Saturday, February 12, 2011

12-14 months

I'm a little behind on writing about this last month and what Seth has been doing. He is now almost 14 months! The last two months have been quite the whirlwind in Seth's life. Nothing catastrophic, but so many new things.

The orthotist finally gave Seth the clear the last week of December that Seth no longer needs to wear the helmet. Yay! It is like we have this new little baby in our home. A little tow-headed blonde baby boy is toddling around our home now.

That's another realization I've had over the last month. Seth is a toddler now! Since Christmas, Seth has been an official walker. When he turned 13 months, he graduated from having to crawl over to a steady item to pull himself back up and walk on his way to using his own legs and arms. Now, he'll bend over and place his hands on the ground and bounce!

Seth points at everything! It's fun to try to figure out what he's trying to tell us. Okay - sometimes it can be frustrating too, because there have been times when we're just not getting it so Seth will get frustrated that he can't communicate. So, we do a lot of, "Show me, Seth. Is this what you want?"

He picks up on new things. Now that it's gotten warmer and the moon has been in the night sky, I've taken Seth out on the driveway and shown him the moon. It was so fun to be a part of person's new experience with something. I took Seth out onto the driveway one evening when the moon was out. We stood there and I pointed up in the sky to the moon and said, "Seth, that is the moon. Do you see it? It's high in the sky and it shines so bright!" We went out onto the driveway the next few things to look at the moon. Seth knew to look up in the sky and point to the moon. Now, when we're reading books and come across the moon, he points to it. I love seeing how he connects things in his world.

Seth loves nursery rhymes. I play "Wee Willie Winkie" on his Kindermusik CD. He stops what he's doing, looks up like he's just on the edge of his seat waiting for the sound effects in the song and squats at the "upstairs, downstairs in his nightgown".

He LOVES books! Right now, his favorites is the nursey rhyme book, the Minnesota Twins book, the Creation book. Seth will go into his room, sit down in the middle of his room and flip through his books. Some of my most favorite moments are times during the day when we snuggle in the fuzzy brown blanket in his nursery rocker and just read. He likes to flip the pages, so we don't always linger long in the books.

One day at the end of his afternoon nap, Seth was found in his crib flipping through a book that he had grabbed from the bookshelf by his bed!

Seth also has quite the opinion on what he should have. When he wants something, he'll cry for it! I can't believe how my sweet, little non-resistant little boy has changed to a little baby boy who is quite determined to have something he wants (whether we want him to have it or not). Here comes the part where we delicately balance the development of his will. Ha! We are teaching Seth how to share by showing him how to give Mommy or Daddy something that they ask for. It's rewarding to see when Seth obeys and listens to commands.

Right now, Seth still takes two naps each day: a 1-hr morning nap and then a 2-hour afternoon nap. He goes to bed around 7pm. He has 10-11 teeth. We can always tell when he's teething because he drools a lot and he has more restless sleep.