Family Fun

On Tuesday evening, we realized it was discount day at the fair and quickly packed up and headed out. Paxton had fun looking at everything from his stroller and was content to stay up way past his bedtime to look around. I think his favorite part was the stable. He loved all the horses and the baby chicks.


I think our favorite part was the food. We never miss the fair corn dogs and usually we try something weird too. This year we tried a deep fried Snickers. We were really glad we shared because the three of us could barely finish it.


We wanted to go to the zoo this year for Pax's 18 month birthday. When he woke up from his nap, we got ready to go. I decided to check the hours right before we left to see if we had time to eat first. That's when we realized it had already closed for the day. We were super disappointed, but ended up eating dinner at Ihop. Paxton ate a whole cup of mandarin oranges, an entire pancake and an egg and then some of my dinner. He loves that place.


We came home and watched the OU game which did not contribute to our family fun night.

On Sunday, we entertained Paxton by letting him watch a video of himself laughing. He thought it was hilarious.


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EIGHTEEN MONTHS!!!

 Paxton is a year and a half old today!  He is officially closer to two than one.  I really can't believe that it has already been a YEAR since his six month birthday party!  This is a really fun age but also a very difficult age.  He is very strong-willed and loves climbing things and trying to get to the street.  We are still trying to implement a discipline system that works for his limited understanding.

 At 18 months, Paxton:

•  is trying to say everything we say.  A lot of his words are different variations of "dada", but we can tell by his inflections that he is trying to say what we're saying.  His new words lately are "oh yeah", "bye bye", "mmmmm" (more or milk), "giiiiirl", "love you", and God. 

•  likes to try to communicate with us by saying things he knows we'll repeat back.  If he's in an unfamiliar environment, he will say things like "giiiirl" or "oh boy" to me so that I will say them back.  He also does this if he can't see me but knows I'm close.  So a lot of times I will be in the bathroom doing my hair or putting on makeup and he will be standing on the other side of the baby gate yelling "girrrrrl" at me.

•  is learning how to use a spoon to feed himself.  He has been able to put a loaded spoon into his mouth for quite awhile, but we stopped there since he would always take the spoon out of his mouth and throw it down.  I tried again this past week and he will now consistently put the spoon in his mouth and then put it back in the bowl.  We also worked on loading the spoon and he can do that to a certain extent.  He is getting a lot better at not throwing things when we tell him not to.  He will sometimes take the spoon or his cup and act like he's throwing it, but as long as we tell him to put it down or in his mouth and then praise him when he does, he obliges.

•  Walking, running, climbing and dancing constantly.  He is always moving.  He very rarely will sit and play with a toy.  He will dance almost every time one of his musical toys starts playing.  He climbs on the couch and jumps on it every chance he gets.

•  Still has some 12-18 month summer clothes that fit but is mostly in 18-24 month clothes.  He has some 3T shirts that are a little big but definitely wearable.  He moved up a whole shoe size in one week and now is wearing 6.5s.  He is still in size 4 diapers. 

•  is starting to be attached to the two Aden and Anais blankets that we keep in his crib.  He brings them into the living room or pulls them out of his crib to play with.

•  still only has eight teeth, four top and four bottom.  He is drooly right now, so we're hoping that eventually he will get his one year molars.

•  is going to bed a little earlier, usually around 8:30 and still sleeping until 9:00.  He usually takes a nap at 12:30 or 1:00 until 3:30 or 4:00.

•  will hum the Clean-Up song when I tell him it's time to clean up.  Every once in awhile he will help, but mostly he just hums the song and follows behind me dragging everything back out.

•  loves burgers, jelly sandwiches, black beans, mandarin oranges and Mexican food the most.  He also really likes blueberries and pasta.

•  is obsessed with his new ability to drink from straws.  He will try to drink out of any cup with a straw.  He had his first juice box on Friday morning and drank the whole thing in about thirty seconds.  He also prefers anything that we're eating over anything that he's eating.  I made him some amazing pasta on Thursday for lunch and he was eating it happily.  Then I sat down with my PB&J and he started fussing for it.  He ate PB&J for lunch. 

•  thinks "no" is a game.  When we tell him no, he usually laughs and keeps doing what he's doing. 

•  can point to his hair, tummy, belly button and feet consistently.  If he's in the right mood he can also point out his eyes, ears, mouth, tongue and teeth. 

•  likes to go his own way.  When we let him walk on sidewalks or down halls, he will take off in the other direction.  We will say "this way", then he will say "this way" and go his own way.  It almost always ends with us picking him up and him throwing a fit.

•  still loves to be read to.  He brings us the same few books over and over (his favorite is his Bible book from Uncle Mason which is how he learned to say God).  He will turn the pages at his own rate and gets mad if you don't say something for every single page.  He goes forward and backwards and constantly points to things and says "what's this?"

•  has an amazing sense of humor.  He loves to laugh, and when we do something that makes him laugh, he wants us to repeat it over and over.  He loves to be tickled. 

•  is just the sweetest little boy I can imagine.  He gives kisses to every baby he meets.  If he is in a situation he isn't sure about, he comes to me to sit on my lap, or holds his arms up to be picked up.  He holds my hand every night when I rock him before bed.  He has never been a cuddly kid, but he sure does have his moments where he melts my heart.  He is definitely a challenge sometimes, but he is the perfect little boy for us.

Getting Big

Recently I started teaching a Bible study for elementary-aged kids at the church by our house. Since it starts while Jared is still at work, Pax gets to go to the toddler class. We got him a little backpack (since it's what all the toddlers carry their juice and diapers in) and I took some first day pictures (it was going to be my first time to leave him with non-family so it was a milestone).


Soooo big! (also touchdown and arms up!)





(I ended up having no kids show up to my class, so I got to stay with him the whole time...)

He has also gotten big enough to eat a banana the right way:


And to watch Barney (for about a minute):


And he has figured out how to climb onto this chair and jump on it like a trampoline (no idea how to baby proof something like this)...


But he's not too big to wear a minky bib and a shortall:


Or to sing Halloween songs with Granny V at breakfast:





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Climbing

Well, it has finally happened. Paxton has started climbing. It started with the couch...he wants up there all the time and sometimes we say no. Since he couldn't handle not getting his way, he just figured out how to climb on. In the past few days, the climbing has spread to every surface he finds...like the kids' table at the nursery:





And the ottoman...this is his favorite place to sit (and stand):


And sometimes he tries to climb from the ottoman onto the couch...

Yesterday, I heard him whining in his room and went in to check on him. I found him dangling from the bookshelf in his room. Fortunately his feet were maybe an inch off the floor and the shelf is really sturdy. He was hanging from the top of the shelf so he also can't climb any higher on it. Hopefully he won't realize he can climb out of his crib.


(call me maybe?)

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Little Disaster

Paxton has been epitomizing the role of little boy lately. He is constantly getting hurt. He bumps his head approximately three times each day and trips and falls every few minutes.

We were playing at the park on Saturday evening and he tripped and fell on the sidewalk and got his first skinned knee. He didn't really cry, just whined a little and it is a pretty tiny little scrape.

Then, on Sunday, we were over at Granny V's house. Paxton was running around the front yard and I was right behind him. He disappeared to the back of Papa G's fishing boat and I waited for him to come around the other side. All of a sudden he started crying pretty hard. I went and picked him up and assumed he had tripped. I was checking his knees and hands for scrapes but didn't see anything. He calmed down and I put him back down to play. It wasn't until a few minutes later that we realized that his eye was hurt. Apparently he had walked into the rudder on the boat and he now has his first black eye.






His new thing is climbing onto the couch and bouncing around on it. Sometimes he will also reach for the pictures hanging above the couch. Yesterday, he grabbed a heavy picture and swung it so hard that it fell.


Luckily it didn't fall on him, but apparently we are going to have to find a way to baby proof our hanging pictures.

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Park Thursday!

This Thursday, Jared had to work late and it was a really hot day, so we pushed Park Thursday back to the evening.

First, Paxton and I went to Target. Then, we stopped at Chick-fil-a for a mommy/son dinner.


This week we picked a park by Gramsy's house since we planned on stopping by there afterwards.

His first stop was the slide...he tried pretty hard to climb it.


Then he went through the tube several times (his favorite part of every playground):





This time, he decided he was brave enough to conquer sliding.


He flashed a big smile at the top and then pushed himself down (which I was not expecting...and I don't think he was either):


He cried a little at the bottom...


But then stood up and resumed playing.


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Grasping Straws

Ok, so I know this probably doesn't seem like that big of a deal to most people...but this was a big day in the Miller house! Paxton finally mastered the straw!!!


I think it comes naturally to most young toddlers (even infants maybe?), but it didn't to ours. We have been working with him since I realized that it wasn't completely normal that he couldn't do it yet, you know by putting our thumb over the end of the straw filled with the delicious liquid and then making him suck...well he got that down pretty naturally. So then, we switched to those sippy cups that have the straws...only he couldn't do it the right way. We had to take out the straw inside the cup and he would just tip it up and drink from it like a regular sippy cup. Since then, we gave up the pushing it thing. We realized his mouth worked and eventually he would get it...if not there's always the normal cup. Every once in awhile (pretty much every time we have a drink with a straw), he approaches us and tries to drink out of our straws...he can't at all. Then today, his kid's meal at Johnnie's came with a drink. That place has a severe lack of kid-friendly beverages, so I filled his cup with sweet tea, figuring it would just sit on the table. Well, after a few bites of burger, he started fussing for a drink. Before I pulled out his sippy of watered down juice, I gave the sweet tea a try. I put the straw in his mouth, his lips closed around it completely naturally and the kid started sucking! I might have had a mini freak out right there in the booth at Johnnie's. He makes me proud.

(and he might have consumed an entire kids cup of sweet tea in about ten minutes...but I probably wouldn't admit that)

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