Mason - 15 Months

Our little guy is 15 months old! That feels so weird to say still. He's settling into toddlerhood well.

 He looks like such a big boy!

We've had a really fun month this month.


Halloween number 2! We decided to dress Mason up as Mario! Do you have any idea how hard it is to draw a mustache onto a dancing toddler?!? It was an adventure for sure, but so worth it! Mason loved watching the kids come by for candy and he even got to see a dog in a costume! He did get scared of one little boy, but otherwise, he had a blast until bedtime!

We had a meetup with a few of the moms from my August '16 mom group.

We went to Savannah's birthday party.

Mason waiting so patiently for Savannah to open gifts.

Ball pit time!

He played on the swing Savannah got for her birthday. He almost falls asleep just about every time we put him in here.

We officially have a walker. He started walking quite a bit just after he turned 14 months. He went from mostly assisted walking, to walking short distances between items around the house or me and Josh, to walking into a different room, to walking all over the house in just a couple weeks. Now, walking is is preferred way to get around, although he does still crawl sometimes. For the most part though, he can walk where he wants to. He's even getting decent at walking on uneven surfaces (though he still takes a tumble here and there)!

A blurry one, but he can be so hard to catch in action!

We went to a touch a truck event and Mason got to sit in several types of trucks!

He got to meet Mr. & Mrs. Wuf, but he was only interested in his Cheerios. Even when Mrs. Wuf offered him her tail to pet, he just wanted food.

He got 2 new teeth this month. He's been working on these teeth for quite a while and they ended up cutting through only 2 days apart. We can see more that should be cutting through before long as well. No wonder he was so fussy for a bit! Usually, if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he'll go back to sleep immediately. Most nights, he doesn't even do that. While he was teething, he was waking up several times a night and crying. Sometimes, it would take several minutes for him to go back to sleep. There were a couple nights where we would have to go in and nurse him or give him some Ibuprofen because he was so uncomfortable. It was pretty short lived though, thankfully! Maybe someday, I'll be able to get a picture of his new smile. Any time his teeth are showing and I grab for my phone to take a picture, he gets focused and reaches for it.

Look at those new little chompers! So far, he hasn't bitten me yet (knock on wood).

We've started to get more consisted with baby sign and we've reintroduced some signs that we had stopped signing. Now, he's signing "all done" pretty consistently and he's working on "please". He's also combining some signs, so he'll sign "more food" or "more, please" occasionally. We're working on showing him other signs, like "help" and "sleepy". These are the types of signs that we use when the opportunity arises, so they're a little harder to reinforce. I forget half the time to sign for him. Hopefully, he'll pick up on these and more soon!

He's been really snuggly lately and it just melts my heart. This is on a Monday daycare dropoff. He sometimes clings to me a bit when I drop him off, but he'll usually go off and play pretty quickly. This day, hew as just not having it. He held on to me like this the whole time I was putting his stuff away. I don't know if it was more sweet or heartbreaking.

We decided to take Mason to his first parade this year. We went to the Raleigh Christmas parade and we had a really good time! It's a long parade, so we didn't stay for the whole time. We stayed for about 45 minutes or so, then left to go grab lunch.

 I wore him most of the time and he did great!

 Every time a band would come by, he would rest his head on my shoulder and smile really big. That's not the reaction I expected, but it was SO cute!

We went to Beasley's to eat after we left the parade. The mac n cheese and fruit were both a hit for the little guy.

Mason - 14 Months

I'm finally getting around to posting this now that Mason is almost 15 months old! I always start these on time, but never remember to go back in and add pictures and things until way later! Seriously, how is time going by so quickly?!?

So, here's what's new from 13-14 months. I almost combined these posts, but I'll actually do a separate post for 14-15 so I can remember when things happened years down the road.

Mason got his first haircut the day after he turned 13 months! His hair wasn't really bad, but he had some stray hairs that were much longer than others and he had "wings" above his ears that I had to keep tucking. We didn't do anything crazy, we just got his hair cleaned up a little bit. It's really hard to tell the difference in the pictures, but it was really noticeable to me afterward. It wasn't a bad experience, but I do think he would do better if he were just sitting in Josh's lap, so the next time he needs a trim, I may just try to do it myself if he'll be still enough for me.


Before


Happy during (I think he's looking at bubbles here)


Not so happy during. He would realize he couldn't see his hands and suddenly get really upset about it.


After


Another after - Cool dude!

Shortly after Mason turned 13 months old, he took his first solo steps! He had been walking by pushing things around the house for quite a while, but never was interested in letting go or walking by holding on to our hands. He would actually get quite frustrated if we tried to hold his hands and walk. One day, he just let us hold his hand and he started to warm up to it. Then, before we knew it, he just let go on his own! The first time, he only took 2 steps, but it was so exciting! Just a few minutes later, he let go of Josh's hand and took 6-7 steps! He was so proud of himself. His biggest struggle was controlling the speed of his little legs. He would try to go too fast and fall. His preferred mode of transportation is definitely still crawling, but he's finally showing an interest in walking now, so we don't think it will be very long before he's walking all over the place!

We've kind of slacked at baby signing and have only worked with him on a few signs, which he does do well. He can effectively sign "milk", "food/eat" and "more". We used to sign more things to him, but just kind of stopped. We really need to get better about it, because it really does make things easier if he can tell us what he needs.

His vocabulary is getting much better and he tries to say lots of words now. Some days, he will repeat words back to us left and right (but we can only tell what he's saying because we just said them to him). Some words, he says consistently and on his own. He tries to say Bailey's name sometimes (it comes out Bay-y), but he usually just says "dog" or "hey, dog". lol. He knows what balls are called and will point them out anywhere. He usually gets really excited about them and says "baw-baw". He knows that he can look out the window to see outside. He'll walk up to our glass door and look out and say "out". If he wants to know what something is, or if he wants something, he'll point and say "dis" or "dat". He LOVES being outside and his little face lights up when I open the blinds in his room in the mornings. Other words he says unprompted are Dada, Mama (rarely) and bye-bye, so I would say he has about 10 words that he uses on his own now. I don't count them if he just repeats them after us, because I don't recognize most them if he does say them on his own.


Hugs!


She helps him work on his balance by just walking away randomly. Lol.

He still absolutely loves his dog. We're still working on teaching him to be gentle with her. He likes to hug her now. Sometimes, she's totally fine with that. Others, she'll get up and walk away from him. It's hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time, but I'm thankful that she knows to just move away from him when she doesn't want his snuggles. She's rambunctious, so we also have to continue to work with her to be gentle with Mason. If you've ever been around Bailey, you know how dangerous her tail can be. Unfortunately for Mason, he's at the prime height to be hit in the face with that weapon. He know to put his hand up to protect his face now, so that is nice. I hope these two continue to get along really well. We're trying to prepare for the time when Mason wants to chase Bailey around when she doesn't want to be messed with. We've established "safe spaces" for Bailey so she can get away from him. Her beds are off limits to him and he actually does listen for the most part. We still have to remind him that we don't play in Bailey's beds occasionally, but so far, we're doing pretty good in this area.

We took him to the State Fair this year and it was a lot of fun!

 He was not so fond of having to take this picture.

I was a "cool mom" and let him try chocolate milk for the first time. I only caved because it's Howling Cow and he just got a couple little sips. Of course, he loved it. 

Mason did love looking at the animals, but his favorite thing of all at the fair was pushing his stroller around. 

We hosted Oktoberfest and Mason dressed up too! 

 With the guys

 And just my little guy.

 As independent as he is these days, he still liked to be snuggled and will even let me wear him every once in a while.

Practicing drinking out of a cup. Notice the smoothie that made it on his tray. He likes to try to turn the cup upside down after he takes a sip. We'll be sticking to lids for a while. Haha.

His favorite place to be - outside!

He's really into pretending and imitating us these days and it's so cute. I love watching his imagination develop! He pretends to nap, eat and talk on the phone a lot.

He's all about Josh these days. If he's not feeling well, he still prefers to nurse or snuggle on me for comfort, but he's always looking for Josh if he leaves the room and he wants to play with him all the time. It's so cute to see their relationship grow. <3 p="">

"Watcha doin', Dada?"
He got to go to his first friend birthday party at a bounce house. It took him a few minutes to get used to the unstable footing, but he eventually had a blast!


This boat was his favorite. He climbed in and out over and over.


Celebrating the birthday girl!

Now that it's out there, I can write about it here, but we're expecting a little sibling for Mason! So far, he doesn't seem to notice anything different going on. I talk to him about the baby and show him my growing belly. For the most part, he's just interested in poking by bellybutton. Silly guy!

Mason - 13 months!

Mason is 13 months old! What do you know...another late post.

This stage with Mason is challenging, but it's so much fun. He throws tantrums probably daily now, but I know it's just because he's learning to deal with his emotions. He's getting better about using baby sign when he wants something, he's getting around great, though he's not quite walking yet. He crawls, cruises and pushes thing to get where he wants. He used to just run his walker into walls, etc, but now he's starting to turn it around. He climbs the stairs like a champ and he's pretty good at getting back down the right way too (but sometimes, he still wants to sit down mid-descend). He makes us laugh every single day and I can't imagine a world without this little guy in it!

Some of his favorite things right now are food...(he is not a happy camper if there's food in sight and he can't have it), Bailey, bath time, pushing all of the things around and being outside.

 He's into everything and loves to try to help us.

 He loves going for rides

Speaking of rides, he got a wagon this month, which he absolutely loves! We can't wait for the weather to be nicer so we can take more walks!

He looks so much older!


He got to go on the boat to celebrate Dada's birthday.

He took his first trip to the West Coast! Josh had a conference in San Francisco and we met him out there afterward. I was SO nervous about going on such a long flight with a 1 year old solo, but it went well. He got restless a couple times on the longest leg of the flight (5.5 hours), but I was able to entertain him with books, snacks and nursing. The trip was a lot of fun, but so exhausting. He was a little confused with the 3 hour time difference, but overall, that went better than expected.


He was excited to help pack


We visited a friend's brewery and he gave Mason a private tour.


He got to see the most curved street in the world.


He got to see the sea lions at Pier 39


He got to ride on Daddy's shoulders


Stretching his legs at Golden Gate Park


Learning about bioluminescence


He took some AMAZING stroller naps while we were out and about in San Francisco. I was even able to pick him up from his stroller, hold him for a bit and put him back in the stroller all without him waking up. My child does NOT transfer while sleeping, so this was a huge deal!


Walking back to our room after having dinner in Chinatown. He was so tired and cranky, then we let him play with a fortune cookie package and he was good to go.


Then we got on the cable car and he passed out immediately.

 Munching on an apple on the plane.


Stretching his little legs during a layover.

 Story time with daddy while we wait to get off the plane.

It was challenging at times to be 3 timezones over with a toddler, but we had a great trip!


He loves getting to wake Daddy up and snuggle him in the mornings. His face seriously lights up when he sees him and it makes my heart melt!