The Best is Yet to Come...: Amos Jack

Here we are at 1 1/2 years old.

Here is was 1 year ago today. What a difference a year makes.

EATING:

Eating is pretty much the same this month. The only thing that may have change is the amount. At times, he surprises me how much he wants to eat. I think he almost ate a whole steak the other night at dinner. Milk is still his drink of choice – whole milk, three times a day. He also drinks a lot of water and some juice. Raisins are a new favorite. He got these in his stocking and hasn’t stopped eating them.

Icing cookies with Josie!

PLAYING:

Physical play has been more prevalent this month. He wants to crawl up Dad’s legs, do somersaults, balance on whatever he can find, biking (he’s finally started riding it) or ride on our backs. Anytime we are on the floor, he is on us. The other night, he was trying to lie on Silas! Luckily I was right there and averted him.

No, those two don't look anything alike!

As you can imagine, Amos got a lot of new toys this month. They have all been a big success. It was fun to clean out the old toys and replace them with new, more age appropriate things. One fun thing about the new toys is that they require pretend play. Amos gets to pretend he’s fire fighter when he is in his pop up fire engine tent, or he’s a racecar driver with his new tracks, or school bus driver with his bus and little people. He actually uses his puppets to make sounds and kiss things. It’s so fun to come into his room and see him “playing!”

Amos has become very interested in my cleaning tasks. I let him help however he can. I figure if he thinks it is fun, he may enjoy “helping” later too! So far he takes the clothes out of the dryer, uses a rag to wipe things down, stirs stuff, hands me silverware, and pushes the vacuum. This has also served to curb his fear of the vacuum.

He’s getting better at playing with Silas. Which means, he now brings toys to Silas and shares the bumbo and activity gym! He also loves to say “Hi” to Silas whenever he is up.

He had so much fun playing with his cousins again this month. It has been such a blessing to spend extended time with both sides of the family!

PERSONALITY:

Amos started smiling on purpose this month. He now cheeses for pictures and may even say “Cheese” when I get the camera out! (Where was this ability when we had family pictures taken?!?) His cheesy smile cracks us up. He can be such a goof ball on purpose. If something makes us laugh, he repeats it. He can be quite the entertainer. Especially when the grandparents are around.

He’s a stubborn little guy. Things need to be done his way. He now tells us “no” if we are playing with his toys or doing something we are not suppose to.

COMMUNICATION:

There’s been lots and lots of talking this month – actual talking. I think the more time he spends with other kids, the more talkative he gets. He’s got so many words under his belt, but my favorite new ones are “surprise” (which came in very handy when opening presents), “WOW”, “pretty”, “please”, and “thank you.” He also has a version of “I love you.” And my heart melts. He words continue to get clearer and clearer. There’s not much guessing with what he is saying these days and most of the time he is saying something. He now is included in our prayers. He holds our hand and says "AMEN" at the end. Praying is something he gets pretty excited about.

DISCIPLINE:

At the beginning of the month, Amos hit Josie a couple of times while she was over. I was worried this was his new “trick.” Luckily a few spankings seemed to stop that for now. We haven’t seen it any more this month. However, his scream has taken off. It even made an appearance at church one Sunday. That’s when we decided he wasn’t just doing it because he was frustrated, he was doing it because he was mad and wanted our attention or just because he knew he wasn’t suppose to. Screams in the car meant a hand swat. He has since started hitting his own hand when he does something he isn’t suppose to. Do all kids do this?

LEARNING:

I decided to add a learning category because he learns so much each month. This month, I made him a sensory tub, full of noodles, beans, measuring cups, tongs, little animals, etc. He loves it. In fact, if I leave the room, he picks it up and carries/drags it to follow me. He can’t leave it alone if it is out. For that reason, we only bring it out to play together. He’s learning scoping, pouring and sorting with it.

We celebrated Advent as a family this month. Last year I made an advent calendar that involved adding a piece of the Nativity each day the story was told. He wasn’t interested in it then, but this year he has loved it. I’ll find him standing under it and pretend reading the story. It’ll be exciting to do this each year with the boys.

Also this month, we’ve practiced our ABC’s and putting on clothes. I was just sure he had no idea how to put on his clothes the first time I asked him to do it. However, he walked right over to his shirt, opened it up, stuck one arm in and then other, and tried to put it over his head. The pants were a little different story, but he sure surprised me. He has shown a little interest in his potty, but we aren’t pushing anything. I just want to be ready when the time comes.

SLEEP:

Most of the time we takes one nap, but occasionally – especially with all the traveling, he took two this month. With Silas’ schedule, its nice when he takes two, but a long one in the afternoon isn’t too bad either.

We have had a lot of trouble with night-time leaking. A long time ago, we stopped using cloth at night because he would always leak through. However, he’s been leaking through disposables for the last several months. I didn’t know what to do, until I came across this blog post on wool diaper covers. It, of course, grabbed my attention from the start. After reading more about it, I was hooked! Just using disposable diapers at night was adding up - I don’t know how people afford it. With the wool cover, I can use cloth at night! It’ll be worth the investment if we don’t have to use disposables anymore at night!

SPECIAL EVENTS:

Well, the molars are in!! Yay! That makes 12 teeth. Now he’s beginning work on the incisors! Will it ever end? Also, Amos got Pink Eye this month. The first 6 days of the 7 day regimen of medicine involved a screaming child every time we put the drops in his eyes. On day 7, he decided that it wasn’t too bad and actually asked us to put more in his eyes. That kid!

Here’s some of the new things we did this month:

Christmas Parade