Dan is 18 Months

Dan is 18 months old, a year and a half, and I'm not ready for it! My sweet baby boy is now my little boy, but I can't seem to stop calling him "baby." It is possible that I am in denial because of the baby hunger. But, he very much wants to be a big boy and do everything that his older sister does.

Matt took him to the doctor yesterday and here are his 18 month stats.

Weight: 25lbs; 40%
Length: 33in; 70%
Head: 19in; 60%

So, he is hanging around average on all his stats, though he is a little tall for his age. I certainly have noticed that he is taller because he is getting into more things. Now he can just get his fingers over the lip of the counter and if anything is too close to the edge, he will pull it down. I've started moving everything to the center of the counter, but that is only going to work for so long.

Dan is a rascal! He gets into everything! His favorite things to get into that I am constantly trying to stop him from doing....

• Throwing things in the toilet. Read about that here or here.
• Playing with the toilet brush (that cleans the toilet). Two days ago, he pulled it into the bath with him when I wasn't looking and started stirring the bath. Ugh!
• Getting into my kitchen things (utensils drawer, bowls, baking pans, tuperware) and then either hiding them around the house or throwing them in the garbage. I lost two cutting boards to the garbage when a sitter was watching him.
• Putting things in a hole in the wall. Behind our garage door that comes into the kitchen, there used to be a metal plate so that when the door handle hit the wall, it wouldn't dent the drywall. Nicole pulled the metal plate out of the wall a few months ago, leaving a little, pinky sized hole. Dan discovered that he could stick different items in the hole in the wall; wooden spoons, suckers, crayons, fingers, etc...
• Taking the cushions off of the couch. He started this a couple weeks ago and we let he and Nicole do it because we are lazy and just let them play. Mistake. Now, he takes the cushions off of all the couches all the time! I put the cushions back on 4 times a day and I only have the kids in the evening! I'm sure that Matt is putting them back on more than I am. It drives me crazy.
• Playing on the elliptical. Since we moved Nicole into the office, I had to find a new home for my elliptical. It now lives in the family room. Dan loves to play on it, but it is not really safe for child play. One day he got himself stuck between the pedal and the center and it took me quite a while to figure out how to get him out. He was all read from being squished when I finally got him out. But, it doesn't stop him from trying to play on it some more.
• Turning off the furnace. We started turning on the furnace at night because it is getting cold at night. Two nights ago, the furnace didn't kick on and Matt woke up to it being 60 degrees in the house. He went to look at the furnace and discovered that Dan had flipped the switch and turned off the furnace. The switch is at his eye level and looks like a light switch, so he just flipped it. Since then, every time he sneaks into the laundry room, we catch him going for the switch again.

Having a toddler boy is definitely different from having a toddler girl. I have to keep a closer eye on this boy because he is just into everything!

Although he is a rascal, he is also a sweetheart. This boy is a snuggler like Nicoley never has been. He will come and sit in my lap and snuggle into my chest and just sit there contentedly with me. Nicole likes to be held, but cannot stop wiggling once she is on my lap and I usually can't tolerate it for more than a minute. Dano just loves the snuggles. In the mornings, on the weekends, he gets into bed with me and snuggles in and watches Go Diego Go and I love it. I don't know why, but his snuggles make me feel like he is still a baby for just a little bit. Dan still loves to sleep in my arms too and I love that too. He snuggles into my chest and I have a baby again... until he wakes and goes wild.

Though he is adventurous, Dano is still a Momma's boy. We have tried nursery the past couple of weeks and it has been a failure. He just cries and cries when I leave and when I come back to get him, he clings to me, hiccuping with cries, and will not let go, for fear that I will once again leave him. I will just have to go with him to nursery for a little while because he just isn't ready.

Dan's language has been getting a lot better recently. For a long time he did not have many words and almost all of his words started with a "b." Now he has a lot of words that he says. But, not all of his words are intelligible to people who are not his parents.
Bup= up
Dow= down
Mamo= Mama (he used to call me Mama, but he has recently changed)
Do Diedo Do= Go Diego Go (his favorite show)
Nigh Nigh = Night Night
Yesh = Yes

Dano often surprises me with things he says because he is learning new words all the time that I didn't know that he knew. A lot of the time though, he mimics phrases that Matt and I say, except it is all in vowel sounds. "Lets Go!" becomes "Es Dough!" "Where Are You?" becomes "Air Ahhh Oooo?" He gets the intonations right and the vowel sounds right, but lacks the ability to form consonants. But, I'm not worried, he will get it eventually. Not every kid can be Nicole, who was speaking in sentences by 18 months.

Dano is my handsome little man and brings so much joy to my life. I love this little boy so much! I can't imagine my life without his little face, which now looks more little boy then baby *sob*.