Max had his 18 month check up a few days before turning 18 months.
Max's stats:
The last month has been a difficult one, sleep-wise, for Max and myself. In mid-November he began waking up anytime between 4:30 and 5:30 am. Every.Single.Day. At first, I was feeling tired but he was still taking a nice afternoon nap so was able to rest during that time. Then, in addition to waking up long before anyone should, he began refusing to nap in his crib. He screamed if I put him in there. I tried rocking him to sleep and then placing him in the crib. As soon as his body hit the mattress he began screaming. I tried letting him cry it out and he screamed until I came to his rescue. (Several days I let him scream over an hour to no avail.) Each day after a failed attempt I just let him lay with me on the couch and he napped soundly. I'll admit that I enjoyed the cuddling time but after 6 weeks I had to put a stop to it. And somewhere during all of this I remember saying, well at least he goes to bed easily at night. Ha! He also began to scream at bedtime. For some reason the cry it out method worked for nighttime sleeping (probably because he was so exhausted). He screamed about 20 minutes one night, 10 the next, and then went back to being easy to put to sleep at night. And then for some unknown reason the morning he turned 18 months he slept until 7:30 am. Praise the Lord! I feared telling anyone in case it was a fluke. A week went by and he was sleeping past 7 am each day. And then on day 14 he woke at 4:30 am. He's been waking consistently at 5:50 am, which beats 4:30 but I miss 7:00. ;) His naps are getting better. The week of Christmas I stopped letting him nap on the couch. I sit and rock him and can usually get him into his crib. I'm calling it the 20:40:20 nap. (20 mins rocking, 40 mins in the crib, 20 mins rocking) It sometimes looks like 20:20:40 and also 20:10:50. You get the idea.
To my friends who have had to listen to me whine and cry about his lack of sleeping via email, text, and phone calls: I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you for listening and praying.
His speech is coming along and he adds more words to his list each week. Here is a list of words he can say (* next to words he says often):
- up
- ahsh (wash) *
- open
- dada
- mama
- dis (this) *
- ep (help) *
- ot (hot)
- sew (snow)
- ball
- no *
- cat *
- es (yes)
- baa (the sheep sound, as evidenced in the video above)
- more *
- milk *
- baby *
- love
- eat
- dog *
- fish *
Max loves to read books and can read the same books over and over and over again. He LOVES the "How Do Dinosaurs..." books by Jane Yolen. He asks for these books about a million times a day! (He has "Say Good Night" and "Eat Their Food".) I credit these books for his ability to say "No". Each page has a question and he emphatically answers "Nooo!" (The video below doesn't have picture but you can hear him while I read one of these books.)
His favorite foods are cheese, yogurt, oatmeal, toast with sunflower spread, spaghetti, and fried rice. He will not eat meat but will chew on bacon.
Max is still working on his first set of molars and has 8 other teeth.
He loves to try anything that Raelyn is doing. Their favorite before bed activity is to have a "dance party". Raelyn can spin and spin and spin so now Max has started spinning too. He is so funny because he spins a few times and then tips over.
Oh! He is one of those quiet mischievous types. Max will see something he's not supposed to touch or a drawer he's not supposed to open and he gets really close to it and then looks around to see if anyone is watching. If he catches my eye he just gives me a BIG super cute smile and then goes in for the mischievous act anyway. It's so hard to tell him no when he's just so darn cute!
