Daniel continues to amaze me every day. This month was filled with amazing mental development. Daniel's memory is awesome to observe and his ability to problem solve is so cool. Physically, Daniel's development is taking off as well- in terms of his balance, coordination, and strength. He will try just about anything these days and with his problem solving skills, can usually figure out just about anything as well.
The most fun game in the last week is peek-a-boo. Daniel loves for us to "look" for him. He splays his hands over his eyes and we say "where's Daniel?" and you can see him looking at us between his fingers and smiling behind his hands. Still trying to get a picture or video because I just love this. Today he even hid behind his hands and proceeded to walk around- too funny. Daniel will also hide behind books, box lids, remotes, etc. Hiding behind remotes is funny too because, like his hands, you can still see him and how cute he looks waiting to come out of hiding.
I've mentioned before how limber Daniel is these days. Daniel likes to "limbo" (he will do his back arching if you say "limbo"), spin around and around, and back up while crawling as you saw in that video I posted. He does all of this with amazing coordination and balance. You'd think after he does all that spinning he'd fall over, but nope- he's got that down pat and can take steps to the side or backward to right himself. I've started trying to teach him "Teddy Bear Teddy Bear turn around" and we've got the first two steps down- turn around and then touch the ground. Of course, it depends on whether Daniel wants to or not, but it's still cute. The other two steps in the verse vary, from what I've found on the internet- but I like shake your hips (since Daniel loves to dance) and blow a kiss. We'll keep practicing and I promise to share sometime! The backing up is just too funny and I think he might even have eyes in the back of his head for how well he sometimes does it (oh wait, I'm the one who's supposed to have eyes in the back of my head- how'd HE get them?!).
Another sweet development is that Daniel comes up to us and takes our hands to take us to another room. I think this is so sweet. He, however, doesn't understand that if we're sitting we have to stand first and so he will just pull and pull practically knocking me down to the floor. I just love his perception (or misperception in some cases) of how things work, and yet he still tries. He even takes our hands and walks around in stores now, too. Although he likes some degree of independence in these places, too (gee, is he a toddler?), and will wander where he wants without us if he can. We're always close by of course! Still, I've waited for the time to come when he'd take my hand and walk around with me...so this is just so precious, and I know too well that it won't last long.
Daniel is great at cleaning up. When I say he has a good memory and good problem solving skills, this is where I notice it the most. He remembers where things go or where he found them- even if it was in another room, which I think is just great. When he's done eating, we ask him to clean up his tray and he cleans up any pieces of food that he doesn't want and puts them back on the plate or gives them to us- and invariably he'll even eat more as he cleans- clever mommy! He will also follow several steps to put something away if needed. Best example- the other day, he'd gotten an orange out of the fridge, and then wanted to go down to the basement, so we told him to clean up the orange. I opened the fridge for him, he opened the drawer, put the orange in, closed the drawer, and then closed the fridge door, and then walked over to Ben with his arms up and ready to go downstairs. I loved this! Daniel does the same with garbage- which we monitor closely, but so far, just garbage goes in. When Ben unwrapped a present for his birthday, Daniel took a small piece into the kitchen, opened the garbage drawer, threw the piece in, closed the drawer, came back for another little piece, did the same thing, came back for the biggest piece, and did it one last time. In this process, he even dropped one of the small pieces, but this didn't distract him- he still finished the task. And this was all on his own- we didn't ask him to clean it up. He was so proud of himself. My little guy is growing up!
We all know Daniel loves to go to the basement. Daniel will even give me my robe (which he calls a "woah", close to "ro", though he says it like woahwoahwoah) and slippers so that I'm ready to take him downstairs. And if my robe and slippers are upstairs, he takes my hand and takes me upstairs to get them and then he says down and down we go. See what I mean about memory and problem solving?! And multi-step tasks?! I had no idea.
Daniel still talks all the time- I love listening to his chatter. His most frequent word is down, of course. Lately we hear lots of "fff" which is not too consistent for any particular thing yet, though he does this sound a lot when he sees spoons and forks, but he does it in lots of other instances too, so who can tell? He says "du" for stuck- when his toys are stuck on something, for example on his exersaucer. He also say "ga" quite often, which is for ball. (Note- he can say "ba" but he says it for other words- like beep or water bottle- not for ball) I like that he has applied "ga" to circles, too, and even to circles and other round things he sees in pictures. Now that's smart.
Daniel is very interested in the cats these days, too. He mostly chases them and tries to grab them, which of course we're trying to curtail. Zoey is too fast and will beeline out of his way like you wouldn't believe so he can never get near her. Jack is always interested in any kind of attention so he's a little more laid-back and will sort of slowly skedaddle, so Daniel can "catch" him. I know this is typical and it's a phase and Daniel will learn eventually, but those poor cats! We are constantly showing Daniel how to pet nice; hopefully it will click someday. The funniest thing though is that Daniel polices the cats by saying "down down down" from just about anything they're up on, regardless of whether they are allowed to be up on that thing or not- even the couch. But it kind of works, because if they're on a shelf by our TV (not allowed) and Daniel charges over there with his down down down and arms flinging down, boy do they get down! Now we just have to teach him that they are allowed on the couch and the chair, etc. That's harder. Daniel also likes to give them their toys- and by give, I mean give, as in put the toy on them! Of course, since they take off, this is hard and makes it look like Daniel is chasing them when he just wants to give them their toy. We're working on how to throw the balls for them so they can chase it, rather that putting the ball on them- all in good time, I guess. I just think it's cute that he's so interested in the cats lately. The cats are pretty good with him- we've never had anything happen to Daniel, yet, since we do watch so closely.
I also want to say, with a little sadness on my part but also a little pride of course, that Daniel is officially weaned. He's been weaned for two weeks now. That's our biggest milestone this month. As for how I feel about this, I have mixed feelings. I'm sad that time is over, but I'm glad at the same time. Daniel was totally ready. He has not missed it at all, which tells me he was totally ready. The boppy is now hiding in my closet- hiding, because I think that was what was keeping us going via power of suggestion; even just seeing the boppy made Daniel want to nurse. So after Daniel's last bedtime nursing which was very brief since he's so distracted and highly energetic, we decided he's ready now and on we moved. My other (completely unnecessary) reaction to being done with nursing was guilt. All of a sudden I could eat anything I wanted- and I felt guilty for being excited. So I wasn't even excited at first- I couldn't be, could I? It took about a week for me to bring myself around to where I had cheese on my burgers and I drank my beloved chai again. The guilt has subsided, but we are still very careful what we eat around Daniel since he's so interested in food and especially in what we are eating. So, my little guy isn't a "baby" anymore- he's most definitely a toddler...and almost a year and a half old- gosh that just sounds weird!
Those three molars are still working their way through- and Daniel's just done an awesome job of working through it. He's only needed Tylenol a couple times, early last week, and since then he's been doing great. Drools like CRAZY but he's just his happy ol' self as usual! So, he'll soon have four molars. You can see the one he does already have on the bottom when he smiles or laughs and it's huge- can you believe his mouth has room for those things?!
We have our next endocrinologist appointment this week- so more updates soon on how big Daniel is now. For all the sleep he's getting these days and all that he eats (still just about ANYthing!)...let's hope he's grown a little more again, even if just a little bit. We're still thrilled with how well he's developing in all areas- what a wonderful little guy we have!
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