Mr. Oliver turns 14 months old today. He's still not walking around much, but he's started to enjoy walking back and forth between Andrew and me at a distance of about six feet. Very rarely, I'll catch him talking a step or two to get from one object to another (like a table to a couch, for example). In almost all cases, though, he prefers crawling.
Perhaps all toddlers are this way, but Oliver loves praise. If I praise him about something, he insists on doing it over and over and over and over again (like emptying the dish machine!). This has also influenced him to be very generous. He's always sharing! We went to visit Owen a couple days ago, and Oliver insisted on feeding Owen maple puffs. Literally, he'd put them into Owen's mouth. Thankfully, Owen didn't seem to mind!
I think that attitude will eventually help with his potty training. That's going as well as I can hope. I put him on the potty about three times a day, and he usually will tinkle in the potty. Sometimes, he goes right away. Other times, it takes almost the full ten minutes. Still other times, he sits on the little throne, eats his crackers, watches his videos, and never goes. I can't tell if he's learned the association yet or not.
Oliver learns very (very) quickly when I show him how to do something. He likes to do everything repeatedly until he masters it. Sometimes, that's exhausting for his mommy. Every day, we stand in front of the dresser, opening drawers, pulling out clothes, and re-sorting them. He understands now when clothes are in the way and preventing him from being able to close a drawer. Downstairs, he likes for me to open the soap drawer on the washing machine so he can push it back in. He'll do that for half an hour! If I try to distract him, it doesn't work. If I go try to do something else, he yells, "Ah-Ma!" over and over until I come back and pull out the soap drawer. Ha! I love the little guy, but sometimes, things get so repetitive!
I think he's starting to enjoy the concept of numbers. When he carries spoons to the drawer to put away, I proudly announce how many he's carrying, "Two spoons! You're holding two spoons!" Honestly, he usually starts by putting away one spoon at a time and then moves up to two and then three. He gets really excited sometimes when I announce, "OH MY GOODNESS, you're doing three spoons!" He'll start carrying them by the fist full. He's much less interested in letters or focusing on minute differences in things. More specifically, if I say, "O-L-I-V-E-R," he'll go to his letter magnets. However, he hasn't learned the difference between those letters yet. Also, he'll learn that all the pieces of his puzzle are dinosaurs, and he'll hand us a dinosaur when we ask for one, but he can't tell the difference between them (like the triceratops, for example). I'd like to say that I'm not crazy! I don't expect him to know these things yet! I'm just saying he hasn't learned them yet, which will be helpful when I write that he has learned them. Baby steps!
Oliver really enjoys playing pretend and dress-up. He'll often hand me his stuffed monkey along with his sunglasses or a hat for me to put on the monkey. He loves it when we make the animals talk and walk.
What else? Let's see... Oliver's talking nonstop, and he often babbles himself to sleep at night. His newest word is "dog," which sounds like "Chosh." His favorite two words are still "more" and "shoes" (which he says as "shhhh!").
Oliver's sleeping from 7pm to 5:30am straight, and he usually naps just once from about 11am to 12:30pm. Sometimes, he naps twice.
Weaning is going fairly well. Oliver nurses twice daily, once around 7am and again around 2pm. We'd really like for him to be fully weaned in a month, but it's OK if it takes another two. It's very difficult to push him through a nursing when he wants to nurse. I swear, he'd still nurse six times a day if I let him. When Andrew's home, it's easier, because Andrew can watch him and I can leave the room when Oliver is throwing one of his I-want-to-nurse fits. When Andrew's not home, Oliver will cry and whine and complain and tug on my shirt for hours until I cave. Sometimes, I think it would be easier on him if we just cut him off cold turkey because then he wouldn't have to try to deal with the issue of sometimes getting to nurse and sometimes not. We have a big vacation coming up in a few weeks though, so I don't think we'll consider that seriously until we get back.
Perhaps all toddlers are this way, but Oliver loves praise. If I praise him about something, he insists on doing it over and over and over and over again (like emptying the dish machine!). This has also influenced him to be very generous. He's always sharing! We went to visit Owen a couple days ago, and Oliver insisted on feeding Owen maple puffs. Literally, he'd put them into Owen's mouth. Thankfully, Owen didn't seem to mind!
I think that attitude will eventually help with his potty training. That's going as well as I can hope. I put him on the potty about three times a day, and he usually will tinkle in the potty. Sometimes, he goes right away. Other times, it takes almost the full ten minutes. Still other times, he sits on the little throne, eats his crackers, watches his videos, and never goes. I can't tell if he's learned the association yet or not.
Oliver learns very (very) quickly when I show him how to do something. He likes to do everything repeatedly until he masters it. Sometimes, that's exhausting for his mommy. Every day, we stand in front of the dresser, opening drawers, pulling out clothes, and re-sorting them. He understands now when clothes are in the way and preventing him from being able to close a drawer. Downstairs, he likes for me to open the soap drawer on the washing machine so he can push it back in. He'll do that for half an hour! If I try to distract him, it doesn't work. If I go try to do something else, he yells, "Ah-Ma!" over and over until I come back and pull out the soap drawer. Ha! I love the little guy, but sometimes, things get so repetitive!
I think he's starting to enjoy the concept of numbers. When he carries spoons to the drawer to put away, I proudly announce how many he's carrying, "Two spoons! You're holding two spoons!" Honestly, he usually starts by putting away one spoon at a time and then moves up to two and then three. He gets really excited sometimes when I announce, "OH MY GOODNESS, you're doing three spoons!" He'll start carrying them by the fist full. He's much less interested in letters or focusing on minute differences in things. More specifically, if I say, "O-L-I-V-E-R," he'll go to his letter magnets. However, he hasn't learned the difference between those letters yet. Also, he'll learn that all the pieces of his puzzle are dinosaurs, and he'll hand us a dinosaur when we ask for one, but he can't tell the difference between them (like the triceratops, for example). I'd like to say that I'm not crazy! I don't expect him to know these things yet! I'm just saying he hasn't learned them yet, which will be helpful when I write that he has learned them. Baby steps!
Oliver really enjoys playing pretend and dress-up. He'll often hand me his stuffed monkey along with his sunglasses or a hat for me to put on the monkey. He loves it when we make the animals talk and walk.
What else? Let's see... Oliver's talking nonstop, and he often babbles himself to sleep at night. His newest word is "dog," which sounds like "Chosh." His favorite two words are still "more" and "shoes" (which he says as "shhhh!").
Oliver's sleeping from 7pm to 5:30am straight, and he usually naps just once from about 11am to 12:30pm. Sometimes, he naps twice.
Weaning is going fairly well. Oliver nurses twice daily, once around 7am and again around 2pm. We'd really like for him to be fully weaned in a month, but it's OK if it takes another two. It's very difficult to push him through a nursing when he wants to nurse. I swear, he'd still nurse six times a day if I let him. When Andrew's home, it's easier, because Andrew can watch him and I can leave the room when Oliver is throwing one of his I-want-to-nurse fits. When Andrew's not home, Oliver will cry and whine and complain and tug on my shirt for hours until I cave. Sometimes, I think it would be easier on him if we just cut him off cold turkey because then he wouldn't have to try to deal with the issue of sometimes getting to nurse and sometimes not. We have a big vacation coming up in a few weeks though, so I don't think we'll consider that seriously until we get back.
Likes
*Nursing
*Sharing food
*Snuggling Mommy
*Playing with Daddy
*The washing machine
*The dish washer (especially moving dishes around and putting spoons away)
*Shoes
*Monkey & Froggy
*Going up & down stairs
*Playing "Luke Skywalker" (a game where he pulls his hand up into his sleeve and then laughs with delight when we pull up his sleeve to reveal his hand)
*Pulling clothes out of drawers and either handing the clothes to someone or shoving them into another drawer.
Dislikes
*Baths
*Not getting to nurse every time he wants to
*Naps
*Being told, "no"
*Snuggling Mommy
*Playing with Daddy
*The washing machine
*The dish washer (especially moving dishes around and putting spoons away)
*Shoes
*Monkey & Froggy
*Going up & down stairs
*Playing "Luke Skywalker" (a game where he pulls his hand up into his sleeve and then laughs with delight when we pull up his sleeve to reveal his hand)
*Pulling clothes out of drawers and either handing the clothes to someone or shoving them into another drawer.
Dislikes
*Baths
*Not getting to nurse every time he wants to
*Naps
*Being told, "no"
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