About the Kiddo: One post at a time: 14 Months Old

With each passing month, it doesn't feel like real life that my baby is this old. I cannot believe he's 14 months old! I recently went through some clothes and found all those preemie outfits that our mothers had gone out and purchased for us because he was too small to wear newborn clothes. Then, a few days later I came across a picture of him wearing one of those outfits and even it was a little big!

It's just such a miracle how small we start out in life, isn't it? In the short 14 months that Nolan has been outside of of my womb he's grown so much. Not just physically either. They learn so much too.

Of course, just days after my 13 month old post ranting about the walking stuff, Nolan got those feet figured out and just took off with it. We officially labeled him a 'walker' at 13 months, 1 week of age ;)

It's amazing how much his curiosity has grown since that time, as well. I'm not the mom that's bothered by him messing around with things in the house (as long as he's safe, of course). I let him get in the pots and pans cabinet, the cabinet with bowls and measuring utensils, most of the drawers he can reach, and also closets. He's exploring. He's learning. And he's not hurting anything. Mind you, we've had a few smashed fingers, but I just count that as part of the learning process. (ha)

With this exploration has come a humorous set of events. Things like, finding measuring spoons in random drawers; finding bowl lids in his play tub; looking for the remote in the refrigerator; hunting through the hallways for my pot holders; following the stream of toys leading to the bathroom looking for his sock.

He's like a little tornado. It's amazing the disarray he can make in the amount of time it takes me to go pee.

I love watching him toddle around here though. Watching him squat down to pick something up and turn it in his hands, looking at it with the purest fascination.

I love watching him 'run' away from daddy when playing hide-and-seek. I love hearing the clomp of his steps behind me nearly everywhere I go. I love putting him down in a store and chasing him around as he looks at everything.

Toddlers are awesome. Sure, you need patience and endurance to handle them, but fun they certainly are.

He has finally achieved his goal of crawling onto the couch. This opens up a whole new world to head injuries, huh? Little stinker. He can't do it that consistently yet, but he can certainly get up there all on his own when he really wants to.

He's not doing so well at eating with utensils. If I scoop food onto it and hand it to him, he can get it into his mouth. He doesn't really make attempts to scoop up food with the utensil though. Honestly, I haven't given him quite enough practice either. Most of the foods he's eating these days are finger foods anyway. This month, I want to make active efforts to try to improve this skill.

I think he's learning a more concrete foundation of what certain shapes are. He can do his little shape sorter toy now - he does circle, square, and triangle with a simple verbal request. The other shapes he needs some prompting, but can also do those too.

We've been looking at an animal picture book a lot lately (working on pointing, really). He'll point to cat and dog on a somewhat regular basis. He's correct about 80% of the time on my data sheets.

He's not that active of a pointer just yet, not on things he wants. We're working on it. I prompt a lot for him to point to me or daddy or his cup or whatever it is that he's wanting. I think he's starting to understand. Slowly, but surely.

His vocabulary is much the same. When I say 'his vocabulary' I mean words that he uses on a consistent and correct basis. Not just words he can babble out sounds too. I don't consider him mimicking sounds I make as a part of his vocabulary. That's a part of his language development.

He can say: mom/mama, dad/daddy, uh-oh, just recently some pretty solid attempts at 'gracious,' duck (duhs), and 'all done' and 'diaper' in sign language.

I love the "uh-oh." We say it to him a lot whenever he drops something or falls down. He picked up pretty quickly and now says 'uh-oh' nearly every time he drops stuff. Or anytime he throws his cup on the floor ;)

His communicative language also consists of shaking his head yes and no and waving, along with the two sign language words.

He's a much heavier sleeper these days. I use to consider him a fairly light sleeper. I couldn't ever really sneak into his room and watch him sleeping. And, since we're such advocates of him putting himself to sleep in his own bed, it's not like that allotted us opportunities to do so. But lately, he's been sleeping until I actually have to wake him up from naps, and he does not wake up just because the door opened or I tip-toe in. That means, I've been getting in the most precious sleeping baby adoring time. As a result, I have a wealth of sleeping baby pictures on my phone.

We learned that he is going to be the kid you see sprawled out in the middle of an aisle screaming. And, seeing as how I'm a pretty strong advocate of active ignoring... that is probably exactly what you'll see if Nolan chooses to do it.

On a few different occasions, when we've had to take something away from Nolan in a store or pull him away from something, he will straight up stomp those little feet, flail those little arms, and start crying theatrically.

I'm not sure what people think of that, but I usually let him get it out of his system, and then tell him what's up. Then, he goes back in the cart with a solid few minutes of what I call a 'neutral response.' Which means no talking/yelling/sternness, no eye contact, no touching.

We do this at home too when he throws fits. I completely ignore the fit itself, because I don't want him to get something out of it. Sometimes, when you respond to kids (even if it's a negative response) they're getting something out of their fit and it might be fulfilling to them (key word 'might'). But, if you completely ignore it and they get zero gratification they might (might) eventually stop doing that thing. Like I said... patience and endurance. That's just my take, especially for the infant who doesn't have reasoning skills yet.

He's still so tiny. I think it's why people are so amazed with his walking. People will watch him with smiles and amusement while they ask me, "Oh my gosh, now how old is he?"

When picking out a new outfit recently at the Children's Place, they have a chart for their clothes based on your child's height/weight. For their clothes, our 14 month old kid is wearing 6-9 month pants and 9-12 month shirts. Sigh... lol. He's just so dang cute though!

Here's the proof: ;)