Niall's 21-month update

 

Niall is 1 and 3/4!

He:
- weighs probably between 19-20 lbs. He definitely feels bigger, chunkier (my back!) and has a great appetite. He's wearing mostly 12-month pants, 12-18 month tops (tops much easier to get on than onesies these days!), and size 4 shoes.

- drinks somewhere between 4-8 oz of a blend (about 50/50) of thawed breast milk/cow's milk from a cup at daycare. I nurse in the morning and before bed/naps and have quit pumping (except when I was out of town last week-- my supply is way down, only getting 1-2 oz in a session). I thought he may wean himself after my 6-day trip, but he seemed eager to return to nursing the morning I was home.

- eats at a high chair (or close to the table, sometimes he doesn't want to "sit there") in the kitchen and has a good appetite (some of his favorite phrases are "EAT!" and "SNACK!" (especially in church :)). He's still a lover of fruits, noodles, soups, rice, peanut butter, yogurt, and cheese, but has actually started to eat meat fairly regularly, including pho meatballs, as well as salami and cured meats (which were really the only meat we could get him to eat for months!).  As a result of his more varied diet, we've taken him off his iron supplement. He is quite good at using his fork and spoon to feed himself (and seems to have a left-handed preference).

- is in cloth diapers during the day (pocket diapers at daycare and fitteds at home), and size 3 overnight Huggies at night. He is pretty regular and will usually poop on the potty in the morning (sometimes in the afternoon/evening after dinner) and will often pee on the potty when diapers are removed for changes. He can definitely identify the action of "pee" and "poop" (also when Pepper or Iver does this, and will even say "yucky" if the poop is in the diaper but not in the toilet).  We're working on him communicating when he has to go-- would love to have my second kid out of diapers relatively soon.

 - has transitioned to the "toddler" room at his daycare (while Iver is in a different, pre-K site). He loves his teachers, can identify many of his classmates and teachers by name (including in photos, which is impressive), and rarely cries or fusses at drop-off. He's always ecstatic to see us at pick-up.

 - is playful and very mischievous, testing boundaries while smiling and deliberately disobeying commands, even though he seems to understand everything we ask of him (he loves to smack the TV, pull on our blinds, and run naked through the house when you're trying to get him changed or dressed).
- is extremely talkative, with hundreds of words, and many two- and three-word phrases including possessives. He'll say "Mama watch" for "mama's watch" and say "Niall!" when he knows something belongs to him. He'll say "Mama, read that!" "buush teet" (brush teeth), "Sit tere" (sit there), "Pepper eat water!" (Pepper ate a piece of watermelon!) and other cute phrases. He can identify/say most colors "back" (black), "white," "red," "yellow!" "pik" (pink), 'bue" (blue), "purple," "geen" (green), "bown" (brown), and has mostly stopped signing at this point in favor of verbal words. If you ask him how old he is, he'll say, "ONE!" (but it won't be true for long!)
 - loves doing laps in our living room, being chased, climbing, and reading. He can jump and get two feet off the ground.  He loves to draw with "mah-kahs" (markers), scribble, and ride a flyer bike. He loves listening to music, including the Annie soundtrack that Iver likes, and shouts out his song requests, "Morrow!" ("Tomorrow"), "Maybe," and "Knock!"" (It's a Hard-Knock Life").   We've moved his (still rear-facing) carseat to near the opposite window in our cars, since there is often backseat squabbling between the boys (the provocation goes both ways!).
 - continues to be a great sleeper at night, still in his crib, without signs of escape. After a bath, short nursing session, and reading a few books, we put him in his crib in a footie pajamas and sleepsack around 7:30 or 7:40, and he sleeps until around 5:45-6:00 or so most mornings, waking a little before even Iver, who has always been a notoriously early riser!  He takes one 1-2 hour nap after lunch (usually around 1 p.m.), although is pretty flexible with the time we put him down (at home) around our weekend plans.

 

School picture (round two as a re-take, as he was crying and screaming on the first day!)

He's a really cuddly, cute, and fun boy to be around. It's hard to believe he's almost two!