I know that as of right now I have neglected to write a 12 or 13 month entry about wesley...I've started it and just got distracted...I'm hoping to update it soon...but in the meantime, I might as well skip ahead to what he is up to right now while it is fresh on my mind.
Right around the time he turned 14 months his vocabulary started expanding. He apparently LOVES words that start with the "b" sound: "bah"=ball, "booh"=book, "boh"=buttons....yes, they do all sound pretty similar, but you can tell the difference in context. He can also say "mama" and "dada" and will sometimes say them in the right context...he is much more successful with "dada"....of course....
It also appears as if sign language is finally clicking with him....he's always been pretty consistent with "all done" and "bye bye" (although I've noticed with both...the signs will usually come after the fact....he will wave bye bye after we have walked away (just like Jack did) or sign "all done" after the food is taken away....my guess is that he doesnt equate those concepts until the object/person is out of his sight. Interesting. He's also learning banana, cheese, and he's getting MUCH better about "More". We are also working on Bath and please and drink and cereal, but not much luck with those yet....but I'll take the blame...I admit I am NO WHERE near as consistent about using them as I was with Jack.
As I mentioned earlier...he has a word for buttons (like on a remote)....this child LOVES buttons! He wants to push them wherever he can. Elevators, computers, tv, remote, phone, oven, toys, credit card machine at the store...if it has a button, he wants to touch it. I laughed at a recent marriage conference where they joked about the male mind being attracted to "anything shiny with buttons"....yep....that's my boy! Within the past few days he and Jack have really started aggravating each other with the tv buttons. I am 99% sure that wesley isn't turning off Jack's shows to upset him (but I know that isnt very far off) but he is just waaaay more interested in pushing the power/channel/volume buttons than actually watching the show. Jack has gotten in trouble for a little too forcefully "helping" Wesley to stop pushing the buttons, so now he will just stand at the tv right next to wesley and hold his hand to block access to the power button.....boy does that make Baby Brother agitated! Oh boy.....the sibling rivalry has begun! I honestly didnt expect that to happen quite so soon!
Speaking of buttons, his FAVORITE plaything is a phone. He loves ALL phones...and anything that you can pretend is a phone (toy bananas or eggplant, etc). He loves our phones, but of course those arent always very baby friendly, and the toy phones arent a very good substitute....he totally knows they arent real...so I dug up an old timer that is about the same size and color as Josh's phone, it has buttons that beep, and Wesley LOVES to play with his "phone". He will put it up to his ear/shoulder and do his little "hello" noise. It is so cute! At walmart the other day I grabbed a few toys to distract him while we were shopping...one of which as a phone, and he enjoyed playing with it and tried putting it up to his ear, box and all! I was impressed the other day (this does with his "understanding" that I mention later) when we were at a playdate and a "Little Person" figurine was holding a phone. I said, "Look Wesley, he's talking on the phone" and Wesley immediately put the figure up to his ear to talk on the phone too. :)
Something exciting is that Wesley is starting to show that he is understanding more of what we say. The other day he was standing near Jack's feet, so from across the room I said "tickle Jack's toes" (without any demonstration...just words)....and he DID! I thought that was pretty cool! He is also understanding the words "NO" more....sometimes he gets really upset at this word and has this little tantrum/flailing around/arching his back/going boneless thing that he does...he can totally turn it on and off at will...and he's not always easy to distract. He seems to be a bit more persistent (I hate to use a negative word like stubborn) than I expected from a child this age....hopefully I will stay consistent with him and not give in...I'm really really trying. It kinda scares me when he does his whole "boneless" thing while he is in my arms since he is SO big (I havent weighed him lately...hopefully I will remember to do that soon and update) and when we are in public I'm not always able to hold him with both arms due to holding big brother's hand. I'm so afraid of Wesley raring back and me not being able to catch him properly. He has even bonked his head on the car door when he was upset about being put into his car seat (thankfully my keys are a good distraction at this time). Anyway, back to the whole understanding "no" thing....it is happening more and more that we tell him NO and he totally hears us and we can tell that he understands....but chooses not to obey (right now it is mostly about the TV and dumping food off his tray) and we are having to discipline him more. sigh. not one of my favorite parts of parenting!
While I'm not too upset that he's not walking yet, for several different reasons...his size and my lack of upper body strength are 2 reasons we are starting to encourage walking more. Speaking of Walking...he took his first steps yesterday!!! Wesley was reaching for me so Josh stood him up on the floor and I was reaching for him, and out of the blue (with no encouragement from us) he took 2 lurching steps! We were so excited we did it over and over several times during the night...really not getting more than 2 or 3 steps out of him....and it didnt seem to make much difference whether he was in shoes or not. He just still doesnt have the balance or confidence. I can remember Jack being the same way....but it's exciting that he's making progress!!In the meantime, he seems extremely happy to be a speedy crawler! He is lightning fast!
He is also teething like crazy. He already has 11 teeth and he is working on five, FIVE more! It seems like this child is constantly teething!
I recently put up most of his 18 month clothes....he still has a few 18 month pjs and all 18 month shorts, but anything that has to go on that long torso/round belly needs 24 month clothes. He is also in size 3 shoes, which seems on the small side to me, but I found these cute shoes at Walmart that have little windows in the bottom so you can see his toes, and size 3 seems to be right. I dont think I could even really see his toes in the size 4s.
As an infant Wesley really hasnt been patient enough to sit through a whole book...short baby board book or not. He wants to grab it, turn the pages, chew on it, etc. But just within the past few weeks he has gotten more into books (right around the time he starting saying "buh" for book). It's really cute to sit and read to him...he will look up at me occasionally and say "BUH" as if to remind me that we are reading a book. I think its so cute. I also love how he will read one to himself and how he totally cheezed for the camera when he discovered that I was taking pictures of him! Man I am just in love with this little guy!
and yes, my phone and computer and blogger and I are in a constant battle about the orientation of my pictures. I cant always remember the right way to orient my phone so that they will upload to blogger the right way regardless of how I change and save them on my computer...the pictures on Josh's phone do just fine no matter what...but when I worked on a blog book the other day I discovered that the bookmaking program will let me manually rotate the pictures....so they will be the right way eventually. So go ahead...just rotate your screen or cock your head to the side to see these pictures the right way....no one will look at you funny...I promise! ;)
