17 months

dear daxy turned 17 months old!

this month has been a month with rapid development!  in the blink of an eye our baby is turning into a big boy.

 

daxton went from standing up and walking with his walker, to walking 1 step, to walking 9 steps, then walking 27 steps, and then walking all the time.  it's amazing to see those little legs walking all over the house.  will and i still stand in awe every time we see that fancy foot work!  sometimes he'll get going a little too quickly and get stumbled up, but for the most part he's trucking around really well.  he'll still sometimes forget (early in the morning or after a nap) and resort to a crawl, but when we ask him if he can stand up and show us his "walkings" he'll hop into action.  we're excited to see where these little legs will go!

 

daxton celebrated his second Easter this past month.  he had a great time at our church's Easter egg hunt where he hunted for a couple of eggs (he was not so sure what this was all about and he had no sense of competition so he just let the other children take the eggs they wanted.  it was quite tender and sweet.), danced to music on daddy's shoulders, and got to pet a baby goat and lamb.  sunday he got a little Easter basket with a doc mcstuffin's doll, some veggie tales dvds, a praise song dvd, and a couple of dvds about Jesus' life.  it took him about a week to do enough investigating to see that daddy had put cheddar bunny crackers in his plastic eggs.  we had a great time at church and then after dax's attempted afternoon nap we headed to our friend's house for Easter dinner.  dax had a great time playing with some friends from church and checking out their tupperware collection.  he sat at the big people table and enjoyed some sweet potato casserole, but did not want to let us feed him much of anything else so he could have enough time to check out their cook book collection.  we were so thankful to spend this day with our sweet fellow, even though he told me no photos were allowed.

 

daxton is testing his authority with meal times these days.  he'll inspect the food before it goes into his mouth, or he'll check it out with his tongue and fingers and pull it right back out if he does not like the feel or taste of it.  he's gotten pretty vocal when he does not get his way and we're trying to find a balance between not letting him win and actually being able to enjoy dinner time.  we've determined that he seems to love saucy things, so i am going to work on preparing things with more sauces to see if we can keep him eating green foods without the expense of our eardrums and sanity.

 

dax's favorite game these days is "peeky boo".  most people call this "peek-a-boo", but here - we've always got new names for things.  his latest trick is to play this game with daddy on either side of the kitchen island.  we can get him going anywhere by just saying "peeky boo", but he loves going round and round the island with daddy - never knowing where he will pop out.  his laughter is deep and sometimes takes his breath away.  it's so intoxicatingly sweet we just love that little "peeky boo" monster.

 

dax is still having a fondness for "raffie" (the giraffe).  we recently went cold turkey without the passie except when in the crib.  we've given it to him a handful of times when he was not in the crib when his days were excessively long and he was expected to be respectful to others eardrums, but otherwise we've reserved it for sleepy times.  now when he wakes up you can unclip it from his shirt and ask him if he will leave the passie with raffie and he cheerfully tosses passie over to raffie for her to nap while we're out of the room.  we never imagined we'd be able to get rid of the passie so "easily" after we'd tried several times and only been able to last about 30 minutes.  however, i think this time he was just ready to let it go.

 

leaving the passie for sleeping has also helped with his chatter.  he's doing a lot more talking and jabber.  we've gotten some new words like "okay", "i do", "i go", "boom", "a bye", "a spoon", and "ya, ya, ya".  he's also started mimicking us when we make certain sounds or say certain things.  when i sing him the abc song he will hum it back to me using the same annunciation to my version of the song.  he's definitely not saying his abcs, but we're making some interesting progress with this.  we still get our favorite "uh oh" and "dank you" (or "chank you"), and at dinner time if he does like what he is eating he will certainly keep giving you the "mmmmm" so you can keep the applesauce coming.  his "a bye" is usually followed with a wave to himself (backwards) - and he loves to say "a bye" to himself when he sees his adorable reflection in the mirror.  he still usually does not say his goodbyes until someone has left - which to him we guess makes sense because he says it after they are really gone.  ;-)

 

dax has gone from taking his baths in his baby tub to now taking his big boy baths in the regular bathtub.  our little fella had stretched out too big for the baby tub and had his little feet hanging over the edge.  at first he was not so sure why we'd changed the situation up on him, but within minutes he thought it was pretty awesome to be in a bigger tub with more splash room and more toys.  now he'll do funny things like not wanting to sit down in the tub so one of us will have to hold his torso while the other one bends his legs to get him in a sitting position.  most of the time, once he is sitting he's fine to stay there, but it's like he's just like i don't think i want to sit right now.  silly goose.  he also likes to get everything out of the tub.  he'll toss each toy out one by one and even send the washrags overboard.  will and have to be on guard to catch things or the entire bathroom is afloat.

 

dax has been attempting to give up his second nap of the day.  mommy hopes he'll keep up with it because he is certainly happier when he takes it, but sometimes he just cannot fall asleep.  he's working on his upper molars and they are really giving him a fit so we're hoping that once those teeth quit pestering him his little sleep routine will resume with getting enough resties each day.  usually if he goes down for his nap and he does not fall asleep before the time the sleep sheep's ocean waves stop lapping, i know he's not going to be able to make it happen so i go get him and try to keep him busy with some other activity.

 

daxton had an awesome visit with his birth mother and half-brother this past weekend.  we picked them up and brought them to our house.  we gave them a little tour so they could see dax's favorite hang out spots and put a real place with all of the photos we've sent them in the past 17 months.  it was great to see their smiling faces and catch up on how everyone was doing.  we had fun playing with blocks, the wii, and bubbles in the front yard.  it was sad to have to take them home, but we know we'll see them again very soon!