Ben is 18 Months Old!

Our baby really isn’t a baby anymore. He’s a year and a half old!!! Lately he has been acting more and more like a toddler and frankly, a little boy. This last month’s theme is, without a doubt, communication. Ben’s vocabulary and comprehension is soaring in the most exciting way. He is such a little sponge and a parrot {realized we have to start being mindful of what we say!} and he has begun to really follow simple directions quite well.

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Ben just had his 18-month check-up and here are his stats:

  • Weight: 22 pounds 6 ounces (10th percentile – still a peanut!)
  • Height: 32 inches (50th percentile!)
  • Clothing size: he’s still in 12-18 months but he’s about to break into 18-24 in tops, definitely not bottoms {of course this is brand dependent}
  • Number of teeth: 7…. two molars are just starting to poke through though now, finally, so soon we’ll be at 9+
  • Favorite foods: sausage, broccoli{!}, applesauce, cottage cheese
  • New foods: artichokes!, finally likes brussels sprouts!
  • Favorite activities: pointing out airplanes, running, climbing, shaking his finger saying “uh uh uh”, dancing, making people laugh, playing peek-a-boo, reading stories

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At the time Ben turned 17 months he was just coming off of a little rough patch health-wise. He had lost quite a bit of weight and was not sleeping well. I’m so, so, so pleased to report that is a thing of the past. After a couple days of drinking protein shakes and eating a ton Ben’s weight started to bounce back. We introduced probiotics and vitamin d drops as a way to help improve his gut and immune system and it sure seems to be working. AND by some miracle he went the entire rest of the month without getting sick!

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One helpful thing we did to work on getting Ben’s sleep back on track was purchase a tot clock {AKA “ok to wake” clock}. We opted for the fancy Hatch Baby Rest “clock” which is more of a night light/sound machine. It is so cool and Ben picked up on it right away. How it works is that at 6:45 p.m. the orange sleep light comes on and it starts playing soothing lullabies. That’s our cue that it’s time for Ben to get into his sleep sack and have some cuddles, bedtime stories and milk. At 7:00 p.m. the lullabies change to white noise {our house is so loud we use white noise to drown out the creaky floor and noisy pets} and it’s time for bed.

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At 6:20 a.m. the light turns green and the white noise/green light stay on. The green light signals it’s okay to be awake. Really, I can’t believe how quickly he picked up on this. One night I was so exhausted from getting up with Ben and Alex having been sick all week that I just didn’t get out of Bed when Ben woke up in the middle of the night. Or was it 4 a.m. like he had been doing for weeks? I was so tired I can’t remember. He whined a bit and then put himself back to bed a short while bit later. We didn’t go in the next morning until the green light went on and I kid you not, that’s all he needed. From that night on, we haven’t gone in there and he hasn’t needed us in the middle of the night. Some mornings he’ll wake up too early and talk to himself or put himself back to sleep until the light turns green. Other mornings he won’t wake up until after the light turns green and then he lets us know it’s time to get up. Also, Ben started sleeping with a pillow!!

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Now that we’re all caught up on sleep, everything is wonderful. Ben’s vocabulary is growing by several words a day. Some new words he learned this last month are: Santa, Sarah, tree, artichoke {a new favorite food of his!}, fire and trash. We’re estimating his vocabulary is about 60 words right now {that’s only words he knows in context and can identify solely on his own – he’ll repeat pretty much anything you ask him to at this point}. We’re really working on names of people.

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About a month ago we had a revelation that we’d been holding Ben back from eating with utensils. It’s so so so much easier to spoon feed him when he’s eating something like applesauce, cottage cheese or oatmeal, so that’s what we did. After seeing a friend a month younger than Ben completely master using her spoon to eat mac & cheese we realized we needed to give Ben that freedom. Turns out, he was ready! Now if only he could quickly figure out how to drink from an open cup! 🙂

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It’s so neat to see Ben’s comprehension solidify in new ways. We’ve found that he’s able to follow so many simple instructions – “Ben, go sit on the mat and drink your milk” or when I was in the kitchen one day I said “Ben, go put your jammies in the laundry please” and I was shocked that he did. And he even takes the time to make sure they’re totally in the laundry and not hanging over the side. Type A like his mama!?

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As a baby, Ben was not into cuddling. Thank goodness he is now! He is really in a cuddle phase and loves to be picked up and snuggled. I had a really sweet moment one afternoon when I got to cuddle in my bed with him and take a little snooze together.

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Something I’ll never forget about this time in his life is how he repeats, over and over and over, the name of his nanny. He truly says her name around 100-150 times a day. “Edina!” “Edina!” “Edina, Edina, Edina!” It is so sweet how much he adores her. And I know the feeling is mutual!

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In addition to Ben’s vocabulary, another theme this month has been climbing. Holy climbing. Ben is currently trying to climb anything and everything. He just grew a smidge and it was enough to give him the height he needs to climb into a chair. That’s going to be interesting! In a very short period of time he figured out how to safely climb down the stairs or get off of something high up, like our bed. It seemed like overnight I stopped worrying about him going down the stairs.

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One thing I find so impressive about Ben is that he practices things so intentionally. I’m not sure if this is something all kids do, and either way, it is so impressive that when he’s learning a new skill he wants to do it over and over and over to build mastery. He’s been doing this a lot on random staircases or at the park. I can sit back at the playground and he’ll climb up the little tot steps and go down the slide safely all by himself. I’m really not sure when he became such a big kid.

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Ben continues to be quite the entertainer! He is definitely a Rossdeutcher {Alex’s mom’s side} and loves to be the center of attention. He loves making people smile and laugh and wants to be sure people know he’s there. He’s the master of blowing kisses, he loves dancing – especially to Outkast and Notorious BIG {seriously} or really anything if you tell him to dance. He has started repeating names of people and will say “hello” and “ta ta” and can say “ho ho ho” when you ask him what Santa says.

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Ben is such a happy little boy. He laughs a lot, smiles and plays peek-a-boo any chance he gets. There are days when he’s a little whiny and he is getting more advanced and dramatic at throwing tantrums, but overall, he’s a really easy-going, loving, sweet boy.

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Here we are – on to the next month and the next milestones. Our little Benjamin continues to amaze us and we are so grateful to be his parents.

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