Seventeen Months Old

Ace has had another wonderful month filled with lots of excitement and the start of a new decade! Lots of fun was had.

New events in Ace's 17th month included: staying the whole church service in the nursery, molars, jumping down, scaling heights, outgrowing another pair of shoes, a toddler bed!

Yes, Ace has had a lot of fun this month from a train ride home from Oregon, to visiting with all of his grandparents, Ace had a great time. He had a nice second Christmas and slept through New Years Eve (even through New York's.)

New words for Ace are becoming increasingly harder to document because he's coming up with more and more on what seems like a daily basis - but the ones that I recall include: button, water (clearly stated now), cat (he had lost it for a while), bird, bu-bye, duck, book, sit, purple, orange, booo (blue), red...

Teeth - he has one molar all the way in and the other three in the set have all broken through at one point or another in the gums, so I suspect by his next dentist appointment (which happens to be on the day he turns 1.5!) those should all be well established in his mouth.

Swimming lessons resumed during this month and he is having a blast with those. He can hold his breath under water for 3+ seconds and remembers the cue for holding his breath as well. He gets really excited to whenever we get to the pool and can't wait to get in. Mom loves it too and loves nap time afterward equally as much (almost!) Ace took a 2 hour nap after one last week - that's the longest he's napped ... ever since exiting the sleepy-newborn phase of life.

On the sleeping front, Ace is now sleeping in a 'big boy' bed. We converted his crib to the toddler bed right after the new year and started the routine of putting him to sleep in his bed each night (rather than our own) we also started the routine of leaving him to his own devices during nap and at night to put himself to sleep and that has been progressing effectively as well. He still however does not sleep for very long. His naps are on average an hour (which is an improvement from months past) on occasion we get 90 minutes and then the rarest gem of all two hours! Sleeping at night still continues to be a battle of endurance for the parents - yes the average stint is 3hours or at the usual best 3.5 - however a few weeks ago he did sleep for nearly six hours and I couldn't have been more excited. It has yet to be repeated though. He continues to grow so he's obviously sleeping enough.

He's a busy boy and has started to explore his ability to move and jump. He has started to jump off of things - like his bed or from a box. Nothing of extreme heights yet, but since he's well on his way to ascending great heights its only a matter of time before he puts these two activities together.

Ace loves to smile and is a very happy boy. He's started to be a bit more independent and will spend extended time playing by himself with his toys or 'reading' a book to himself. He still plays well with others and observes them with great interest - and so far he is a good sharer of his toys. Although somewhat perplexed when kids try to hoard toys. He has a developed fascination with technology (go figure!) and wants everything 'on': lights, tv, radio... it doesn't matter. In fact in recent weeks I've used this to my advantage to get him to eat. Every time he takes a bite he gets to turn on a light. Gets him to eat and most of our light bulbs are energy efficient :)

In a month I have an 18 month old! Crazy!