Yellow Mango Life: 18 Months Old!

Happy 18 months, little man!

Does this mean I can stop counting in months and start saying he's a year and a half? When does it officially stop exactly? I mean I can't be saying he's 60 months old when he's like five, right? Right??

For the time being, the chalkboard is retired. I know, I know everyone is overwhelmingly upset. You all loved that it took me hours to get that thing just right each month. Not only was it a pain to clean from the prior month, but then figuring out what I wanted it to look like and actually drawing on the board itself was painful. As we all know, I lack any form of artistic talent - what you saw was what you got. Then couple it with the fact that I would forget to keep it out of reach of little man...where he would swipe either his hand or a color through it and I would be back to square one. Done. It's gone. That period in our lives is over.

Onto the man of the hour.

What's New With Cruz

Words: he is just spewing new words every single day. I can't even believe how he soaks up everything we say or do and then spouts it out right when you least expect it. Some of my favorites of this past month - Mee-Mee (Mickey, as in mouse), Dah (Donald), Plew (Pluto), Goof (you guessed it, Goofy) and Pete-Pete. Evidently the chicks in the clubhouse don't matter or at least they don't to Cruz. He also loves saying "outsigh" (outside) just about every five seconds. Now that the weather is nice we can hardly contain him indoors. A couple other favorites are the overuse of "poo-poo" and "pee pee," but being that he uses them in context and is literally doing one of those two things when he says it, I suppose I can't be mad at that. He's finally learned "down" after saying "up" for both actions the past couple of months, "beep-beep" at cars now that he knows how to use the key fob and "(insert name here) sit!" while feverishly patting the space next to him. It doesn't matter where he is - on the couch, on our bed, in the bathtub - he always wants us to sit next to him. It's really is so darn cute.

Spending time with his new friends "outsigh"

He's also getting so much better with names. Mama, dada, papa, TiTi (Tessa), Jah Jah (nanny J) and Rah Rah (her fiance) are the norms, but this month he has added in quite a few more - Nanu (or Nano or my fave Nana), Bee Bee (Brittany), Lay-Ee (Laney), D (Dom or Duane), Sis (Sicily) and Day Day (Dayvaney).

Sleeping: has continued to be great. Goes to bed between 8pm and 9pm (closer to 9pm for some reason most nights) and sleeps right through until 8am when J gets to the house. Napping is still one a day for about 2 hours. I will say that I have come to luhhh-ove bedtime. We had a great little process down that ends with me getting to rock him for a couple minutes - it is some of my fave time with him.

TV: this is getting to be a problem. The kid just has to watch Mee-Mee. When he sees dada's truck (Nick's is the only one with a DVD player), or our TV in our room we hear "mee-mee" being chanted incessantly. And let's be honest, most times we give in and let him watch it.

Baseball: this kid loves baseball - he likes watching it (I swear he and his dad are the only ones who actually like watching baseball on TV), playing it, talking about it. He loves everything about it. Nick has started to take him to Ultimate Baseball Academy on Saturday mornings during Dominic's practice so he gets used to the field and practices a bit himself. We've also gotten him a tee at home that he loves to hit off of. And can the boy hit a ball! It's truly impressive. Nick taught him to "tap the plate" and put the bat on his shoulder. And Cruz does it every single time. It's the cutest thing. He also got to go to his first pro baseball game when we were in KC - and absolutely loved it.

Baseball practice at Ultimate Baseball Academy

First professional baseball game

Giving mama some love on vacation

Perfecting his baseball swing

Diapers: he's also started this really not so cool thing where he will pull his diaper out from underneath him when we are changing him. There have been too many little things rolling out of this dipe when he does this that I hardly find it funny anymore. I don't care to pick up #2 when it rolls on my floor.

Eating: he still eats well so we can't complain there. He has gotten a bit pickier with is foods, has to dip everything in ketchup, he eats far too many fruit snacks and has gotten thisclose to sticking a pea up his nose that we couldn't retrieve.

Eating some Red Mango

Favorite Activities: this month Cruz continues to love to color. Colors, coloring books, chalk outside and inside. He will literally color anything (no really, don't you remember this post?) And games, he loves coming up with games. Like the "hidden hand game" that we created and play literally every night. It starts like this - he's laying on his changing table while I'm putting his PJs on...and you know how tight they make toddler PJs so there isn't any loose clothing, well his hands get stuck in the sleeve and we sit and look for his hands for at least 5-10 minutes. It never seems to get old with this kiddo!