18 Months Old!

Today Ian is exactly 1.5 years old. He's really getting to be a big boy (literally, as my back has been complaining to me all weekend) -- he understands a lot of what's going on around him and has plenty of plans about what should happen. As he now appears to be in the "vocabulary explosion" stage that we've been looking forward to, his ability to tell us verbally what he wants is increasing by the day. Although we don't know a ton of other kids his age for comparison, we're starting to get an idea of his personality and are definitely enjoying being able to do more complex things with him. Here is a summary of Ian at 18 months:

Favorite things:

Trucks:
Ian is very, very interested in all sorts of trucks (particularly fire trucks), trains, and other things that go. He is constantly pointing out buses. Fortunately for him, we live in a very truck-rich area. We hear the train passing several times a day. Fire Station #1 is just down the street and (since he requests it almost as soon as we get out the door), we walk past it daily on our walks. At least once a week we get to see a fire truck pulling out with sirens blaring, or see them testing the ladders on Saturdays. We also generally see at least a dozen buses each morning -- long school buses, short school buses, Access buses for the disabled, city buses, hybrid buses, you name it. He doesn't miss a single one, no matter how far away. We are also surrounded by construction sites, so we see diggers, bulldozers, and rollers regularly. We've also seen some trucks I was not aware of until my recent toddler-inspired truck book education -- a glass truck, a cable truck, mobile support units for both fire and police, etc.

Books:
He likes books a lot, seemingly more than many kids his age (perhaps because both his parents were book geeks as children), and we spend a lot of time reading each day. Sometimes he will sit through the whole book (sometimes more than once) without interruption, sometimes he stops us after a few pages and moves onto the next one. He likes both books that label individual things and books with simple stories. Some of his favorites at the moment: Tugga, Tugga, Tugboat; Little Trucks with Big Jobs; My First Truck Book; Moo, Baa, La, La, La; Opposites; Baby's First 100 Words; Are you My Mother?; Let's Paint a Rainbow.

Music:
Several people who know Ian have commented on his response to music, making us think that he is more into music than the average kid his age. He loves to listen to songs all the time and dances a lot. He can sporadically keep time when he claps. We look forward to introducing him to an instrument when he's a little older. For now our Music Together class and lots of songs at home are fun.

Dogs:
Ian loves to do things with the dogs. He puts them into their crates each morning (which won't last long now, as their yard is almost ready). He tells them, "Go, go", closes the doors and gives them each a treat. He also tells them to go their beds when he's eating if they are bothering him (or, "No, No!" if they try to do something he thinks is not allowed).

Water:
In addition to swimming and baths, Ian loves to have water in cups to move around -- particularly ferrying water from the sink to the dogs' bowl. He also likes to wash his hands a lot now that he can climb up on the stool in the bathroom and do it himself.

Foods:
Perhaps his favorite food right now is "Pia!!", which he frequently requests. He actually walked me around the corner Friday after his haircut seeking Pia at the pizza shop, which he'd only been to a couple of times. I was impressed with his memory. He also continues to love canteloupe, eating it almost every day for breakfast. He shares my love of dried apples. He has recently discovered that bread is tastier with jam. He likes cheese and cottage cheese (the latter he particularly likes to add things to before eating -- peas, cheerios, tomatoes, beans, whatever. His favorite vegetable is tomatoes, which he will eat large numbers of fresh. He eats the marinated bean salad we frequently have as well as hummus, spicy meat kabobs, curry, and spinach bars, so no lack of willingness to try things with strong flavors so far. Ian likes to have his food in a bowl (so he can take it in and out) and generally wants a utensil. He can use a fork and spoon quite well when he wants to, but sometimes he prefers to pick food up with the fork, then take it off with his fingers to put in his mouth.

Language:
Ian says too many things to count these days. He quickly picks up and repeats every word we say. Every day he says several new words. He is starting to finally use "Yes" when appropriate (previously he answered every question "No"). I think it clicked last week -- I asked if he wanted go to the fire station and told him to say, "Yes!". He did. The next morning we walked out the door and he made a siren noise then said "Yes, yes, yes!". Since then he seems to get the power of yes. Even more than words, he loves to make sounds -- he has sounds for all the trucks and animals in our books. He knows many body parts and loves to point them out and make everyone else point them out too. Many words which he previously said roughly have become much more clear -- "Bus" instead of "Buh", "Vance" instead of "Ba" (Vance is a boy he knows), "Bye Bye" instead of "Ba Ba". He was in a phase a few weeks ago where he used "Dis" and "More" all the time. "Dis" is now pretty infrequent, as he has learned the words for most of what he wants.

Motor skills:
Ian's default mode of transportation now is running. He climbs up many things easily -- the toilet, the coffee table, our beds, the piano bench. He can go up and down steps and curbs. He seems to be fairly brave but appropriately cautious -- he is willing to try lots of new things but doesn't often get out of control or do things that cause him injury (similar to his Daddy). He's had only two or three bruises as a result of falling since he learned to walk, which seems low. His fine motor skills are also good - he can eat with utensils, turn pages of real books without ripping them, and work complicated mechanisms on all sorts of things.

Activities:
Ian is out and about. He continues to take swim class at the YMCA. He just started a parent/child music class this weekend which he enjoyed immensely, and he's about to start going to Little Gym with Lisa and Maeve (nanny and friend). Also, he goes to storytime at the library and, of course, the museum each week. We've been discovering all the parks and playgrounds of Durham as well, and have found some with special features that he enjoys (sand pit!).

Social skills:
Although his primary interactions are still with adults, Ian seems to enjoy other kids. He and Maeve, who he shares our nanny Lisa with, seem to get along well for toddlers. They do the expected taking of objects, etc., but always seem delighted to see each other every morning. He also really likes older kids -- Maeve's 3-year-old brother Vance is a big hit with Ian when he's home from pre-school, and he had a great time playing with a 4 year old boy in the sand pit this weekend.

Sleep/Nursing:
For the past few weeks I've been making an effort to night wean Ian and try to get him to stay in his crib all night. It's been a mix of nights in which I have missed a lot of sleep and nights where he sleeps in his crib until 5am. I feel like we might be turning the corner on sleep. Yay. He is still a very avid nurser, but seems to be more or less night weaned. He has also gotten accustomed to having to wait until we get home each day to nurse (which I started working on about a month ago). For now, I'm not going to push him further to reduce nursing, although I would like to get him down to just morning, after arriving home, and before bed soon.

Personality:
Our guesses about Ian's personality are that he is thoughtful and likely to have a longer than average attention span for his age (although of course at this age that is still very short). He is fairly persistent working at skills he wants, like putting the caps on his markers. Although not passive, he is not particularly hyper. He can be very energetic about things he's interested in, but also can sit and do one task for a while. Although he is in a shy stage, he seems to like other people a lot and be friendly, not too timid. As I said above, he seems ready to take on new challenges, but wisely cautious when necessary, and he appears to have an unusual affinity to books and music. We'll see how accurate this is as he gets older and his personality develops more fully!

In the middle of processing some Ian video to post in the next few days!