Fourteen Months!

My dearest baby boy,

You are now 14 months old!!  You are no longer a baby; you are a complete toddler.  This is such a fun age.  Definitely my favorite stage so far!!  You are so interested in everything.  It's funny to see how you differ from other babies your age.  You are definitely slower to warm up to people than you used to be.  You won't just immediately go from person to person.  You will hide in my legs and peak out on occasion.  When you are in a new situation, you will get really quiet and for the first 10-15 minutes, you just observe.  You don't rush to jump in.  You also aren't as smiley with strangers as you used to be.  If we are holding you, you will smile and say hi or bye bye, but you don't want to be put down, and once we do get you down, you will grab a toy and play contendtedly at our feet.  Once you do warm up, you start to babble, laugh, play and smile.  I can tell you are very comfortable at daycare, though, because you immediately walk in and act like you own the place :)

You are walking like crazy now.  In fact, we even make comments when you occasionally crawl because you just walk all the time.  You definitely have moments of unsteadiness on your feet and are the definition of a "toddler".  Luckily you are so close to the ground that falling doesn't bother you in the least bit, and you are really quick to bounce back up. 

You have become quite the climber and will try to get up on everything.  You love to be on top of your little picnic table, the ottoman, your little truck, pretty much anything!  You are also learning/trying to kick balls.  It's funny because as we roll the ball to you, you pick your foot up in anticipation of it coming but you haven't quite mastered the actual "kicking" motion yet.  It totally cracks me up.  You do love to practice it though. 

You are a great eater and will eat pretty much anything.  Your favorite are bananas, hummus, cheese, sweet potatoes, squash, and your spinach smoothie.  We make sure you are getting 2-3 veggies a day (which really isn't a problem for you) and 2-4 fruits (again, not an issue).  You are a great meat eater, and you LOVE to eat off our plates and drink from our glasses.  You think water tastes a lot better from our glasses than from your sippy cup.  We even bought you a Camelbak water bottle that looks like mine because you weren't drinking anything for awhile and that was the one way you would drink well! 

You have gotten a little better about drinking in the past month.  You will drink water from a sippy (you like your water best from the straw sippies or your camelbak) and you love your smoothies.  We do the spinach smoothie every day and we do a milk based smoothie 5ish days a week.  You absolutely 100% refuse milk.  You won't even drink it with chocolate added!  We do a whole milk smoothie with vanilla carnation instant breakfast and fruit or with banana and fruit.  If we just do fruit (strawberries, blueberries, and/or raspberries) you can still taste the milk and you refuse it.  We went through a long period of time after you stopped nursing where you really wouldn't drink anything and you'd only have 3 wet diapers a day.  We really felt like we were at a loss.  We are happy you love the green smoothies as they have a ton of spinach in them so at least you are getting some calcium that way.  You also eat a lot of cheese and yogurt to make up for your lack of milk and lots of avacado for the healthy fat!

(walking in the grass!!)

Your favorite toys are definitely balls.  You've mastered the word, you like all kinds, you love to throw them, kick them, catch them; it doesn't matter to you at all!  You also like your bike, the slide, and our chargers for our phones.  You love to push buttons on all the remotes and our phones.  You've dialed some pretty weird numbers before!!

Spencer, you are a pretty good sleeper.  You go down sometime in the 7 o'clock hour and you sleep until the 6 o'clock hour.  We've tried keeping you up later to see if you will sleep longer in the mornings, but that failed miserably, so we put you back on your normal schedule.  You vary between two naps and one nap, depending on the day and on our schedule.  While we were on vacation, you were a GREAT napper.  I think all the fresh air and sunshine just tired you right out. 

You love to smile, you are so easy to make laugh, and you are just an easy baby.  I know I say this all the time, but we are truly blessed to have you in our lives.  Your daddy and mommy just adore you, and we can't wait to see the person you become.  I pray for you every day and hope you are able to realize all the potential you have.  I also pray that God gives your daddy and I guidance in raising you and helps us to be good parents for you!!

Love, Mommy (aka: AEOT)