17 and a half months and counting..

well, lachlan is a fortnight away from being 18 months old so i thought i would do a quick update on his milestones..

height: 80cm
weight: 11.3kg
no of teeth: 11 (with another molar just about to cut through)

he can now run, kick a ball forward (often while running) and walk backwards
he can throw balls overarm (not always forward though)
he can walk up and down steps unassisted if there is a railing at a suitable height, otherwise he will crawl up or down (although he much prefers to walk holding onto someone's hands)
he can sit down on the platform at the top of a slide and wiggle himself onto the slide and then slide down sitting on his bottom
he can push himself backwards on his little ride-ons
he can wave hello/goodbye and blow kisses and will give cuddles and kisses when asked to (if he's in a good mood)
he does hand actions to twinkle twinkle little star, der glumph, itsy bitsy spider, open shut them and row row row your boat

he can self feed with finger food, and can use a spoon if you help by holding the bowl
he can drink out of a tumbler and put it back on the table (although is just as likely to deliberately knock it off the table)

he can point to his hair, eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, belly, feet, toes, hands and fingers when asked

he can name mumma, dadda, grun grun (grandma), pop, nanna, barwa (barry), bree, cal, chor-cha (georgia), bud-a (buddy), lyn, leen (colleen)

he can say (or attempts to say) bowl, spoon, knife, cut, stick, bottle, cup, tea, pot, kettle, milo, milk, jar, bread, grapes, nana (banana), cheese, full, wine, cork, hot, cold, car, truck, did-der (digger), bus, bike, police, mower, mop, cd, chalk, teddy, ball, that, there, this, no, nope, up, down, more, walk, kick, ta, please, tractor, duck, shark, turtle, shoes, socks, shorts, shirt, bra, hat, box, soap, towel, hook, oil, scar, cork, book, tree, key, girl, star, moon, wo-wo (yo yo), chair, boo, tv, park, blue, green, yellow, red, two, three, four, go, stop, brella (umbrella), where are we, gymboree, yay, wow, ooohh, uh-oh, poo, bin

he will also reply to questions with noises like rar (what does the lion say), grrr (what does the teddy say), quack (what does the duck say), broom broom (what does the car say), shhh (what do you say when the baby's sleeping), choo choo (what does the train say), mooo (what does the cow say), meow (what does the kitty say), woof (what does the puppy say), arhhh (what does the bubba say), ssssss (what does the snake say), bok bok (what does the chicken say)

all in all, he is showing himself to be a smart little monkey!

Sore Tummies and All Grown Up

well, we survived easter but only just! lachlan had a sore tummy the whole weekend, but unfortunately for him, it was from a bout of gastro rather than too many chocolate eggs. john was out for the count for half the weekend as well, so i was pretty much on my own.. two sick boys in the house is not much fun! john's immune system managed to fight the bug off a bit faster than lachlan, who is still getting over the last of his symptoms, but his mood has been much improved today so he's definitely on the mend..

meanwhile, every now and again after dressing lachlan i look at him and wonder where my little baby went.. it's amazing how some outfits make him look so grown up!

Vroom Vroom Vroom

on our walk to the local shopping centre today, we found a motorbike ride outside the newsagent.. lachlan loves vehicles of all kinds but trucks and motorbikes are his favourites at the moment, so he insisted on having a ride, even though he couldn't touch the footrests and was almost horizontal when holding the handle bars..

Self Feeding

part of lachlan's development has been his ability to feed himself.. sometimes he is better at it than other times, although i should've known better than to let him even try with noodles, but he did insist.. i think more ended up on him and the table than in his mouth..

Cousin Madeline

we celebrated popsy's birthday last weekend with a family bbq at our house. lachlan has taken to wanting to hold babies when he sees them, so we thought we'd let him have a go at holding madeline while they were both sitting on the futon lounge. madeline was less impressed with the whole idea..

Internet Helpdesk Part 2

took some cute pix of lachlan playing internet helpdesk the other day that i thought i would share with you all. he loves sitting at the desk in the study and banging away on the computer keyboard and talking on the phone. fortunately, he likes to mimic so most of the time when he is playing with the phone, he is pressing the button to disconnect the call (which he sees me doing when he actually manages to press numbers) so we haven't gotten any huge phone bills because he has accidently called some international number.. i'm sure it's only a matter of time though - just one more reason why you should never leave a toddler unsupervised..

Water Play

you may remember me mentioning in a previous post that i had set up a water play area for lachlan in the atrium.. amazing what you can do with a couple of buckets, scoops, cups and bath toys.. mind you, depending on his mood when he goes in, he can be in there happily scooping away for between 30 seconds and 30 minutes..

It's Only a Matter of TIme..

every visit to a shopping centre these days means that we have to stop so that lachlan can sit in the rides scattered throughout the centre.. i guess i should just be thankful that he hasn't worked out that if you put money in them, things happen so at least it's only costing me time for now, not gold coins! here are a few pix i snapped with my mobile while we've been out and about over the last couple of days..

How quickly they grow..

well, let me think of what's new since i last updated..

lachlan has changed childcare centres and is now going to tallowwood on tuesdays and wednesdays. i took him there for a couple of hours a few times before he started officially so he could get used to the centre and the staff.. he had a fantastic time playing on all the equipment and especially with the water play table they have. unfortunately, his first week there didn't go as well as i had hoped after all the groundwork we put in - he was still very upset about being left there and hardly ate or slept both days he was there. seems that it's not such a fun place to be when mummy isn't by his side. on the up side, he has gotten much better with being left at his grandma's to the extent that he wouldn't even come back to me to give me a cuddle when i dropped him off this week!

he is getting very confident with his walking and almost runs at times now.. he loves climbing on all the equipment at gymboree when we go each week and is getting more independent each day.. he is happier to play on his own rather than insisting that you are within touching distance and will wander around the house from room to room playing with things.. we've set up some buckets with water in them and some scoops and cups for him in the atrium and let him play with it all - some days he really likes it and it will keep him occupied for around half an hour, other days it will last five minutes before his attention wanders to something else..

he has gotten two more teeth on his bottom gum so has 8 in total now.. he also has a molar on the way - you can feel the points of it thru his gum when you press down although i'm a little scared of doing that because he has a habit of adjusting his mouth so that your finger is lined up with his front teeth and then chomping down on you.. ouch!

he has started putting a little weight back on and was 10.9 kgs the last time we weighed him which was a couple of weeks ago now.. he was steady at 10.7 kgs for a couple of months when he first started walking and going to daycare.. burning off more energy than he was consuming, we think..

his eating skills are getting more developed and he is more capable when it comes to self feeding of finger food, and he is showing an interest in holding the spoon and directing it into his mouth during mealtimes.. unfortunately he has also shown an interest in up-ending his bowl and saying "uh-oh" as he watches the contents scatter all over the floor..

he has picked up some other new words and can say "more" and "nana" (banana) as well as make cute noises when you prompt him to tell you what certain animals and things say.. he can do noises for lions, bears, ducks, birds, fish, cars and babies..

he loves reading his books and recognises pictures in there and can match them with other objects - he has a wooden puzzle that has various sea animals and will take the whale piece from the puzzle and tap it on the picture of the whale in his animal book.. he also loves to listen to my singing (strange child, i know) and does the hand movements for a few songs like twinkle twinkle and itsy bitsy spider.. he waves hello and goodbye and likes to pretend to be talking on the phone - even if it's only his hand that he is holding up to his ear..

he is constantly surprising us by how much he understands, and even though he can't always express himself verbally, he is very good and letting us know what he means..

Lachlan's First Haircut

i decided today that the planets were all in alignment and the time had come for lachlan to have his first haircut. we went to tallowwood for a visit this morning which wore him out so he had a two hour sleep before having a huge lunch.. he seemed to be in a good mood so i called the hairdressers in the off chance that they had an appointment available, which they did. i changed him nappy, got him in the car and we headed up to garden city..

things were going great until we got to the hairdressers.. he worked out that something was going to happen and started getting a little anxious.. he didn't like the cape they put on him much (which doesn't surprise me considering he won't wear a bib) and pretty much refused to sit still on the chair by himself so we went to plan b - me sitting in the chair with lachlan on my lap.. about this point, the crying and thrashing started.. the hairdresser decided she would worry less about neatness and more about just getting the hair cut without removing his ears in the process.. by the end of it all, i was standing holding lachlan while the hairdresser quickly trimmed around his ears.. as soon as she finished and we got the cape off, he was fine again and even had a smile and a wave for her as we left..

once we got home, it was bathtime to remove all the hair that was still stuck to his face and neck, and then photo time! it's amazing how much older he looks without the little wispy curls..