14 Months

Disclaimer: this is a long post about how perfect my child is.

I figured it was time for an Itty Bitty update; these are all things I want to remember about Scott at this age. Our sweet Scotty Boy is 14 months old. He wears mostly 12 month (some 18 mo) clothes; I think he will be in them for a while. He is about 22 pounds and probably 29 or so inches.

He has been eating non-stop. He hasn't ever really refused any food, ever, but there are times when he doesn't want to eat things, he just wants what he wants. His favorite color to eat is orange; carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, cheese, cheddar bunnies, shells and aged cheddar (mac and cheese, he also loves the white cheddar version), mangoes, and peaches, very rarely does he refuse anything orange. He loves peas, broccoli, black beans, tortillas, bread, gorilla crunch cereal (like Kix), baby muffins (made with fruits and veggies and whole wheat flour), avocado, bananas, rice, chicken, ground turkey, apple or pear sauce, Greek yogurt, Ritz crackers, and anything in a pouch. He will occasionally eat tomatoes but he is funny about them, he will even take them out of his mouth sometimes. 

 There are a lot of foods I won’t let Scott eat yet has his entire life to try and discover new foods so I feel like there is no rush introducing him to the junk most of America lives on. For example: anything fried, artificially flavored or colored, loaded with sugar (or any sugar really), processed meat (chicken nuggets, hot dogs, lunch meat…), fruit juice (occasionally mixed with vegetable juice), and anything else I deem “unhealthy” or “unhealthy-ish”. There are also a whole list of food he hasn’t tried yet like fish, beef, pork, peanut butter, choking hazards and his little bum seems to be sensitive to citrus.

Scott loves to drink milk, he expects it first thing when he wakes up, and he drinks half of his cup during his diaper change and pre breakfast play time. The second half gets saved for breakfast. He finishes off his two servings of liquid dairy by his morning snack time and he throws his cup across the room and yells when it is empty before he is ready to be done.

The kid chugs water. Like there is no tomorrow. He has a minimum of three sip cups filled with water around the house every day, one always goes with us and his absolute favorite thing to drink water from is a plastic tumbler with a straw. He has half a dozen toddler straw cups but none of them are as good as the real deal Mom and Dad drink from. If he sees us drinking (or hears us refilling our cup) he opens his mouth real big at us and waits. And waits. Until we put that little straw in his mouth and let him guzzle/back wash. It is so sweet, but we finally bought him his own tumbler last week, we got sick of washing the cheddar bunny chunks out of our water. 

The kid can crawl faster than I can walk. He loves to be chased around the house and thinks it is so funny when we try to keep up with his lightening fast moves. He has taken a few steps on multiple occasions, but is taking his sweet time walking. We are completely fine with that, there are times when we wish he would just walk already, but we are happy just letting him do his thing. He loves to push his little stand and go cart around the house he runs with it and jerks it around when it is time to turn, it is hilarious. He stands up on everything and has been trying to stand up on his own in the middle of the room, it is so funny to watch but it seems like he tries to do it when no one is looking. He recently learned how to crawl up on all fours, he tucks his head down to watch what is behind him between his legs, it cracks us up.

Scott can be quite the naughty boy. Don’t let his cute little face, chubby legs and shinny blues fool you. The kid has a bit of a temper and is as stubborn as can be. He stands up in shopping carts (doesn’t matter how tight the seatbelt is), he grabs things off shelves and racks and throws them in the shopping cart (no I don’t need a quadruple xl men’s shirt, or that size 12 women’s left running shoe, thanks though). He gets upset if you put something in the shopping cart without handing it to him first, like he has to okay it first. He stands up in his highchair and yells and THROWS his food, even if he is actively eating it. Sometimes he will even stand in his high chair and bend over like he trying to get to food he dropped, mini heart attack. He climbs on couches, knocks over dining room chairs, opens and closes all the cupboards and drawers in our house and reorganizes their contents. He can even open all the dresser drawers in our house. None of the dressers in our house are younger than I am and they all have broken sliders, I have issues opening them sometimes, but he can open them just fine. He learned how to open the fridge yesterday. The FRIDGE! people. He closes himself in rooms all the time and can make his way outside before you even knew he was in a room with an open door. He finds new hiding spots for things all the time (under the stove, behind his crib, under couches and dressers and closed doors). He can find the iPad or an iPhone anywhere. He can answer phone calls, send texts, talk to siri, unlock them, he tries his hardest to figure out passwords, he deletes emails and pictures, and he can take a million and two pictures in just under 60 seconds. 

Photo Credit: Jeremy

Scott loooooooves to be outside. Loves, loves, loves, loves, loves it. It doesn’t matter what you are doing, but he prefers to be on the ground crawling to something dangerous. But if he is outside he is one happy camper.

Scotty loves people and people love Scotty. We can’t go to a store without half a dozen people stopping us to talk to him or him waving and talking to someone. In the last few months he has really started to notice kids, before it was a lot of adults he would talk to, not so much anymore. If he sees anyone under twelve he wants to talk to them and be their best friend, he would probably even be content going home with them. We walk the mall a lot in the mornings while Jeremy is at school, it is mostly older retired people that are there walking and Scott just eats those people up. I carry him in ERGO, strapping an extra 22 lbs to you can seriously intensify a workout, and he will have himself almost out of the thing to look my shoulder to keep flirting with all the old ladies, and he loves the attention old men give him too. 

Photo Credit: Jeremy

 Scotty love to play and sing songs, Row Your Boat, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Pat A Cake, and Itsy Bitsy Spider are among his favorites. He will crawl up to you (sometimes in your lap) and start doing the hand motions waiting for you to start singing. He stops doing the hand motions five seconds after you start singing and will grab your hands if you don’t start doing them. He plays Peek A Boo with us all day long, behind anything that separates us and with his hands over his eyes/forehead/head. When reading books he will grab your finger in his little palm and stick his pointer finger out so you can “help” him point at stuff on the pages.  He loves to turn pages while reading. His favorite toys right now are Mega Blocks and Little People, he also loves this truck that little balls go down the chute and roll out the back, but in his mind EVERYTHING goes down the chute. Little People, Mega Blocks, easter eggs, the Little people sized R2-D2 and C3P0, snacks, everything. He spends all day dropping stuff inside it and fishing them back out again with the truck won’t go.

Besides Momma and Daddy Scotts main sources of comfort are his little thumb and his elephant. I love that he sucks on his thumb I think it is absolutely adorable, but I know it is going to be one heck of a habit to break. To say this kid and his elephant are besties is a huge understatement. They are nearly inseparable. He won’t get out of his crib without him in his hand, he won’t go to bed without him, he goes looking for his elephant during the day when he board, lonely, or anything else.  

Scotty isn’t much of a cuddler, but oh man the kid give loves all day long. He will crawl on top of you to lay his little head on your chest and hug you, for two seconds, then you get a heel to the jaw and he is off again. He loves to sit on our laps and play, it just isn’t the same sitting next to you parents while playing, it is so much better if you can sit in their lap. He gives kisses. Lots and lots of kisses, every time we sneeze, cough, yawn or blow our nose he opens his mouth extra wide and saws awwwwwwwe, and waits for you to come and kiss him. It is so sweet. The only time he won’t kiss us is at nap time and bed time, but we cover his little face and neck with them anyway. We love Scott so much and are so happy to have him in our little family. 

Photo Credit: Jeremy

--------
Today was day three of my photo challenge, we had a busy day so I didn't have a ton of time to take pictures but I am pretty happy with the ones I got (the first three in the post, the other three are from Jeremy, he loves our new camera too). I decided to post mostly black and white pictures because I am trying to focus more on lighting and less on colors right now, I am really trying not edit my photos at all right now (other than turning them to black and white) because it makes me really frustrated sometimes and I really want to improve my photography skills right now, I can work on my editing skills later.