Christian James -- 21 Months!

Little man!! I can't believe you are only 3 months away from being TWO!! Life with you has been such an adventure...in fact, I recently started a hashtag on instagram -- #adventureswithchristian so one day you can look back at all your fun! 

While you are becoming more and more independent and talking like crazy and really starting to be able to communicate, there aren't as much huge changes month to month, but I still wanted to do an update in pictures of what you've been up to! 

You have started to really enjoy dressing up -- mainly wearing hats -- cowboy hats, construction hard hats, and most recently your army hat! One night after you went to bed, we saw this on the video camera...

You wearing your army hat in your sleep!!! 

(excuse the slightly blurry screen shot from the camera -- the dark spot on his head is the helmet)

While you love to sit and look at books, you have started to not be the biggest fan of mommy reading to you and with that has come a lack of interest in story time at the library. You don't like being told what to do, so when its time to sit and listen to a story that you didn't pick out, you aren't the biggest fan. You also prefer to check out all the cupboards in the story time room and see what all  the other kids brought for snack. You  do LOVE getting to play games on the computer before story time starts, though. 

Grandpa Ron came to visit this month, and when grandpa comes, we always put him to work on projects with daddy.  You were excited to get our your tools and help the guys too! You were actually pretty inseparable with your hammer for awhile and even slept with it for nap. 

You are also starting to learn that wearing sunglasses keeps the bright sun from bugging your eyes and will actually keep them on...and boy are you a little stud in your shades! 

During Christmas, we did a daily scripture reading from our Countdown to Christmas Scripture Chain.  This started a daily routine for us of reading the Bible. I have continued with that and have been reading from my own devotional. Every morning, while you eat breakfast, mommy reads her Bible and prays. Then, as soon as you are done eating, you run to get your Bible too and sit at the table with me and have time with Jesus too! The other day you even saw me highlighting in my Bible and then wanted to highlight in yours -- you were taking special note of the "sheep" you said :) I pray that this remains a part of your morning routine throughout your life. 

Last month you were starting to really enjoy helping mommy cook, but this month you have started playing "took" all day. You go pick out a pot and start mixing and telling me you are "tooking". 

Pants are also not your favorite. If you do have to wear pants, you usually prefer to wear sweatpants and will sometimes cry if I tell you you need to wear jeans for church. 

Sensory play is probably one of your favorite activities. We recently had some car trouble and were stuck home all week...but playing with water kept you entertained for a good half hour or more! 

And because you love sensory play, I think that has contributed to your worsening spoon skills. I swear you used to be better at using a spoon, but you seem to purposely drip it down your chin and onto your tummy and rub it around the table. Using a spoon remains as a pre-bathtime meal choice. 

Like I mentioned at the start of this post, you love adventures. In fact, you will often create your own! I turned my back for one second only to find you in the kitchen sink a few days ago! 

Similar to your growing independence with reading books, you have taken on the preference of picking out your own snack. You used to be happy if I just gave you 2 choices for a snack and then you would pick one, but  now you want to get in the cupboard and pick your own snack. Sooo mommy did some rearranging of the cupboards so you could have your own cupboard with all of your snacks {aka the cookies are kept somewhere else}. Now you can walk right up and pick out what you want...no more meltdowns over the "wrong" snack! 

I think you are officially in a toddler bed now and sleeping like a big boy! Since we got a video camera with 2 way sound for your room, we can watch you fall asleep and make sure you stay in bed. You usually try to climb out a few minutes after we leave you, but we just say "head on your pillow, stay in bed" and you book it up to lay down! Such a good listener! 

That means next up is potty training! You have been telling us when you go potty in your diaper now too....so I think we are going to attempt the 3 day method next month after you are 22 months (the recommended age for this method). We will see! 

As another "stuck in the house" activity, we broke out the tent, tunnel and balls to make a ball pit. You kept thinking you should go in the tent between the tent and the tunnel and would get stuck. Silly boy. But oh what fun you had with this! 

In order to put away the tent without you getting upset, I had to trade you your slide for the tent. You love to slide! And you also love to "claim" your slide so others can't use it....you decided that sitting on your slide for dinner would make a good chair.

This past week, since we didn't have a car and we had a big zoo day planned with friends, you and mommy drove daddy to work so we could get to the zoo with daddy's car. This meant we had a few hours between dropping daddy off at work and getting to the zoo, so we had an impromptu Mommy Christian date! We started with breakfast at Panera. We shared a yummy blueberry bagel and talked about your favorite things. We have play dates a lot and do fun things with friends to get out of the house, but we haven't done a ton of one on one stuff, but I think this was really fun! You are getting so fun to talk to! 

After breakfast on our Mommy Christian date, we went to the airport and watched the airplanes...and you got to "drive" the car. You love love love doing this! So fun to watch you squeal with delight as the planes land and take off...and as you drive the car! 

 

After watching airplanes, we headed to the zoo! I think the fish at Discovery Bay is your favorite! Can't wait for the seals to get here Labor Day weekend! This was your excited face as the water washed over the starfish

We ended the day with some snuggle time after we picked daddy up from work -- and had a pizza movie night! 

Like I said, your language has really been taking off! Daddy says the Numbers blessing over us every morning before he goes to work. You've started saying it with him and its so cute! 

It's also been super cute seeing you "call" for "Backer" when he goes out potty! 

Love you little man! You sure give me a run for my money and keep me busier every day as a mom than I ever thought possible, but I love getting to spend all of my time with you! Only 3 more months until you won't be my little "baby" any more but will officially be a big boy!