Andrew 15 Month Update

Andrew turned 15 months old at the end of February. He is progressing along perfectly in my opinion. I adore each stage that he is in and have so much fun watching as he learns something new. A few updates with our guy are below:

Vocabulary
Since Andrew's tube surgery, his efforts at speaking have improved. His vocabulary before consisted of momma, daddy and 'ba' which meant bottle in most situations but really could have meant anything at all that he was pointing towards. It's been about 3 weeks since the surgery and he has expanded in to some new areas...

Now he says "nigh nigh" which means night, night - he accompanies this with a "fake sleeping act" where he throws himself down on to his couch and closes his eyes but keeps grinning the entire time. It's the dog version of "play dead" and it's awesome. Entirely too cute - will capture on video and post.

He also has included "bye bye" which he was attempting to say on occasion before the surgery. Now, he says it every day when we are leaving daycare. And, he says it like an old southern lady dragging out the words - more like a baahh biii - again entirely too cute.

He is a pro at saying "uh oh" - every time he throws 'drops' something on the floor - we get an uh oh!

He talks all the time now - I can't understand most of it but he has full blown conversations with the dogs. He is also getting very good at sign language. We teach him here and they teach him at daycare, so he is around it quite a bit. It helps a ton to get an idea of what he wants.
 
Daycare
When I drop him off at daycare, he actually does an "I'm so excited to be here" dance. He replaces that with "sweet eyes" because the majority of his class is made up of girls. As soon as we walk in, one of the girls in the class immediately says "Drew Drew" and gets a big smile on her face. Of course, he plays it cool and surveys the scene to see where he wants to hang out once I leave. I'm afraid this boy is a "Heartbreaker In Training"

Work in Progress
We no longer have "Paci" during the day. For the last several months, Paci is only allowed in the bed when he is sleeping. So, when I get Andrew up in the morning, I say "Put paci in the bed" and he takes it out of his mouth and puts it in his bed. He is very proud when he does that. I still allow it at night because he takes comfort in it and he tends to wake up a few times during the night and immediately looks for it. Which actually means, it makes it easier on me. I can stay in bed because he is soothing himself with his Paci. We will transition away from it all together pretty soon. But, for now - he can sleep with it.


We are still giving him a bottle for milk. He refuses, absolutely refuses, to drink milk from anything other than his bottle. We have tried sippy cups, people cups, straws, etc... he spits it out. If you give it to him in the bottle, he is a happy camper. So, out of my desire to have him drink milk - I'm allowing the bottle. I'm not giving in on this one anytime soon though. I'm so tired of cleaning bottles that it fuels my desire to get him to drink milk from a cup. Any ideas on accomplishing this are welcome!

Actions
It is in this area that I'm most impressed with my kiddo. It's truly amazing how much he observes and can mimic. He will literally unload the entire dishwasher. He knows exactly which drawer or cabinet to put each and every item. The cutting board, pots & pans, plates, etc... He knows that plastic cups and glasses go in one cabinet and coffee cups go in another. He takes one utensil at a time and walks over to the drawer and opens it - puts the utensil in it and closes it and goes back for another.

It's not just the dishwasher - when we feed the dogs, he knows the entire process and wants to participate. He knows that we soften their food with hot water and so he heads that direction before I do. He knows that when we get home, we let the dogs out of their kennel and immediately let them out the back door. He even folds laundry the way that I do. He watches everything... well almost everything. He does not seem to pay any attention to mommy picking up his toys when we are done playing. That part has just escaped him - wonder where he got that from. ;-)

I'm amazed by him every day. He is an unbelievably happy child with so much excitement towards life. He is absolutely independent. He wants to do everything for himself and does not want help. He is going to be a very strong and driven man that will accomplish anything he sets his mind to. I'm excited to see how he continues to develop. Although, in the meantime, I force my hugs and kisses and snuggles on him as much as I can and we try to mind our P's and Q's since he is watching every move we make.