Jackson at 17 months
A few days early, but he surprises me daily with how observant he is! Here's what he's doing these days.
- Last week while helping me take out the kitchen garbage, he grabbed a bag and put it in the can while I took the full bag outside. He then tried to put the lid on. It wasn't the right bag, and he didn't get it around the top, but he understood the process.
- He helped me plant pansies yesterday. He dug in the ground and insisted on doing it himself.
- He's consistently using utensils during meal times.
- He's really babbling more and more. It sounds like he's having conversations with himself. Not a whole lot of distinguishable words yet, but he gets his point across.
- Dan always refers to grapes as "grape ape ooh ooh" making ape sounds. Jackson sees grapes and asks for them by going "ooh ooh" now. Hilarious, and I suppose that counts as a word because he consistently uses "ooh ooh" as his term for grape.
- He wants to go down stairs like grown-ups, and can do so while holding our hands. (One foot on each stair stepping down or up.) I'm not certain this is actually a good thing because I can see him wanting to do it without us and taking a tumble down the stairs. We don't have railings on our stairways so there's nothing for him to hang on to. We might have to fix that situation sooner rather than later. Gating the stairs works as long as we remember to do so.
- He can drink out of a straw and has discovered the fun of blowing bubbles in his drink.
- He loves outdoors. We can be having the crankiest day ever, and when we set him on the grass outside he calms immediately.
- We took him to a real playground for the first time on Saturday. You would have thought we dropped him in the middle of Disney World. His eyes were as big as saucers and he had a huge grin on his face the whole time we were there. He did the slide by himself, loved the merry go round, and giggled like a maniac the entire time he was on the swings.
- He loves going for a ride in the bike trailer. I wish we lived somewhere with less hills.
- Since we got the tubes in his ears we haven't had a single ear infection! This is note worthy only because we were getting them SO often before the tubes. I think its the first time in his whole life that he's gone three months without an ear infection. His pronunciation is starting to catch up too. He's learning F sounds and TH sounds now that he wasn't using before.
- He's repeating back animal sounds with more regularity. He's particularly enthralled with MOO. He'll do it for any animal. I did get him to peep peep for chicks last week, and he still Ugh Ugh for dogs.
- We had to install a lock on the fridge to prevent him from opening it up at all times to "get daddy a beer." Dan showed him ONE time, and now each time the fridge is open he wants to hunt for cans of beverages. Cute the first few times he did it. Not so cute after 20+ times of putting cans back in the fridge resulting in a tantrum.
Overall we're at a wonderful place. I love him so much, and I have a hard time believing how observant and intelligent he is sometimes. He still seems like such a baby to me, but he really is a thinking feeling toddler.
- Last week while helping me take out the kitchen garbage, he grabbed a bag and put it in the can while I took the full bag outside. He then tried to put the lid on. It wasn't the right bag, and he didn't get it around the top, but he understood the process.
- He helped me plant pansies yesterday. He dug in the ground and insisted on doing it himself.
- He's consistently using utensils during meal times.
- He's really babbling more and more. It sounds like he's having conversations with himself. Not a whole lot of distinguishable words yet, but he gets his point across.
- Dan always refers to grapes as "grape ape ooh ooh" making ape sounds. Jackson sees grapes and asks for them by going "ooh ooh" now. Hilarious, and I suppose that counts as a word because he consistently uses "ooh ooh" as his term for grape.
- He wants to go down stairs like grown-ups, and can do so while holding our hands. (One foot on each stair stepping down or up.) I'm not certain this is actually a good thing because I can see him wanting to do it without us and taking a tumble down the stairs. We don't have railings on our stairways so there's nothing for him to hang on to. We might have to fix that situation sooner rather than later. Gating the stairs works as long as we remember to do so.
- He can drink out of a straw and has discovered the fun of blowing bubbles in his drink.
- He loves outdoors. We can be having the crankiest day ever, and when we set him on the grass outside he calms immediately.
- We took him to a real playground for the first time on Saturday. You would have thought we dropped him in the middle of Disney World. His eyes were as big as saucers and he had a huge grin on his face the whole time we were there. He did the slide by himself, loved the merry go round, and giggled like a maniac the entire time he was on the swings.
- He loves going for a ride in the bike trailer. I wish we lived somewhere with less hills.
- Since we got the tubes in his ears we haven't had a single ear infection! This is note worthy only because we were getting them SO often before the tubes. I think its the first time in his whole life that he's gone three months without an ear infection. His pronunciation is starting to catch up too. He's learning F sounds and TH sounds now that he wasn't using before.
- He's repeating back animal sounds with more regularity. He's particularly enthralled with MOO. He'll do it for any animal. I did get him to peep peep for chicks last week, and he still Ugh Ugh for dogs.
- We had to install a lock on the fridge to prevent him from opening it up at all times to "get daddy a beer." Dan showed him ONE time, and now each time the fridge is open he wants to hunt for cans of beverages. Cute the first few times he did it. Not so cute after 20+ times of putting cans back in the fridge resulting in a tantrum.
Overall we're at a wonderful place. I love him so much, and I have a hard time believing how observant and intelligent he is sometimes. He still seems like such a baby to me, but he really is a thinking feeling toddler.