15-month update

I haven't written a monthly update in a long time, but since I also haven't written much of any blog posts of late and today happens to be Nicholas' 15-month birthday, an update post seemed like the way to go.

Nicholas is all toddler now. All remnants of the baby are long gone.

Nicholas walks and runs like a pro. Okay, so he does still fall down, but the way little kids do rather than the way a baby learning to walk does.

He is talking up a storm. His instinct is to use a word to describe what he sees or ask for something. Sometimes we have no idea what the word is he is saying and some of the words he consistently uses bear only passing resemblance to the real word, but he has clearly crossed the line into verbal. I can't begin to list all of his words, but here are a few of the cutest ones:

• nie-nie (night-night)
• bye-bee (bye bye)
• uppy (I want up)
• ommy (Mommy)
• aye-cha (high chair=hungry)
• go-go (stroller)

Nicholas adores daycare, which is good since he spends most of his waking hours there these days. He has started getting up absurdly early and so it is not unusual to have conversations in the morning where Nicholas insists that he wants to go to school but it is still an hour before it opens. I never thought 7:30 would be too late of an opening.

We think he is going through a growth spurt. It hasn't been Invasion of the Body Snatchers like during some previous growth spurts, but he has been hungry constantly. As soon as I get to daycare to pick him up he walks over to the high chairs there. I promise him a snack when we get home. When we get home he insists on a snack while we make dinner, and is upset when I eventually cut him off. He then eats his dinner, we go for a walk, and then before bed he insists on "aye-cha" again, and has to have a snack. He has also been waking up way early (like 5:15) and immediately asks for "aye-cha." This morning he had eaten an adult size bowl of Kix before 6am. I am really hoping that after this spurt ends he'll go back to sleeping.

My one complaint about toddler Nicholas is that he is not very good at obeying rules. He understands what we say and will follow directions about 50% of the time, but he often decides it is a game to do the exact opposite. And he is still throwing food and his cup off his tray at the table, despite our constant efforts for what I think has been close to six months at this point. I know, I know, that will only get worse in the upcoming years.

Nicholas' checkup isn't for a couple weeks, so we'll post stats then.