17 months

Neil turned 17 months on June 29th. I usually use the last month's post to start the next month's post and just looking at the pictures I can't believe how quickly time is flying by.

Neil is getting more social. I know not to really expect that at this age and I think daycare helps with this. Neil definitely gets social interaction with other kids daily. (On the flip side, though, daycare also brings other problems such as biting, which I'll discuss later.) Our neighborhood has some kids his age though and with the weather being nicer, we spend a lot of time outside on the weekends or evenings when I'm home. Neil always points at the door and says "outside". Our house and the road next to our house is hilly so we often walk down to the cul de sac (just a few houses away) so he can use his Cozy Coupe Car, bike, etc. Thankfully the cul de sac itself is flat but it's teaching him that playing in the road is ok. Tradeoffs, right?

Anyway, one of the houses has a 3 year old girl, another house has grandkids who are almost 3 (girl) and almost 1 (boy). Neil is starting to love going down to visit, to the point that when I get him out of the car after daycare he tries to walk down the street instead of the house. But it's nice for me to see him interact with other kids and have the older ones try to show him how to use his scooter/bike and his quad.

Neil has an obsession with rocks. He picks them up all the time. I have found if I let him carry two rocks, one in each hand, he is super happy for whatever we do outside. Also, we now have rocks all over in his house. I don't know how/where he hides them, but he does. I have even found them tucked in his diaper (and no he didn't eat them and have them come out in the diaper, he shoves them in.) Don't ask me how this is comfortable.

Note the wet bag from my Citrus Lane June post

Neil only naps once a day, because that's the schedule that daycare has him on and we pretty much follow it on the weekends. I think left to his own he'd still be taking two naps. He often falls asleep while eating lunch. It's hilarious to watch but I also feel bad that he's that tired. 

Neil is just sprouting teeth!!! He had 6 teeth as of last month and now has 3 more. 2 of them are his top molars. He's been super clingy with me so maybe this is why. Super clingy to the point that he wants to be held and will scream when I put him down. It makes it extremely hard to prepare any meal for us for dinner after work.

Speaking of teeth, we really have a biting problem now. I think that seeing some of the older boys at daycare has made Neil in general aggressive. When he does something he shouldn't and we tell him no, he hits himself repeatedly. I am trying to get him to stop. I try to tell him he's a good boy but needs to do what's right. Who knows if we're too young to understand what I mean. I think he really tries. But back to the biting- I don't know what prompts it but he has bitten other kids at daycare. I saw him do it once to a little girl (from daycare) we saw out at a restaurant. The two were pretty close to each other so I don't know if she did something he didn't like or what but he left a mark on her neck. (Vampire, maybe?) He also keeps biting Dave's finger when Dave is washing off his face after a meal. We keep telling him no as soon as he does it but he's still doing it.

I had a biting problem when I was a toddler, but I was older than this and I remember it. (Nerd I am, I was conducting "experiments" to see how bite marks changed with the harder I bit, who I bit, etc. So yeah my sister was bitten a few times. When my mom got me a sticker book and promised a sticker every day I didn't bite, I wanted the sticker more than the bite marks, plus I wasn't learning anything new, so boom it worked.) Neil is too young for something like this to work, so we're trying to think of other ideas. So far it's just saying a strong no. He seems to feel bad about it and gives us a hug but then he does it again later.

Along the behavior line, I have been reading that at a certain age, older than he is now, I think, they realize they can make decisions and then do the opposite of what you want just to show that they can do what they want. I figure that's going to happen regardless but we're doing what we can to temper that. Sometimes we let him choose his pajamas. We'll hold out a pair in each hand and let him choose. For awhile we thought he was just choosing what was in our right hand but he's chosen from either side. I also let him choose what washcloth he wants before he goes into the bathtub. That also helps with colors because I hold two out and say the color as I ask which he wants. "Neil, do you want blue or red today?" We have 5-6 different colors so that works really well. I've been watching to see if he tends to pick a particular color but don't see a pattern yet. And we'll see if this giving him choices early on will help with temper tantrums later...

Temper tantrum wise, he still throws them. Most of the time it seems be because he wants me to hold him or something. But there are times that he literally is standing there, throws himself on the floor, and screams. Dave and I look at each other, bewildered, and end up shrugging our shoulders. If we have no idea what's wrong we certainly can't help. Hopefully as he communicates better this will improve.

Neil still talks a lot. He sometimes mixes words up but still signs as well as talking (especially with "please" and "eat"). He says multiple syllable words all the time and repeats everything. We have him saying "Let's go Bucs." and he's good enough speaking that if I have both avocado and applesauce at a meal for him he can tell me which one he wants distinctly (and does say both those words with multiple syllables).

Eating is still going well. I try to give Neil a vegetable, fruit, and protein at both lunch and dinner. I tend to be short on vegetables. Neil loves berries- blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. So I'm buying a lot of those while they're fresh. Just this month I stopped cutting them up and he's eating them whole. I can tell he's starting to chew things although there are times he just swallows whatever he puts in his mouth. So I usually either give him a really big piece of food he has to chew or cut it up into smaller bites that he won't choke on. He had his first french fries this month and really liked chewing them up.

Neil is learning how to use a fork and knife. It's pretty messy but he seems to like it. Sometimes if he doesn't really want to eat something I hand him silverware and he will start eating again.

I still nurse morning and night. I think I'm ready to drop the morning one because I really want 15-20 minutes more sleep before work. I'm really getting worn down with work, as you might be able to tell from my lack of blog posts. Well, it's not just work, it's life, but work is a huge part of it.

This seems to becoming a monthly trend - picture at the drums at church.

Neil also had his first haircut, which I'll make a separate post about (with pictures).

Stats:

Diapers – size 3
Clothing - 18 month tops and 12 month bottoms. I think we're finally getting to the point that the 12 month bottoms fit and some are getting tight actually. He's also in 18 month pajamas. 
Shoes - size 4

Weight - 23 to 23.5 pounds (measured by both of us getting on the scale and subtracting my weight)

Height - I didn't try to measure his height myself.

There are so many pictures I think I'm going to copy Julie's idea and post weekly pictures that we've taken.