisses to strangers. He loves dancing especially to the music on his two favorite television shows, Diego and Fraggle Rock. He stomps his feet like he's Irish step-dancing, then he drops his booty like it's hot. His favorite non-cartoon songs are currently Nicki Minaj's "Starship," and Adele's "Rumor Has It."  He's also very savvy with technology.  He constantly tries to type on our laptops, and he likes to face chat with his Grandma Kathy and his Great-grandma Ruth.

He blows kisses too

Face-chatting with Grandma Kathy

Now that we let him eat a lot of finger food on his own (other moms clued me in that I was waiting longer than usual to let him eat by himself) he expresses a lot of food preferences.  When confronted with a fruit salad, he picks out all the blueberries first. He LOVES blueberries and does a little blueberry dance when he's eating- raising his arms and swirling them around in joy.

Eating watermelon

He's an avid drinker too

He likes reading now and he often expresses book preferences by bringing us the same book to read over and over again. His favorites right now are Big Red Barn and the finger-puppet Old McDonald book. Probably one of his favorite toys right now is the purple octopus Christina and Dan got him, but he also really likes the big Legos that came with a truck that Rachel and Tim got him.

Enjoying one of his books

Took him a while to figure out this toy, but now it's a hit (Thanks, Christina)

I left the saddest topic for last, sleeping. Ever since we got back from the roadtrip, he wakes up earlier. (Probably to punish us.)  He now sleeps from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. or 5:30 a.m. at the latest.  We're trying to switch him to one nap, so that he sleeps more at night, but also because he won't nap in his crib, so holding him for two naps a day is too hard on us.  A few times I've gotten him to sleep on the couch next to me, but the crib is out of the question.  He hates it so much he throws up every single time we put him in there during the day- after just 2 minutes.  My hat off to any parent who has the fortitude to sleep train a baby who does that, but I am not that parent. Maybe if we survive long enough to give James a sibling one day, we will try a different strategy earlier on, but a sibling isn't looking very appealing at this time.

Napping on the couch