The Grubers: Charlie's 23rd Month

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Charlie's 23rd Month

22 Months to 23 Months

(April 19-May 18)

And Charlie continues to grow! It is amazing how long and lean he has gotten. He definitely doesn’t have that baby look anymore. He is a full-on little boy. I swear he just gets cuter and cuter every day.

Charlie STILL hates being changed! It is always such a problem, but now it is a real problem because he keeps kicking his pant legs off and starts reaching his hands down in there while I am trying to clean his dirty diaper. I used to give him his bottle, and that would pacify him while I changed him. But now that we are over the bottle, I didn’t know what else to do other than give him my phone while it played a short video. Of course, this is after trying to distract him with toys, sippy cups, and books...no success. With the phone playing a video, his hands and mind are occupied so there is no kicking, squirming, or poopy hands. I absolutely hate creating that habit for him, but I don’t know of a better option at the moment. Toys and books just don’t seem to do the trick consistently. So this is our routine for now.

Charlie has adjusted to only sippy cups and cups. However, now he has an attachment to them (notice the sippy cup in his hand in the first picture). The good news is he is drinking way more water than he ever did and is more hungry for real food. Luckily, he is still sleeping through the night without drinking a bottle of milk beforehand. However, now he is starting to demand to go to bed with his sippy cup. I resisted him at first, but his demands just got more and more intense with each night. The sippy cup only had water in it, but I feared creating a habit that would harm our future (far-future) potty training efforts. I didn’t want him used to sleeping with water and peeing the bed every night. I came to a compromise: he can keep his sippy cup with him, but I only put a tiny bit of water in it. For right now, I don’t think he so much wants the sippy cup because he is thirsty, but I think it is a comfort thing. He has also been teething a lot lately (molars are coming in), and so I think it gives him something to gnaw on. So we will see how it goes. Hopefully, it is just a phase and he won’t always need it to go to bed.

He says “whoa” a lot. He especially loves to say that and then look at you for your repetition or confirmation. It is really cute. Sometimes he will mimic a sound of a word, like “uh” when we are walking up the stairs together and I am saying “up, up, up” with each step. This is inconsistent, but I have at least heard it a couple of times...so I know there is potential.

He has been “chatting” it up even more lately. It seems like he is enjoying being more and more social and having more interactions with people.

He loves our neighbor, Misty. She is ten or eleven. He threw a huge fit one day when she couldn’t play with him after she walked home from the bus stop. He just stood at her door, hung on her doorknob, and cried. It was heartbreaking, but made me happy to see him show such care towards another kid.

Speaking of his molars coming in, he has been a demon! His tantrums are really starting to come on strong! He will fall to the ground, or if I am holding him, he will flail everywhere and throw his head back. He is near impossible to hold at that point. Anytime I go upstairs, especially if I have to go up to the bathroom, he freaks out at the bottom of the stairs and he won’t stop crying until I come down. He seems to be even more fussy and demanding when I am around. If I am gone and others are watching him, he is a happy little boy. So unfair!