A Letter to Carter at 17 Months

This month you officially became a toddler in my mind.  You have gotten to the point where you are grown up enough I can no longer pretend you are still a baby.  You are not only walking, but also running and climbing.  You like to play chase with friends at daycare, me, daddy, grammy, grampy, Harper, Skippy, pretty much anyone who will chase you.  When you are running, you turn and look behind you to make sure you are being followed.  You have gotten better at falling too.  Before you pretty much bounced your head off the ground when you fell.  Now you catch yourself.  I'm amazed each time you stumble or flop and throw your hands out in front to break your fall.  Last month was the month of the constant bruise on your forehead.  Thankfully that is no longer!

Talking is continually improving.  You are constantly picking up new words.  Some of the words you say are: bird, doggy, kitty, mommy/momma (he uses them about equally), daddy, Gigi, Papa, help (sometimes), what's that, shoes, uh oh, ow, hi, hewo (reserved for playing with the phone), ouch, jink (drink), Papar (Harper), mine, pretty, gimmy (for grammy), gaddy (for grampy), Dimmy (Jeremy), yay, baw baw (for bye bye), Caca (your version of Carter), car, baby, wee (when being pushed on the swing), ba (ball), teek teek (tickle tickle), see dow (sit down), Cocoa (our neighbor's dog), Bobbi (grammy and grampy's dog), beep beep (when playing cars or when someone is in your way), up, stop (only used once when I was kissing you all over your face and you'd had enough), ow, moo, ear.  Daddy straight up means daddy.  When daddy gets home you cheer daddy and clap.  Anytime I'm home with you and you hear the ding of our door opening from a different room in the house, you screech daddy and start clapping.  Momma on the other hand has so many meanings.  It refers to me.  It also means you are hungry, you're tired, you're thirsty, you want held, pretty much means you want or need something.  When you get really hungry you cry and say momma over and over until I pick you up.  Once I pick you up you stop crying, but if I try to pass you off or set you down (to, you know, actually get food ready) you lose it!  You seem to know mommy holds more power.  When you're laying in the crib and want to be picked up that's when you cry mommy.   You also make this ahhh sound when you step down from things or when you want to emphasize something.  At first I was going to describe it as a grunt but it's more of a deep throated "ahh".  You also make vroom noises while driving your cars.  Randomly you pick my phone up, put it up to your ear, and say "hewo".  If I actually call someone you have no interest in talking into the phone.  You also pick the remote up, hold it to your ear, and say the same thing.

Yesterday I said a bad word phrase and threw my arms down for emphasis when relaying a story to your daddy.  You were in your high chair eating and babbled a string of words and then threw your arms down like I did.  I froze and raised my eyebrows at your daddy.  Now's the time to really start getting in a better habit with the language before you are able to copy everything.  You are all about copying what we do and say.  Pretty much anything we say you will parrot back to us, sometimes it's just unintelligible.  You also like to copy what we do.  You want to brush your teeth when I brush mine, you brush your hair just like I do and will even pick up my brush to do it, you like to suds up your hair just like mommy does, you copy movements and voice inflections.  We were looking at houses with grammy, grampy, daddy, and Uncie Jeremy.  Grampy walked up to a wall and rubbed his hand across it, so you walked up and did the exact same thing.  It was precious.     

Your sleeping is back to normal for the most part.  Every once in a while you cry out in the middle of the night but are able to put yourself back to sleep.  You are consistently sleeping through the night again, from about 7 pm to 6 am or so.  Some days you sleep in more, some days you are up at 5:30 am.  I think it must have been teeth jacking with your sleeping last month.  You have 3 new teeth that came in this month, 2 on top and one on bottom.  That puts your total up to 10 teeth, 6 on top and 4 on bottom.  It amazes me that each time you've cut teeth, you've had the same reaction.  You are totally fine and acting normal, other than chewing things a bit more, but your sleep is disrupted and you wake up early.  I wish that wasn't how it worked, but it seems to be the pattern for you.  Poor little guy!

Doors are another mystery you have figured out.  Our doors at home have the round knobs you turn.  You understand how they work and attempt them, but have yet to be successful.  At daycare they have the handles that are more like a bar that you push down on to open.  You have figured out how to open the door and have done so a few times, sending all the kids running down the hall laughing with the thrill of freedom.  I am very thankful we have an alarm system that dings anytime a door is open as I'm going to need that very soon to make sure you aren't escaping into the wild unknown while I'm in the bathroom or otherwise busy.

Fine motor skills are continuing to improve.  You like to draw with crayons, markers, and chalk.  Your grip and the way you hold your tools is more refined.  You also like to use a spoon or spork to eat with.  Up until this month you would eat with one for a bit and then throw it on the floor.  You are now using one during pretty much your entire meal.  You also like to pick things up and put them away, often times putting them back in the container they belong in.  When you play with chalk you like to put all the chalk back in the container.  With that comes frustration.  Toward the end you can't quite fit the chalk in like you'd like and fuss which sometimes turns into screeches.  You now understand that you can do things and get frustrated and upset when you are unable to do them on your own.  You are still pretty laid back so that doesn't happen very often.  I'm looking forward to you using the word "help" more often.  Right now you tend to use "momma" when you want help.

Your sizes haven't changed since last month.  You wear 18 month onesies, 12 month onesies are too short in the arms but fit everywhere else.  You wear 12 month shorts and pants.  18 month pants and shorts are too big around the waist and slide down.  18 month pants are also too long and slip under your shoe causing you to slip.  I have to roll them up.  Your jammies are 18 month or 24 month/2T.  All of your shoes are size 5, but are a bit big.  We moved you up to size 4 diapers, but have had a few leaks and blow outs which wasn't happening in your size 3 diapers.  The size 3 were looking small and very narrowly covered your entire tush.  The size 4 look like they fit better, but leak/allow blow outs, so I guess size 3 would fit better right now.  We have a couple boxes of size 4 that we were given as presents, so we are just sticking with them.  Maybe you're in between sizes and would leak/blow out size 3 as well, I don't know.

Now for daddy:

My favorite thing to watch you do is get down off of things. Beds, chairs, couches, you have it figured out! When you get off our bed, you grab onto my extra blanket and almost repel down to the floor. You are learning new things every day and it is so much fun to watch.

It is especially exciting to see you learn new words and use them in the right and the wrong ways! Example being momma. To you right now, that is an interchangeable word for anything you want but do not know!

Your appetite is truly amazing. You are happy to eat at all times, any food that is available. You especially enjoy having multiple breakfasts in the morning!