Win is 19 months come September 1st, but I'm going to stick with his 18 month old self for this post. Here are a few things about Win lately:
-He is really independent. He wants to walk up and down the stairs by himself, climb up on furniture by himself, flush the toilet by himself, etc. He even says "self" when he wants to do something. The only thing I help him with is eating, which he CAN do by himself with his fingers and sort of with a fork and spoon, but sometimes I prefer to shovel as much as I can in.
-Eating time is often frustrating because he's getting picky, but he's managing to stay alive and keep a belly. As long as there are eggs, cheese and yogurt in the house we are okay.
-He is talking a lot these days and is a smart cookie. He knows his shapes and can say them. Oval was the first shape he recognized and said, but he knows and says circle, triangle, rectangle, square, star, heart and "x" (part of the Fisher-Price shape bucket). He is also starting to use little 2-3 word sentences like "Cars, Daddy?" It really is fascinating how he is able to communicate with us.
-Win is obsessed with cars. I think they've taken the place of balls at the moment. He could literally play with them for hours, just rolling them across the table. Kent has a guitar box in the bedroom and he took it out once to use as a ramp for Win's cars and now Win just goes into our room by himself and brings it out when he wants to play with it. He also tells me "this side" when he wants me to go on a certain side of the coffee table to play cars. Pretty funny. He also likes airplanes, helicopters (hot-doctors) and "huge" trucks. He even knows and says "RV" now. He just soaks up everything!
-He understands counting and numbers. He has two down pat, but often his counting goes like this, "one, two, four, seven...eight." Cracks me up and amazes me that he even gets the concept at such a young age. We count the stairs as we go up to our apartment so he should have 1-8 down soon. Maybe.
-He is also starting to recognize colors, especially when it comes to colors of cars. Everything was "blue car" for awhile, but now he's branching out a bit. He definitely knows the color blue though and if you ask him what color his eyes are he says "blue". He's amazing. He also knows orange pretty well. Red, green and yellow are tough for him, but he basically knows black, white and silver-you know, common car colors.
-He enjoys sitting on a wall just his size outside of our apartment to watch cars, trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles go by. He points out what they are each time they pass. It's adorable. He wants me to sit down by him and invites me by saying, "Mama?" He is constantly inviting me to do things with him with that little "Mama?" - I love it. He takes a turn and Mama takes a turn.
-His favorite song as of late is "The Wheels on the Bus". He especially enjoys mimicking the mama on the bus saying "shhh, shhh, shhh" and tries to sing the "all around town". He likes singing in general, but that's his favorite.
-He really likes Baby Einstein. "On the Go", "Number Nursery" and "Newton" are his favorites. He had a bad cold so I let him watch too much, but he does know what an "ocean liner" is now and points them out when we go to the beach.
-One bad habit he his picked up which is 100% the fault of his parents is saying "darn" when something undesired happens like a car falling of the table or a ball almost making it into a basket. He uses it correctly, but we don't want him to use it at all. Eek. It really is "darn" so it's harmless, but a 1 year old doesn't need to have that word in his vocabulary. It really makes us want to use our words carefully because Win is a little sponge.
-Win started nursery and is doing great. The first couple of times he cried when we left him, but I think he's enjoying the toys now and understands that we will be back to pick him up. He also cried a few times because we were some of the last parents to get him. I guess I need to stop chatting in halls now.
-I've noticed he doesn't really play with the kids yet, but he understands ownership. He is using "mine" now and understands if something is "Sammy's" or "Mommy's" or "ours". Every time we come back to our apartment he says "ours" like this is our apartment. I like the "ours" better than "mine" so I think I need to reinforce that.
-He also likes "new" things like wearing his "new" shoes or his "new" car.
-Win got a real haircut with Daddy this month and he did great. I think he was really stunned or something because he didn't cry he just sat there like a stone with a very serious look on his face the entire time. He looks very dashing now.
I could go on and on, but that's the Win update for now. I love that little boy. I want him to stay the same age forever, but he just gets better and better so I guess it's okay for him to move onto new stages. Here are some photos of the last month or so.
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