Sleeping: You are still a wonderful sleeper.  You sleep through the night consistently.  Sometimes you cry out for about 30 seconds, but then probably find your thumb or blankie and zonk out again.  You nap once a day, usually from 1-4.  When one of your blankies are handed to you, you immediately start thumbing.

Eating: Your current loves are tuna (from the can), cheese sticks (yes, back on the cheese wagon), carrot sticks (not a love, but you do eat them!), broccoli pancakes with sea salt (we call them “french fries”), chicken and waffles (yes, that meal happened…together), BACON, gnocchi, mac and cheese, and cereal.  You have started banging the back of your head and your torso into the high chair, which you find hilarious and we all find horrifying.  When you are done eating a particular food you for some reason require it to be off your tray and either hand it to us or it gets thrown to the floor.  You now say “all done” when you are done.

Teeth: You have 16 teeth (which makes you look so old) and we’re still on the lookout for your second year molars.  Since you fell and hurt your tooth beginning of October, we went back to the dentist for a follow up and everything looked fine!  You have now tried to bite me three times in the last two days.  We need to curb that habit real quick.

Development and play: You are still kind of obsessed with the TV (even if you don’t actually sit and watch anything, you seem to enjoy having something on in the background).  You apparently turned the TV on, selected Netflix and then started watching a Grey’s Anatomy episode all by yourself as your dad was in the kitchen??  You like to climb up on Charlie’s perch and watch the birdies and squirrels in the bird feeder.  You get a kick out of hiding from me, in my closet, behind curtains, etc.  You enjoy playing with Lego’s and trains.  You can say about 20-25 words now and I’ll write them here for posterity sake: all, done, up, down, bus (or bussssssssss, which is your most favorite thing ever!), mama, dada, more (or mo-ah), brush, wash, watch, ball, hi, bye, Anna, Alicia (or e-sha), Grandpa (or bapa), milk (or mil), help, yes (or yesh or yaaaaw), sock (kind of), row, whoa, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some. You sign well for milk, water and hungry – three very important things.  Meal times are a little calmer since you can communicate that you are “all done” instead of throwing your food all over the place (which you still do on occasion).  You love music and hearing the same handful of songs: wheels on the bus (you make the wheels movement with your hands when you see anything with wheels, be it train, car, truck, bus – so cute), twinkle twinkle little star (you also make the sign for twinkle), row row row your boat, jingle bells, hokey pokey, old McDonald had a farm, etc.  You have a bit more patience with books and seem to pay more attention to what’s on the pages instead of flipping through quickly.  You now climb high on the big jungle gym at Jam time; that said, I am more comfortable letting you climb on the smaller apparatuses without being your shadow.

Temperament: Overall you are a very sweet kid, especially when we take you out on errands to the grocery store, liquor store, hardware store, etc.  People always come up to us and compliment us on such a cute well behaved kid – “my goodness, is he always this good?!” they ask.  Just wait until we get him home, we think to ourselves.  You are getting into trouble more and more frequently, and have recently started slapping me and biting me (in a non-malicious playful way).  You really enjoy chasing Charlie around, stepping on his tail, pulling on his ears, and generally making his life miserable.  You test our limits and push our buttons daily and your dad and I are exhausted by the time we get you into bed!  You are still a little shy in a new setting – we went to visit Paul and Anne last week and you started to cry as soon as I put you down, but warmed quickly when Sophie showed you her train set.  You are still pretty good in the car overall – quiet if you have your blankie, whiny if you are bored, and you sleep when you need a nap.

Random: You went sledding for the first time this month. You like doing laps around the house in your snow boots.  If I say to you “say night night to…” you lean into the person you’re saying goodnight to as if to receive a kiss.  Your favorite “toy” at Christmas was a brown paper bag from Whole Foods.  You were obsessed with the piano and ukalele at bapa’s house.  You like to look at all of our Christmas cards with pictures of your little buddies, and if I say “find Charlotte” or “find Grandma” or “where’s Uncle Jeff” you go and point to the correct face!  You really are a wild kid and we are never bored with you!  Happy 1/2 birthday, No-No!