I've decided to continue with bi-monthly updates on Kieran in his second year. Here's what he has been up to lately.
* We have a walker! He took his first steps the week after his first birthday. Sadly I missed it as I was cleaning. Not doing that again! But when Lucas called me to see he did it again! After that he only took a few tentative steps at a time, until about a month ago when it all clicked and now we can hardly keep up with him.
* He has been consistently sleeping through the night for the last month. Enough so that when we recently went to a wedding, we were able to put him to bed, and leave him sleeping at our cousin's house. We think perhaps the walking helped with the sleeping?
* His vocabulary still mainly consists of babbling. He can say mama and papa (more like baba), but not really in reference to me or Lucas. The cats are GeeGaa and AhGeeGaa (Naala and Mozaique). The most used word is "eh-heh" when he wants something. It's up to us to figure out what!
* This morning after Lucas went to get him out of his crib he crawled from his room to ours, climbed up on the bed by himself (it's a low bed) came to me and gave me a big kiss :)
* Then when it was time to get down, he turned himself around and climbed down feet first. A huge relief that he had finally learned this as we have had one too many heart stopping moments with head first movements off the bed and couch!
* This morning at breakfast he started making the sign for milk! (A lot of things happened this morning, he must have known I was planning a blog post). Just yesterday I was beginning to wonder if he would ever sign again (he did it for a while then stopped), but he has been consistently making the milk sign all day today. He loves milk so I guess it would be one of the first to stick!
* He is now into playing with his legos. At first he just liked to shake the box to hear them rattle, or get me to open the box so he could dump them out on the floor, but in the last few days he started bringing them to me and saying "eh heh" so I could help him pull them apart (I've been the one building with them so far). Then he started wanting to put them back together, and a lego builder was born!
* The shape sorter also holds his interest. I make a big deal and say "yay! you did it!" and clap my hands whenever he gets one in the right spot, and he loves that, so he keeps on trying.
* The toy bags have been a big hit. He brings them to me one by one so I can open them, then he dumps all the contents out, and spends a couple minutes putting them in and out of the bag
* We had our first big separation anxiety episode when I had a medical appointment and my brother-in-law came to look after him. Kieran knows him but it's been a while since they saw each other so he started to cry as I left, well scream really. It was so hard to leave! But Manouche said he calmed down soon after, and when I got back less than an hour later he was happily playing.
* He's not only discovered climbing, but the fact that he can use things as steps, like his stacking boxes. The couch is too high for him to climb on to, so standing on the boxes helps!
*He now has 13 teeth, and we think another (the fourth premolar) is on its way. The bottom canines came through right after the first two premolars, but surprisingly with little to no fuss.
* He loves giving kisses, but unfortunately thinks that his teeth need to be in on the action. We are trying to be patient while working through this.
* Food flinging is another current favourite. Another area in which we are trying to be patient. Actually throwing and flinging just about anything is a source of great amusement for him!
* He can now finally feed himself with his bottle and sippy cup.
* He is completely weaned and continues to eat like a champion. He's still a lightweight though, we're really not sure where he's putting all that food!
* He's halfway to working out how his Push and Go toy works. He's gotten the push part down pat, but then he lifts the car in the air and watches the wheels spin.
* He's a cute little monkey who likes to imitate the faces we make. He also laughs delightedly whenever we laugh, which is too cute.
* He's developed an aversion to the changing table, and screams and squirms systematically whenever we try to put him on it.
* He still likes stacking ring toys and blocks. He can now stack up to three blocks on top each other, but then he gets excited to see a tower and knocks it down.
*He continues to charm everyone we meet, and I even had one cashier at a store threaten to take him home with her.
* He loves being tickled and we have several tickling sessions on the couch per day.
So much is changing so fast that I barely have the time to record it all!!