17 Month Summary

Geeze. Forest is 17 months old y’all. His babyhood is slipping away quickly. I’m trying to soak it in. I’m not sure if another baby is in God’s (or our) plan for our family yet so if Forest is the first and last baby I ever have, I just want to memorize it. I don’t necessarily want to freeze time. I enjoy each new stage and it’s newfound independence and I find toddlerhood way more rewarding than baby-dom. 

I’m just not a baby person. Never have been and probably never will be. But toddlers? Little minautures kiddos? That’s the stuff I love. Full on conversational gibberish. Jaunts to the park. Self-feeding. Book-loving. Interacting with other kids and animals in a totally new way. I am totally on board with this phase though the challenges they present are a whole ‘nother world. 

The tantrums are becoming more passionate and more frequent and leaving the house takes a millennium because Forest must do everything without my help. Getting him dressed is a cardio workout, and now that he’s over 26 pounds it involves strength training as well. Seriously. The other day we were at the park and Jonathan asked if I could do a pull up. I said no because I hadn’t even tried since pre-pregnancy and even then I didn’t have the strength to pull up my body weight. But he told me to try and I was pretty surprised when I pulled myself up with ease. 

I’m telling you, toting around a 26 lb kiddo and wrestling him for 5+ diaper changes a day is quite the full body workout. My parents got me a fitbit for Christmas which keeps track of my daily step count. The goal is 10,000 steps per day which roughly adds up to about 4.2 miles. I reach this goal easily everyday. The days when I manage a workout or a walk to the park I am almost doubling this number without even thinking about it. I am within a pound of my pre-pregnancy weight despite my refusal to diet just because this is all Forest does all day long. 

When we named him, we knew the ‘run Forrest run’ jokes were inevitable. We chose the name anyway because of how much we loved it and it’s significance to us.  Little did we know what a natural born runner our little Forest would be. Just this month he is actually full-on running, with his knees up and everything, and he just can’t get enough. I’m so tempted to put my fitbit on him just to see what his daily step count would end up being. Certainly it would blow mine out of the water. 

He doesn’t ever sit still. He’s a very busy boy! It was kind of my worst fear when we found out we were having a boy that I simply wouldn’t be able to match his physical energy level. Luckily he exercises himself so I just have to keep a close eye on him while he zooms around.  I’m amazed he doesn’t take longer naps. I need a nap just watching him run around all day! Anyhoo, let’s get this summary going: 

Favorite Toy: Jonathan’s parents had a Fisher Price Bubble Lawn Mower shipped to us and it was an instant hit. Forest loves anything that he can push around and with the added aspect of it blowing bubbles, he is just obsessed. And in general he loves bubbles will constantly ask for me to blow more. 

Favorite Book: He has moved on from Go Train Go and now insists on reading all 4 of his Thomas Books in a single sitting. Don’t try to read just 3 unless you want an epic meltdown on your hands. I learned that one the hard way… He also still LOVES Brown Bear, Brown Bear. He rarely comes when I call his name, but if I recite the first stanza of Brown Bear he will come running. Also, he was gifted Little Blue Truck in a book exchange and he loves it! Anything which features trucks and farm animals in its main plot is bound to be a hit with Forest-man. 

What I think is so cool is that he knows all of his books, I’m guessing by sight. If you say ‘go get ‘That’s not my Fox’ or ‘Catch me, Catch me’ he will retrieve the correct book every time. And he just loves books so much. He uses his ‘sitting still’ quota for the day sitting in our laps and being read story after story. My heart overflows. 

Favorite Food: Cheese still reigns supreme. Other favorites are bananas, yogurt, and green beans. 

He’s a pretty good eater but isn’t crazy about meat and is becoming more reluctant to try new things.  We try our best to encourage him to at least try a bite of everything and with coaxing he usually obliges. 

Big edamame fan.

His excuse for not eating anything is because it’s ‘hot’ even if it’s fresh out of the fridge. He just says ‘Hot’ and spits out anything not to his liking. 

Words: I feel like his vocabulary acquisition is slowing down considerably. He’s only picked up a handful of new words in the last month: hair, horse, deer, cheerios, Teacher (from Brown Bear), Beep (from Little Blue Truck), brush, yuck, stinky, Thomas (Tea-as)and balloon. I'm sure there might be one or two more words he says but I'm starting to lose track. I think his vocabulary might be about 40 words in total at this point. Also, a big development is that he’s starting to string words together like ‘Bye Bye dog’ or ‘no cup’ which is pretty exciting. 

He also repeats several words when I say them but won’t spontaneously say them later on. Like the other day I was showing him a picture of a sea otter and he repeated ‘otter’ several times, but then the next day when I asked what the picture was he didn’t have the word for it. I’m guessing this is pretty normal??? He also knows a few animal sounds like Moo, Roar, Ah-Ah (monkey), Chomp (crocodile) and Quack.   

Physical Milestones: Running with his knees up. Riding his ride along toys forward (he used to only go backwards). 

Walking up stairs (vs climbing). He’s climbing more especially when there is an iPhone or iPad up high to motivate him, but I still feel like for his physical ability, he is not too interested in climbing. Yay! Hopefully he won’t be a little monkey. He's enough of a stunt devil as it already is.

Teeth: His 2^nd year molars are starting to come in and we can see one just below the gum. When it breaks the skin that will his count up to 17. I think most kids get their 2^nd year molars around 2/2.5 so we were not expecting to see them show up at 17 months. We still have 3 to go and I’m not looking forward to it. 

Forest has recently stopped napping well and will occasionally wake up screaming in the middle of the night and I’m pretty sure teething is the culprit. I’m trying to stay sane and consistent but sometimes these teeth just take soooooo long to come in that I feel like my happy baby has disappeared forever and has been replaced with a clingy, whiny, non-napping mess. 

Some babies are pretty easy teethers but Forest is miserable. I feel like of all the issues I expected, I certainly underestimated just how tough teething would be. It doesn’t help that he’s gotten 16.5 teeth in 12 months so it feels never-ending. 

Schedule: Once again: AHHHHHHHHH! We had about 2 weeks of somewhat predictability and it was so nice. Now the timing is still predictable but how long he naps is a bit all over the place.  He wakes up at exactly 1 hour every single nap, but some days he’s able to fall right back asleep for another hour or so and sometimes he just can’t for whatever reason and ends up grumpy all afternoon. 

It’s frustrating because I know that there is nothing I can do to help him get back to sleep and it’s frustrating because I kinda got used to having two hours in the middle of the day all to myself. I know he won’t nap forever though so I’m trying to just be grateful that he goes down without a fight and at least naps for a little while. And then I try to just get out of the house which seems to put both of us in a better mood. 

We’ve been having lovely spring weather and baby boy loves to be outside so I’ve been really cashing in on my Stay-at-Home-Mom status and trying to get to the park or the gym in the afternoons. But even at the gym they’ve been reporting that he ‘seems tired’ and is ‘fussier than usual’. I’m telling you, its these dang teeth! He becomes a totally different kid when he’s teething. 

Ok, anyhoos the schedule is basically the same except he goes down for a nap around 12:30 now instead of 11:30 and then naps anywhere from 1-2 hours. So…. 7/7:30 wake up and eat breakfast. Our mornings either consist of errands, going to the gym, or playdates. He has lunch/snack at 11:30/12 and naps at 12:30. Wakes up at 1:30/2:30 and has another little lunch/snack. We run errands or go to the park before eating dinner at 5:30/6. After dinner we go for a walk and to the park if we haven’t been yet that day. At 7 we read books in the playroom until his bath at 7:15 and then we try to have him in bed and asleep by 7:30/7:45. It’s working pretty well. The only ify variable is how long he naps for. 

Also, we've been on one nap a day pretty consistently for a few weeks now, but over the past week or so we've noticed Forest getting really sleepy around his old morning nap time. So much so that if he's in the car around 10/10:30 he will spontaneously fall asleep if we don't watch him closely enough.

Observations: Forest is still shy but is becoming much more socially engaged. He has a few buddies that he feels totally comfortable with and has actually started high-5ing people other than me and Jon. He often does his own thing even at playdates but certainly talks to his playmates and will play with them as well. He also loves attention, especially from adults. He will do anything to make someone laugh or applaud. We have to be careful not to laugh when he's being adorably mischievous because he will certainly repeat the behavior over and over again to try to get the same reaction.

He’s doing awesome at the gym daycare and at the church nursery and hardly ever fusses when we leave him anymore. I’m so happy that his separation anxiety is lessening because that was so heartbreaking.   

He started swimming lessons 4 weeks ago and he is a little fish. He’s so fearless around water that it’s a bit unnerving. The first day he dove right in and luckily I was there to catch him. He’s one of the youngest in his class (class is for 18-36 months)but I think he’ll progress quickly because of his natural comfort level in the water. I brought him underwater during the second class and he loved it.  

I’m hoping he can at least learn some basic swimming tactics soon. Some of the 2 years olds in the class can swim a short distance and grab the wall to pull themselves out of the water so I hope Forest gets to that level soon. Swimming is one of those things that is seen as a hobby but it isn’t. It’s a survival skill. I’ve looked into getting him into the lessons which teach them what to do if they fall in the water but they are pretty expensive and since we don’t have a pool or live on the water I think what we’re doing is fine for now. I may change my mind this summer and do some more extensive lessons with him if I feel like he needs it though.  

He really loves to imitate and to help mommy around the house. His favorite thing is assisting with laundry and sweeping. 

He will also hold anything up to his ear and pretend it’s a phone and just jabber away. 

My biggest challenges: Just rolling with the punches. I thrive on routine and predictability so when Forest’s schedule or routine needs a tweak I can get pretty frustrated and impatient. I feel like just as soon as something feels like it’s working, he changes on me. Teething has been way tougher than I ever thought it would be. When I read all my baby books it was kind of glossed over as a minor nuisance. But it’s major in our household! I plan to celebrate big time once that 20^th tooth is in! 

Alright guys, that’s a pretty good summary of our lives at this point. Check back soon for a synopsis of our Napa vacation.