16 months old!

Parker celebrates his month-day with his "cheese" face...

How is it that Parker is now 16 months old? It certainly does not seem like that long ago that we were bringing him home from the hospital, or introducing him to solids, or watching him learn to commando crawl. And now he is 16 months and pretty much a full-time walker! He is simply growing too fast. I'll have to talk to him about slowing it down a little.


At 16 months Parker:

• Communicates very well. He has many words in his vocabulary, and though some of them most people would not recognize (like "mmma" for "medicine") he certainly has specific words for many, many things. It seems his current favorite animal sound is to say "mmBIT!" when he sees a frog.
• Is teething like mad. Right now he is cutting three molars and one of his front bottom teeth recently broke through. He has been a pathetic, sad little mess these past few days and my heart breaks for him. Poor little guy. He's been crying out during the night (also partly due to the fact that there doesn't appear to be a diaper capable of lasting him all night!), and that's just not like him at all. Once all of these teeth come through, he'll have 12 teeth total.
• Is really walking! He is not completely steady on his feet and he frquently likes to walk with his hands up as if I am holding them, but he is doing really well. He is obviously quite proud of himself too and I love that about him.
• Wants to still nap two times a day, but most of the time I force him to wait for his afternoon nap. He can do it and then he gets a much better afternoon nap, which I think is better for all of us!
• Goes to bed so easily it's remarkable. After so many bedtime and naptime battles with Thomas, it's so foreign to me to be able to put Parker down and he just says "night night" and goes right to sleep. But he does! At night we'll be reading books and eventually he'll get down and walk over to his CD player and turn on the music. Then when he's ready to go to bed, I'll ask him to give me some love and he'll give me a hug and a kiss. Then he'll tell me "bed" and I'll put him his crib and say "good night Parker," and he'll say "night night" to me and lay down and go to sleep. Naps are generally just as easy. Occasionally he'll fuss, but usually by the time I get out the door he is quiet.
• Is becoming quite the ham. As I was taking the pictures for this post, he was a little fussy. He was whining and carrying on, and yet when he saw the red light come on the camera (to indicate that I was about to snap a picture), he stopped fussing and smiled and said, "cheese!" He is always trying to get into something he should not...and he knows it! Here he is, saying "cheese!"

• Shows he is tired quite clearly. You know he is ready to go to bed when you see his right thumb in his mouth and he is using his fingers on his left hand to twirl the curls in the back of his head.
• Eats well, except when it comes to vegetables. He's generally a good eater, but if you try to give him a vegetable of any type, he says "uck!" He will eat sweet potatoes and sweet potato fries, but I can't think of any other vegetable he will eat at this time. Sometimes he'll eat black eyed peas, but he's pretty much sworn off all beans for the time being.
• Wants to feed himself. He makes a mess, but he does not like to be fed with a spoon or fork. It means that he makes an utter mess of things like yogurt, but he's actually getting pretty good with it. Seeing how Thomas still asks us to feed him some things, I suppose it's a good thing that Parker is so independent about it.
• Is really starting to get into books. He gets so excited when I pull out a book to read for him and he loves picking out exactly the one that he wants. Some of his current favorites are "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and "Moo, Baa, La-La-La."

Here are some other pictures from our little ham...


Still no haircut. I'm still holding out and standing firm. Keep all scissors away from my husband. :)


Parker says, "That's right, Daddy. Love me just the way I am. I'm cute."


Just for fun, here was Thomas at 16 months (in the same outfit):




Some things don't change...


Thomas and Parker make a great duo, and it's fun to see them playing WITH each other, more and more.


A bit of a change from August 2007 (Thomas at 16 months):


Then...and now:


Though this post should be about Parker. :) And again, I must share his cheese face. He loves doing this every time I use the camera lately (excuse the painter's tape behind him. We've been painting trim. Anyone want to buy a house?!):


Three more pictures and then I'm done for the night! First Parker was happy to wear my visor the other day. I thought he looked quite cute (Trey thinks he looks like a girl here!):


Not sure what he was seeing or thinking here, but it sure is funny:


So another month down. Who knows what the next month will hold? Aloha!