I’m a little late with this post (sheesh, it’s hard work keeping up with this kid) but I can’t believe we have a one and a half year old! Jameson is really coming into his own now, and we see bits of each of us in his looks and personality…plus a whole lot that is all Jameson. 🙂 He is extra sweet, so kind and thoughtful, very silly, adventurous, brave, and smart, and very much a rule-follower (which I personally thank the good Lord for). He’s always looking for ways to make me proud or get me to smile and we have way more good days than we ever do hard days. Jameson is all we could have ever asked for and more.
Here’s where we stand at 18 months!
Weight & Length: At his checkup last week he weighed in at 23 lbs, 1 oz (which is exactly two pounds bigger than he was at 15 months. Slow and steady with this little guy!). This puts him in only the 34th percentile for weight, even though he seems big. He’s actually quite the little peanut. He’s 2 ft, 7.25 inches tall which is only a quarter of an inch taller than his 15 month appointment, keeping him all the way down in the 14th percentile. His pediatrician isn’t worried at all though, as both my husband and I were small kids. Jameson will likely hit his growth spurt later than most, but then he will shoot up to around 6 feet or a bit taller, just like his daddy. I just hope he doesn’t mind too much about being small for awhile. I know how frustrating it can be for a kid to always be the smallest.
Clothing: He’s in 18 month stuff now, or 18 month-2T if the sizing runs small. I just got him some new stuff for the summer since it’s already warming up over here and it’s all sooo cute! (Thank you, Gymboree.) He still needs a couple more things but then he should be set until the fall!
Hair & Eyes: He’s always getting compliments on both of these things. I would probably call his hair strawberry blonde, although sometimes it’s more strawberry and sometimes it’s more blonde. My sister just gave him his third haircut and ohhhh he just looks so handsome and grown up! He loves to comb his own hair (aka mess it up after I’ve already combed it) and even though the banana curls are gone, his hair still has an adorable wave to it on the top where it’s longer. His eyes are a dark hazel with the looongest lashes.
Sleep: This is pretty much all good, or all bad haha. He goes through phases where he’s waking up several times a night, every single night, and crying until we go in and sit down next to him (he doesn’t need or want to be held, he literally just wants someone in there with him). And then he goes through phases (like right now) where he sleeps perfectly peacefully through the entire night with no wakings at all. I think he’s just very sensitive to certain things, like teething and growth spurts, and his sleep just reflects that something bigger is going on with him. He still naps once a day, sometimes for a couple of hours but usually more like an hour and 20 minutes at the most.
Eating: Homeboy is so picky, but because he aims to please us we’re able to get him to at least try different things. Although even when he likes a certain food he sometimes still refuses to eat it for reasons I have no idea about. But we’re pretty consistent with him and he has to eat enough or try a bite of a new food before he’s allowed to get up. His favorite things to eat are all types of fruits, Pirate’s Booty (his absolute favorite snack), Mac ‘n Cheese, french fries, pasta, French Toast, pizza, smoothies, scrambled eggs, and desserts of course. He hates most meat (except chicken nuggets, but are those really meat?) and won’t go near most vegetables unless I disguise them or hide them in smoothies.
Milestones: He’s got 12 teeth now (his four molars are in) with his incisors breaking through just last week. He runs literally all the time, can jump a little bit (doesn’t get very high haha), loves doing all things by himself, tries his best with his t-ball set, and is learning so much so fast. He copies almost everything Alex or I do and he especially LOVES to copy his cousin Madelyn, which is sometimes great and sometimes causes trouble haha.
Communication: I just realized how big of a leap he’s made in this area since 15 months! Last time I wrote an update he had about 10 spoken words and 10 signs, and now I just counted and he’s up to 65 spoken words, tons of animal sounds, and he still signs 5 words. And he’s learning a new word almost every single day. He’s started combining two words together (“Uh-oh, Mama” or “up please” or my personal favorite “my do”) and once or twice I’ve actually heard three words in a row (“oh, my wawa!”). Most often, though, he speaks in strings of gibberish with random real words thrown in there. I really think he’s learned so much from how much we read, and he loves to recite books he’s memorized along with me (our current favorite being “Breakfast by Molly”). He’s also gotten really good at relaying stories to us about events that have happened. He has a great memory! For example, if he falls down and gets a little owie he’ll take my hand, lead me back to where he got hurt, look me in the eye and explain an entire story in gibberish while pointing and telling me about his owie. It’s amazing how much he can explain and get you to understand even without saying very many real words. We’re currently working on some colors (he can point to a few correctly but still has yet to say them) and some shapes too. He knows the letter A as well but that’s the only one haha.
Loves: Copying his cousin Madelyn, loving on his baby cousin Benji, watering the garden/playing with the hose, dancing, Curious George and Thomas the Train, swings, playing with both sets of grandparents, bubbles, all things outside (he’s constantly shouting “back? back?” because he wants to go in the backyard), chasing Charlie, and anything that allows him to get his little body moving!
Hates: When he can’t get something to work on his own, sitting still (church is especially a challenge right now), any food he deems unworthy, and long car rides (kind of goes with the sitting still thing).
Things I want to remember: Watching your daddy show you how to hit a baseball, the way you tell us you want a snack or a bite of something (loud slurping noise), the way you yell “Mama?! Mama?!” when you need to find me as soon as possible, your gibberish stories that have perfect intonation and facial expressions to go along, how you always say “oh no!” when things go wrong, how you say “I dunno” when you’re not sure of the answer, how gentle and sweet you are with your cousin Benji, how you say Chuck (“duck”) and Madelyn (“danna”) and Uncle Colby (“CoCo”), the way you wake me up every morning by kissing my cheek multiple times, your little slide to the side dance, the way you say belly button (“bucket”), how Charlie sleeps under your crib for every one of your naps because he doesn’t want to leave you, your happy kicky legs when Daddy pops up next to your window in the car and surprises you, how you squint one eye shut while we pray and say “amen” at the end, how you randomly wave and say hi to us throughout the day, and the giant proud smile you get on your face after you do something cool or help me with a chore. Oh there are so many more things I could list! Eighteen months is so much fun.
We love you so much, Jameson! You are the very best part of every day. ❤
Sleep: He’s still on the two naps per day schedule but I’m guessing he’ll go down to one pretty soon. His morning nap has been total crap every day for the past week or so (used to be a solid hour and a half every day, now it’s more like 30 minutes). But one of the days this week I tried pushing him to just take one nap and it was a complete fail. He slept for like an hour tops and then was a total grump the rest of the day. So maybe he’ll just take a short cat nap in the morning for awhile until we phase it out. His afternoon nap is still solid and he’s still going to bed around 8pm. Wakes up at 6am every day (way too early for my taste) but Alex uses that time to play with him before work and lets me sleep in a little longer. So it’s all good. 🙂
Eating: Ugh, I don’t want to talk about this! I get so frustrated because Jameson is one of the most challenging eaters I’ve ever seen. He changes tastes almost daily (one day he’s into something, the next day he absolutely refuses…although his doctor did say this is typical), he throws food off his high chair all the time, he spits anything he doesn’t particularly care for out of his mouth, and once he’s frustrated with eating it’s all over. If that happens two minutes into a meal, too bad. He’s done. And he’s so little that I have no way of asking him what the problem is. Texture? Flavor? Not hungry? Want something else? I get so exasperated nearly every meal. I hate making food that he’s just going to feed the dog because that is such huge waste of time, money, and food. Plus Charlie is going to get fat haha. I’ve been trying to find healthy power foods that I can feed him quickly before he gets annoyed but homeboy is such a carb and dessert lover that anything beyond Goldfish or cookies is pretty much a total flop. Ah, please someone tell me it gets better! I nurse him about 3 times a day so he’s still getting nutrition that way…but we can’t keep that up forever and I need him to be okay with eating before we can stop. Oye. Rough times. Hopefully I have something better to report next time I write an update hahah.
I’m absolutely loving it. Makes my heart so happy! I also added a couple of pretty plants to make the patio more welcoming, and eventually I’d like to replace that light with something to match my newly bronzed hardware (because right now it is yeesh). But that’s for a later time! For now, I live in a house with a red front door and I am happy. 🙂
Communication: He’s been super into copying sounds and even words (not very well haha) these days. I think he’s really close to his first word, if he hasn’t said it already (hard to tell). Almost every day I think I hear him say “all done” (“ah duh”) but I don’t know if it’s just coincidence or not. He has definitely signed it, though, so I guess that’s technically his first word either way! He also copies me when I say “uh oh” (“UH!”) and babbles almost nonstop during the day. He understands a lot of the words I use every day (Daddy, Charlie, ball, water, no, hi, etc.) and will look for whatever it is I’m talking about until he finds it (e.g., “Where’s Daddy?” and he’ll look around the room until he finds Alex). He loves interacting with games and songs (especially doing the “tip me over” part of “I’m a Little Teapot”) and loves clapping for things to show you he likes something or to get me to say “yay!” He sometimes even asks for the name of things in his own way (will reach is arm toward an object and say, “eh?” and then I’ll give him the name of it). It is so much fun!
Loves: A lot of the same stuff as last month… Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and anything Mickey-related (included the real mouse himself in Disneyland), the ocean, listening to Alex play guitar, being in the Ergobaby carrier, playing with the coasters in the living room, attempting to grab/chew/mess with any wire he can find, playing fetch with Charlie, trying to grab Charlie’s tail, sneaking snacks from Charlie’s food bowl (I pull him away from there at least 8 times a day. It’s his biggest temptation right now.), playing with balls and blocks, walking around the house, figuring out how things work, playing peek-a-boo or hide-and-go-seek with me, READING (loves loves looooves), watching me vacuum and steam the floors and trying to catch the machines haha, playing in the open fridge, playing in the dishwasher (also an area of dislike because he’s not allowed to do this), dancing to music, and just about anything having to do with being outside.
Things I want to remember: Our high-pitched screaming contests, your open mouth kisses which you give out sometimes when I (or Daddy or Aunt Chuck) ask for them, the way you run/stumble the last few steps to me and fall into my arms with the biggest smile, the way you take my hand and lead me around the house, that face you make when you don’t want anymore of something (nose all scrunchy, lips puckered), the way you play with washcloths in the bathtub (placing them just so in the corner, admiring your work, and then picking them back up again and starting over), how you started trying to balance things this month (carefully setting an item on top of something else and slooooowly lifting your chubby little hands off of it to make sure it stays put), the way you crawl or walk away as fast as you can after baths so you don’t have to get dressed, how you gently lay your head on my shoulder and smile shyly at people who come up to talk to you, how you absentmindedly play with my fingers or ring while I’m holding you, the way you veeerrryyy carefully duck your head and crawl nice and slow under the kitchen chairs, the way you used to speed crawl around with your head down and a look of determination on your face, how Charlie and I literally run down the hall when we hear you wake up from your naps every day, and how adorable you look when you squat down with that big old diaper booty to play with a toy on the floor. You are just so so cute, Jameson.
Day two (Friday) was spent at California Adventure, and I have to say that I think we had more fun there than at Disney. Not that Disney wasn’t great, it was just so crowded and hectic that we had to skip some things I was really hoping we could do (like the Dumbo ride, the Teacups, and The Matterhorn for me and Alex). California Adventure was much more slow paced and not nearly as jam-packed with people so we got to relax a little and do a lot more with Jameson. The best parts from the day were definitely exploring mah girl Belle’s Library, taking Jameson on a couple more rides (another carousal & Flik’s Flyers), going on Tower of Terror with Alex and his mom, and playing on Paradise Pier (which is where I shot one of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken of Jameson and Alex). We also got to see a bunch of the little shows that come through California Adventure because there weren’t as many people to crowd the way (the Mickey & Friends show, the Toy Soldiers from Toy Story, the Dapper Dans, and all those other Dapper people I don’t know the names of haha).
Saturday was kind of a chill day for the most part. We went to breakfast with Alex’s parents in the morning, Jameson took a good long nap when we got back to our room (we had to wake him up after the second hour!), and then we spent awhile on the beach. Jameson had the time of his life throwing sand around, walking all over and sticking his toes in the water, and splashing in the waves with me and Alex.
After we got all cleaned up, we headed to a cocktail party hosted by Alex’s company on a patio overlooking the sea (the only work event we had to attend). It was gorgeous and the food was delicious! Plus, Alex’s uncle Andy (along with his girlfriend, Nina) drove over two hours just to spend a little time with us and finally meet Jameson. It was so nice to see them and introduce them to our sweet boy.
