19 Months

Today.

Cole is 19 months today. I never wrote an 18 month post or even an in-between-month-post, so I actually hope to perform a miracle today: post a monthly update on the day of Cole's monthly birthday.

Cole's major accomplishments over the past two months:
He can eat very well with a spoon.
He can speak in sentences with four or more words, although he usually talks in sentences with two or three words. The sentences with four or more words are usually sentences that are on repeat (if you have a toddler you know what this means).
He can identify the sounds of things: school bus, truck, motorcycle, car, peeing, shower, etc.
He can recite some words to songs when you start them for him. These songs include: the ABCs, the 123s, the Five Little Monkeys, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Ring around the Rosie.
He graduated to a booster seat at home.
He can apply lotion to his stomach and knees.
He can climb onto the couch.
He can sit for several readings of the same book.
He's learning a certain degree of restraint.
He can clean up his toys when we ask him.
He can answer our questions and if he doesn't know he says, "I don' know."

THE BASICS

Cole weighs 27 pounds and is about 32 inches high. He looks a lot like Keith most days, but some moments I look at him and I see a version of myself. He's wearing mostly 18 month clothes, but he's also starting to fit into some 24 month clothes. This kid just keeps getting longer and longer!

He eats pretty much everything we eat, except if it's spicy or green. He has an aversion to leafy green food, and I am nervous about how he will react with something spicy. He loves pasta, hummus, cheese, bread, and grilled chicken. He also favors bananas, apples, apple sauce, dry cereal, yogurt, and yogurt melts.

LOVES

Cole loves buses. He waits for the school bus most mornings with the day care director, and if I get there early enough to pick him up we wait for the kids to get off the bus in the afternoon. When we go to the town park, he'd rather stand in front of the community center and watch the Trailways bus than play on the playground.

Cole loves lotion. He requests the use of lotion on his body at least twice a day. More if he's home on the weekend. We typically only put lotion on him after a bath, and this only started recently when I was trying to cure a dry patch of skin.

Cole loves to cook. I'm not sure if I ever specifically blogged about the Barbie kitchen we bought used during the Spring, but it's getting a little old and if I hear Barbie yell "Take the turkey OUT of the oven!" one more time, I'm going to hurl the kitchen down the driveway. With that in mind, we purchased a less expensive version of the wooden kitchen we put on Cole's Amazon Wishlist.  It should be arriving on Thursday. I don't think I've ever been this excited about a toy that isn't mine. The wooden fruit Grandma Carolyn gave to Cole for Christmas are already a big hit. Look for a post on the new kitchen within the next few weeks.

Cole loves the idea of shopping. I think this has to do with the fact that a new part of our weekend routine is to do our weekly food shopping on Saturday mornings. When I asked him today what he wanted to do he said "Go shopping!" Keith thinks he knows that snacks and shopping go hand in hand and that's what he looks forward to. I think he likes the experience of being in the store, being at eye level with us while in the cart, and a toddler favorite: people-watching.

Cole loves to clean. In fact, just today he used his sponge to clean his Barbie kitchen.

Cole loves buttons. He's constantly asking for the "mote" because he wants to press the buttons on the gadget that has the most enjoyable buttons: our cable remote control. It lights up AND turns the television on. Who'd have thought it could be so enticing to a toddler? We are always trying to "hide" it but our living room is small and he has figured out all of our hiding places (on the bookcase, behind the couch, on top of the television hutch). He points to wherever he suspects it is and says adamantly "Remote?!" or simply, "Mote?!"


SLEEP

The first half of the second year of Cole's life have been a wild roller coaster of sleep. He started to sleep more in June and then by the summer he was sleeping 12-13 hours in a row. But once I went back to work in September, his sleeping patterns changed again.  He still goes to sleep around the same time every night. But how long he sleeps is always anyone's guess. Sometimes he doesn't wake up at all. Sometimes he wakes up a few times in the first part of the night. Sometimes he wakes up two or three times the second part of the night. Sometimes only once. Like I've said before: he's wired this way. I can try to think up a million and one reasons (molars, growth spurt, separation anxiety, etc), but it's just something that will happen until he gets a little older (one can only hope!). We've stopped trying to figure it out and I've stopped complaining to people unless they really want to know why I'm so tired, or unless they too have a toddler who doesn't sleep through the night. The one thing I've been struggling with is nightweaning. Sometimes I'm resolute and won't give him the "Doo Doo," but other nights I'm truly exhausted and just whip it out so he'll stop crying and go back to sleep. I know this is terribly inconsistent of me, but, since we've tried everything else, I do what I have to do to make sure we both get at least a little sleep.

HAIR
Cole got a second and even more adorable haircut just before Thanksgiving, which was also just before he turned 18 months. He was such a champ during the haircut, I'm continually amazed by his ability to keep his cool, even in the most unfamiliar situations.


BREASTFEEDING

Our breastfeeding relationship has really matured. Although he still goes to me when he's hungry, breastfeeding is also a way for us to reconnect after 10 hours apart from one another. It's a way that I can soothe him when he's feeling really anxious, or to help him fall asleep at night. Now, when we nurse (which is a verb he can now understand and use), he looks up at me, smiles, while touching my chest or just breathing deeply. Just today, he brought me to tears when he asked to kiss me. "Mama, kiss?" so I leaned down and we kissed, and then he went back to nursing. Then a little while later, he asked to kiss Doo Doo, and I said, "Do you love Doo Doo?" and he responded by saying "Kiss, Doo Doo, Kiss." I can't believe I am mother to such an amazingly loving little boy.

Cole's second haircut at Tress Olay in New Paltz.

Cole getting a sleigh ride during our trip to Bell's Farm to chop down our first ever real Christmas tree

Cole and Mama reading a Clifford lift the flap book.

Miracle performed. I think I covered everything here. Any questions on something I may have missed? Leave them in the comment box below.