Fourteen Months

Today William is 14 months old! I feel like he has gone through so many changes since the beginning of May that it deserved a blog post. By the way, every month I write a letter to him in my journal which then goes into his baby book. I have been vigilant about keeping up with this because it is a nice summary of major activities for the month (1st vacation, sleeping through the night, etc) and I also talk about developmental steps (words, climbing, etc).

Unfortunately, May was a month of illness for our little guy. At the beginning of the month he developed bronchiolitis which meant nebulizer breathing treatments, an antibiotic and a steroid. Just last week he had a fever of 103+ degrees for three days (peaked at 103.9) and then he developed a rash all over his upper body that took five days to vanish as mysteriously as it showed up.

We went on a five-day vacation to Hilton Head, South Caroline for AUntie Blair's wedding and made an overnight stop in Charleston to see the Larsons. Their daughter Brynnleigh was born the day before William so it was fun to see them play together.

Despite being pretty sick twice this month, we are back to our "normal schedule." I am now waking him from his morning nap after one hour since he was waking at 5:30am for the day which is just too early for me (and him, even if he doesn't realize it). Now he is waking up at 6:45am, napping 9:30-10:30am and then again after lunch from 1:30-3:30/4:30pm and going to bed just before 8pm.

Pretty much all of his summer clothes are 18m (it helps that The Children's Place does 12-18m so they fit now and still will in August), except bottoms are still 12m because he has a little waist. He is in a size 4 shoe and I just bought him a 4.5W from Stride Rite.

William can say several words clearly: Momma, Dat, Nana, shoe, cat, ba-ba, ball, tractor, truck and car. He says "side" for outside which is his favorite place. He also makes animal sounds of a cow, pig, sheep, dog, and goat. There are several follow direction actions he understands even thought he can't say the words. My favorites are: Get your shoes; Let's go outside (he goes to the door); Bring Momma the _____; Give me kisses; Let's watch Sesame Street (goes to the TV); Let's go upstairs/downstairs; I need help with clothes (goes to the laundry room). When you tell him to share, he hands over whatever he is holding. We taught him this for toys, but it has worked well for cell phones and keys too. One of his favorite actions of mine is when he walks up to me when I'm sitting on the floor, puts his legs over mine to sit on my lap and then gives me a big hug :)

He just mastered climbing down the stairs on his own, sliding/stepping down on his belly. This is nice since we have never installed a gate at the top of the stairs, only the bottom. Believe it or not, he never tried to go down without supervision, and now if he tries to, hopefully he will go down the "right way" and not get hurt.

Happy fourteen months little boy!