In Your SELF Interest: 21 Months

While visiting our friends in NC this past weekend, I had a few moments while playing with their 9 month old baby where I questioned myself, "What did Shae like to do at 9 months? What did he eat? How did he sleep?" It doesn't seem like it was THAT long ago, but everything kind of just blurs together. I'm really glad that I did monthly blog posts on him that first year that I can look back on to remember who he was.

With that said, I need to do them more often now! If only for my own future self to look back on, cause you know I will. Here are all my long, random thoughts about Shae at this stage of life.

21 month Shae:

~Is still very friendly. He has yet to experience the case of the "stranger danger." With that said, he definitely loves him some mama. When I leave the house I usually have to sneak out so that he doesn't see me leave. When Darin gets him out of bed in the morning I can hear him from our room saying, "Mama? Mama?" But when I leave him with friends or in nursery he seems to forget all about me. He doesn't even whimper when I leave him in those situations.

~For the past month or two he has called both Darin and I "Mama." Just within the past two weeks he has started saying "Dad-E." Shae loves playing with daddy after he gets home from work. He laughs more with him than he does with me all day. Probably because Darin wrestles around on the floor with him and swings him upside down in blankets, which the kid loves. Darin has the magic touch when it comes to calming him down. If he has a rough night or hard time falling to sleep, Darin is the go to guy. I love seeing these two together.

~Likes: Little People, Cars, Trains, Stuffed Animals, Sticks, Pillows, Rocks, Books. He used to really like Frozen, but he's not as interested these days. These days it's all about "Line, Line, Line" (Lion King) as he says pointing at the TV or as soon as he gets in the car (wanting to listen to Lion King music). He's also been super into Tigger lately, ever since Halloween. He loves when we stop at Barnes and Nobles when we are out for a walk because they have a play train set out for kids to play with. And milk! The kid could drink milk for hours straight.

~Dislikes: When other kids touch his stuff, naps and bedtime, being strapped down in the car, grocery shopping (unless he is in the back of the cart, and that lasts for maybe 10 minutes).

~His likes and dislikes when it comes to food are quite unpredictable. He used to love bananas, but seems to be going through a no banana phase. One day he'll gobble up whatever I make and the next he won't touch it. Over the last few weeks he's developed a fondness for broccoli heads, just the heads of course, but it works for me. Without fail he loves cheese. Everything else is hit or miss.

~We've entered a stage where we usually get to witness a good tantrum or two (or three or four) a day. He's definitely become a lot more vocal (and physical) when he is upset about something.

~His vocabulary is booming. He mostly still just says one word at a time, but is starting to put things together (like, "Come on, mama"). He says "I see you!" (I-siu) and "One more," but I'm pretty sure he thinks that both of those phrases are actually just a word as he slurs it together. He's just recently started to copy things that we say as well. It amazes us how quickly toddlers pick up on things. Just this morning we watched a video of a friend's daughter singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," the rest of the day he was saying "Winka, Winka, Winka, Winka," copying what he had heard. This is something we are both loving at this stage of life.

~He's starting to have a little imagination as he plays with his toys. It's fun to look up from whatever I'm doing and see his creative side hard at work...pretending to hammer his blocks to build a house or put his stuffed animals to sleep, or feed them.

~Sleeping: Still goes down right around 7 p.m. and lately has been sleeping until about 7:30, some days later! (and occasionally earlier). Usually naps from around 11:30ish to 1ish. Some days longer, some days shorter. Some days not at all (if he's being particularly difficult).

And to finish things off, I found these pics on my phone the other day. I took these a few weeks ago when I was cleaning out our closet. I found some hats and Shae immediately started putting all of them on. He then played on our bed with his stuffed animals the entire time I cleaned the closet. It was pretty adorable to look up and see him tucking them, or smashing them with the pillows...