Fun at Daycare

Josh's daycare has recently started sending some pictures of Josh playing at daycare. He certainly seems to be having a good time and it is cute to see him in action!

15 months!

Josh is now 15 months old! He had his checkup this week, he is 23lbs 14oz (67th percentile) and 31.75 inches tall (71st percentile). He is a growing boy! This past month Josh has really conquered his horizontal living space, and now has taken to trying to climb...or be picked up so that he can see what is outside of his normal view. He has also been picking up on lots of new communication. He now has a few signs that he will do, along with pointing at something he wants and yelling :-P  He has a sign that he uses for "more/I want" that is super cute, so it is very hard to say no to him if he does the sign. He has also increased his vocabulary to include "book", "ball" and a few other words. He also is understanding more and more of what we ask him to do.

For the last couple of weeks of March, Josh was being especially clingy and cranky. We think that he was going through a developmental milestone which was causing him some stress. He was also working on getting two molars. The molars are starting to poke through (thankfully!). His mood really improved about a week ago, and corresponded with his improvements in communication. We think that he was getting very frustrated that he couldn't communicate.

Josh loves to run around and is very active. We have been testing out a lot of the local parks to figure out which are the best. So far the parks with synthetic wood chips are winning...as Josh has decided wood chips are fun to throw and eat.

Playing at the park

Josh wanted to sit on the ottoman, and then requested all of his toys...

New favorite game, throw food at Jeter

Josh LOVES books now!

More fun at the park!

Pretend Play

I was reading about 15 month milestones, and one of them is something called "pretend play". I hadn't heard this term before, but it really explains some of Josh's new behaviors lately. Basically he is pretending to do things that we do, because he is learning what behaviors adults do. He is also learning that objects have purposes, and that they each have a job. Some of the examples were pretending to clean, sleep, or stir things in a bowl, all of which Josh does. The article I was reading also said that kids like to play with things that they perceive as more useful to adults, like boxes or other things that adults use daily--which absolutely describes Josh. It has been really awesome to watch him learning and developing!

Cleaning!

Sleeping :-)

Talking on the phone (Note the classic 90s phone)

Milk Donation

Since we struggled so much with breast feeding in the beginning, I had to do a lot of pumping. Over that time I accumulated an entire chest freezer filled with over 1000oz of pumped breast milk. Anyone who has done any pumping knows just how much time and effort went into that... I was really crushed when we realized around 7-8 months that Josh had allergies and I would likely not be able to use the milk I had been saving. I was very busy with school, and hoping in the back of my head that Josh didn't have allergies, so I didn't try to get rid of the milk right away. Once his birthday was approaching I realized that some of the milk was getting close to one year (the latest you are supposed to keep the milk) and I needed to figure out what to do with it.

I first tried to contact some of the "official" donation websites, but since I had been taking pre-natal vitamins I did not qualify to donate milk (seriously!?!). It turns out because the milk at milk banks goes to very very premature babies they can't have any additional vitamins in the milk. I turned to a breastfeeding Mom's group that I am in on Facebook and asked for suggestions. A friend sent my contact information to a woman looking for donor milk for her son. This woman's son was born at 27 weeks and she was trying to finish his first year still on breast milk (her son was born a few weeks later than Josh). She and her family relocated to DC temporarily after her husband was injured in Afghanistan so that he could be treated at Navy Med.

I ended up having pretty much exactly as much milk as they needed while they were in the DC area, and a cooler full to take home with them. I wish I had taken a picture of my freezer filled to the brim with milk, but I'm sure that a photo couldn't really capture how much effort went into it. It felt really good to be giving my milk to someone who really needed it, and helping out a family that has already given so much.

(Stolen from Hana)

Cleaning!

Josh learned how to clean at daycare. We didn't know this, and yesterday he got a hold of some toilet paper and immediately started using it to clean. I asked them about it today, and they confirmed that he is always very helpful with cleaning up :-) Today he got ahold of some paper towels so we caught his cleaning on video :-)  Perhaps we will have to put him to work soon!

Communication

Josh has been babbling for the last few months.  He's said words although we didn't really believe the words had true meaning.  He has said mama and dada but while he looks at one of us and says it, he also looks at other things and says it.  Josh has also communicated in other ways.  He understands some commands such as "hands up" and will sometimes bring us something if we ask for it (pretty hit or miss so far).  He's also pointing a lot.  He points at things he wants (which is pretty much everything).  He does make the same type of sound when he sees Jeter but it doesn't really sound like words. He has also learned a few signs, "more" and "milk", although he has stopped using them lately.

Until now this has been mostly us talking to him and him only communicating by pointing.  But this past weekend we are ready to call it, Josh has said his first word.  He now walks over to one of us, looks at us and says, "up, up, up".  He only says this when he wants to be picked up and is only satisfied if we pick him up.  He knows that it is far too cute to resist so he has been getting picked up a lot recently.

Here is a video of Josh asking to be picked up:

It is MoCo we need to bring our own bag!

Working on some sharing

Sore from my workout!

Travel part 2!

Well after our last post, Josh unfortunately came down with a pretty high fever (103-104). He didn't have any other symptoms, but his fever was very high for 24h+ so we were considering going to an emergency clinic to make sure he was ok. Fortunately our pediatrician had Saturday hours, so we called and after talking to the pediatrician we decided to wait it out. They thought that since his fever did not suddenly go to 103 (it was a gradual increase), that we didn't need to worry just yet. Fortunately the fever went down the next day. After that he developed a very mild rash, which confirmed that he had a virus called Roseola. It is characterized by unexplained high fever for 2-3 days, and then a rash that does not itch after the fever breaks. Fortunately it made us feel better to know what he had! And our little boy was back to normal :-)

Despite the high fever, we were able to have lots of fun in Colorado. The day of my competition, Julian and Josh went to the Zoo with my cousin, his wife and their daughter. They all had a great time watching the animals. It tuckered Josh out and he took a nice long nap before Julian and Josh headed over to the arena to watch me skate. I got to say hi to them (and some other family) at the arena before I had to head off to get ready to skate. Our team skated well, and we actually won (!!!) which I wasn't expecting! It was really awesome to have so much of my family come watch me skate :-) I even made sure to bring Josh out to the ice for the medal ceremony (although he was not so pleased about it). It has been tough for me (and Julian) to balance being a mom and skating, so it was very special to have Josh to "share" the moment with.

The next day we went to Garden of the Gods in CO springs. It was 7 degrees out, so it was VERY cold. There was a dusting of snow and frost over all of the trees, and apparently it is very rare to see it like that. There were tons of photographers out to capture the moment. It was fun to see it like that, although it would have been nice to have the blue sky and mountains in the background :)

Next we headed to Keystone for some snowy fun! We rented a house that was walking distance to the ski resort, and it was awesome. Thanks to my cousin and his wife and Mark we were able to go skiing with Ellie while they watched Josh. Josh and M played together and are super cute in their matching outfits!  We also took Josh on a gondola ride up the mountain, and he seemed to enjoy the views. He still isn't sure what to think of snow, but he certainly likes ski poles! :)

The flight back was about the same as the flight out, except that it was shorter (yay for going east) and we were more mentally prepared. All in all I would say it was a fun trip!