18 Month Summary

Forest is 18 months old! Gosh, it happened so quickly. I’ve been hearing that 1.5-2.5 years is the most intense stage of parenting little ones and I think he’s gotten a head start on that phase. He is a spitfire of energy and willfulness and his physical abilities far outpace his judgement for self-preservation. Keeping him safe is a full time job.   

Still, I find toddlerhood easier than the baby stuff. Y’all I struggled with the itty bitty baby phase, I am not gonna lie. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Forest wasn’t exactly an easy newborn so maybe that’s coloring my view, but still, I am all about independence, even if it does present a new slew of challenges. 

Last week, Forest was running a low grade fever with no obvious symptoms. He was fussy and irritable and I was starting to have colic flashbacks. Only this time, I was able to ask him where it hurt and he pointed to his ears. 

What a break through! It was like magic that he could finally (sort of) explain to me what was wrong. 

He's a complex fellow and our days are filled with highs and lows. Here’s a summary of what life is like these days.  

Stats: Forest is 34.5 inches tall putting him above the 97% in height. He is 26 lbs 4 oz which is right at 77% for weight. He has lost 4 oz in the past week with his ear infection and not wanting to eat so I expect by 19 Months he will be around the 27 lbs mark. He is wearing 24 M or 2T clothes depending on the brand and size 8W shoe. 

His doctor said this morning that he is essentially the size of an average 2 year old and she expects him to be as tall or taller than Jonathan (6'2) when he's fully grown. That is quite a jump from his low-birth-weight baby days. 

His head is still measuring small proportionally at 37% but since he seems to be developing just fine in all areas and this growth pattern is normal for  him (when he was born his head circumference was so tiny it didn't even chart) the doctor said there is no reason to be concerned. He still wears his 6-12 month size hats despite being 2T everywhere else;) This makes sense since Jonathan and I both wear the smallest size in adult hats. 

Favorite toy: He spreads the love with his toys, but has mad love for his cars and his wooden blocks. 

He got a play kitchen for his ½ birthday which has been hours of fun as well. 

Favorite Book: 

He really loves them all. Right now he begs to read ‘Where is Baby’s Bellybutton?’ just because he likes to show off his knowledge of body parts. He also loves Rumble in the Jungle so that he can practice his animal sounds. 

He really enjoys interacting with the story so I try to let him finish sentences, point out objects or give sound effects when possible. It must be working because the child looooves to read. Mission accomplished! 

Favorite Food: Still cheese, specifically mac n cheese, but yogurt is a very close second. We never give him yogurt because he drinks so much milk and loves cheese and want to limit his dairy intake. But with his antibiotic regimen (for his ear infection) the doctor suggested we give him some yogurt everyday to replace the good bacteria and he has been scarfing it down. 

New words: It’s getting so hard to keep up with it. The list is growing every day, and sometimes he will just blurt out a new word out of nowhere. He’s also getting better at enunciating. For instance, he mostly says ‘yes’ now instead of ‘yea’ and can actually clearly say ‘Thomas’ rather than ‘Te-as’. He still mixes up his ‘b’s and ‘d’s for some reason. For instance, a bee is ‘dee’ and a baby is ‘deedee’ despite the fact that he can say ‘ball’ and ‘barn’ and several other ‘b’ words just fine. 

Some of his new words this month are: Stars, Sun, Stop, Two (I know - random!), Hey, Tiger (Woohoo- brainwashing is working!!), Lights, Milk, Soft, Tractor, Outside, Strawberries (Saw-bees), Fish, Pool, Sticker, and Choo-Choo. I’m sure there are more that I’m forgetting. 

I’d estimate his vocab to be around 60 words total right now, but probably only about 30 on an every day basis.  It’s all happening so fast. And the amount of words he understands is incredible. I can never stump him when I give him a ‘pop quiz’ asking him to point out certain objects. 

That doesn’t mean he listens any better though. I’d almost think he was hard of hearing if he didn’t also point out every dog barking or car passing by just from the sound. Nope, just has selective hearing I guess and tunes out his momma already. 

New skills: 

-Can do simple sorting, mainly by shape. We are working on colors as well but he doesn’t seem as interested. 

-Can build a block tower of up to 10 blocks! 

I'm not sure if it counts because he doesn't have standard square blocks, but Jonathan (an engineer) says his blocks are actually harder to build with because they are irregularly shaped. Whatevs. If you ask me, the kid is a super genius either way. 

-Getting better at holding our hands in public. 

-Can draw a circle (well as good as an 18 month old can draw a circle...;). 

-Getting better at tidying up (though he does greatly enjoy picking all of his toys up just to dump them back out again...). 

-He is getting possessive of his toys and will snatch his favorites away from other babies at playdates. We are working on the concept of 'sharing' and 'taking turns' but it hasn't taken root yet...

-Has managed to jump with both feet off the ground but still struggles to do this consistently despite the fact that he wants to SO BAD. 

-Dances and sings much more. Will tap his feet to the beat of a rhythmic book. He will also sing 'ee-eye-ee-eye-o' when he wants to sing 'Old Macdonald'.

-Can do all of his puzzles now so we are moving him up to puzzles for 2 year olds. He is our little engineer. 

Other Observations/Forest Quirks:   

-He is OBSESSED with cars. It is so funny because it’s not something we’ve pushed on him at all (though his dad is delighted!), but he is just enraptured by all forms of vehicles. 

We took him the Corvette show last weekend. Don't let his face fool you; he loved it!

-He is starting to become much more social and will even seek out other toddlers at the playground for interaction. He especially loves older kids and will follow them around and spy on them from afar. 

-He loves to say ‘bye-bye’. Everytime we leave a room he will say ‘bye-bye!’ and if he sees a car pulling out at the parking lot he will do the same thing. 
-Anything that is unpleasant he calls 'hot'. Watermelon straight from the fridge is 'hot'. A scraped knee is 'hot', etc. 

-He is crazy tall. He drives his cars on the kitchen counters and I have to be careful what I put close to the edge of the countertops because he can easily pull stuff down. 
-He badly needs a haircut. We are trying to wait to cut it for his grandparents to see his baby curls intact when they visit in 3 weeks but his mullet is out of control!  

Schedule: Sigh. Maybe once the teething and ear infections go away we will get some more normalcy? He wakes up anywhere between 6-7 in the morning. Usually goes down for a nap between 11:30/12:30 and naps anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours and there is really no discernible pattern to it. We’ve started putting him to bed earlier so he’s usually asleep by 7/7:15 at night and sleeps straight on til morning. He gets 4 meals a day at 7:30, 11, 2:30 and 5:30 and we try not to allow snacking in between meal times. 

Mornings are usually reserved for play dates, the gym or extracurricular activities and afternoons are for running errands or playtime at home. We also go to the park after dinner on most evenings. We love having parks in our neighborhood. It makes it so easy to burn off excess energy before bedtime! 

My struggles: It’s been a hard month y’all. Sometimes I feel completely overwhelmed and out of my league with Forest’s fearlessness and energy level. I try not to compare but it’s hard when we go to the park and he seems so wild compared to other babies his age. My friend Angela helped to talk me down on a particularly bad day by asking ‘what exactly is it that you’re worried about?’. 

Sure it stinks that I have to chase him around all day but it's not as if being a thrill-seeking/slightly hyperactive boy is unusual. Yes it’s overwhelming and yes other mommas don’t have the same unique set of stresses that I do (they have their own!), but Forest is developmentally within a normal range and until he learns that he can’t just jump off the top of the play structure, I have to watch him a bit more closely. 

When I talked to the pediatrician about my concerns this morning she just said: 'Look: he's more active, he's more confident, and he's more curious than most kids his age. Those are actually good things in the long run but you are going to have to put in a little more work now.'

I never wanted to be a helicopter parent but for the time being, it’s just what is necessary to keep him safe. He constantly needs redirection on not running out of the park or not going head first down the slide. One day I am sure I will be able to sit on the sidelines and watch him play on the playground, but for now I have to be way more involved than I’d like to be during his play time. 

Also I get frustrated with his lack of predictability for naptime. It’s hard on the days where he only naps 45 minutes, and I never know when he’s going to nap for 3 hours so I feel like managing my time during the day is pretty hard just because I don’t know what to expect. Some days he will sleep 11 hours total and the next he will sleep 15. It’s a huge swing and I guess I just expected that by 18 months he would have balanced out somehow. 

Pretending to nap on the stairs.

I mean, we’ve been doing the schedule/routine literally from birth and he’s still all over the map. Again, I know I shouldn’t compare but I have other mommas tell me ‘oh we didn’t put him on a schedule- he just sort of did it by himself’ and I am dumbfounded! I can’t even imagine how mixed up Forest would be if we hadn’t been so consistent with him. 

But that being said- overall, I am really enjoying my time with him. He is such a blessing and I’m constantly fascinated by watching him develop from a baby into a little boy. I am just so stinkin lucky to get to experience motherhood and so fortunate to get to stay at home during these early years. 

I mean seriously, how can you not love this kid?