15 months

Isaac is wearing size 4 diapers and size 5 shoes. He still fits well in his 12 month and 12-18 month clothes. I think what we have now will last us through the rest of the winter and we'll move to 18 months in the spring/summer. We may need to pick up some 18 month pants before then.

Isaac picked up a few new words this month. The first is "rocky", which is part of a song I sing when he rocks on his rocking horse. "Rocky, rocky, rocky to and fro. Rocky, rocky, Isaac loves it so." My mom has sung this song for years, and her version says "rocking", but I use "rocky". Anyway, whenever Isaac climbs on to rock he says his own version of rocky. He also says hi, bye, uh-oh, diaper, and Mickey.

His second molar is so close to cutting through the gum. It's right there. Other than that, no new teeth this month. Still at 6 plus one molar that is just barely poking through and has been for a month.

The biggest thing that happened this month was saying goodbye to the pacifier. Isaac never used the paci much during the day, mostly just for sleeping, but for the past 4-5 months I've been pretty strict about only having it for sleep and not at all during the day. I've been dreading taking it away because he didn't know how to fall asleep without it.

A few weeks ago he woke up one day with a cold, and I considered taking away the paci right away. I've always heard it's easy to do it when they have a stuffy nose because they can't breathe with the paci in anyway. I chickened out and reasoned that he needed it for comfort if he was sick, but that afternoon he must have been so stuffy that he threw it out of his crib and fell asleep without it. I was shocked! We kept it one more night, mostly because I was afraid of many middle-of-the-night wakings, but I took the plunge the next day and we have been paci-free ever since. It sometimes takes him longer to fall asleep now, just because the paci used to calm him so much, and now he has to calm himself down. Other than that, his sleep is unaffected and I'm glad that transition is behind us.

I think I'm more sad about giving up the paci than he is. I miss giving it to him right before nap and bedtime and seeing him instantly relax, feeling his body sink into mine as we read books and cuddle before putting him in the crib. I used to hold him on my lap facing me and he would lay his head on my chest as we rocked. Now he wants to sit up and talk, pointing out my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. He will lay his head down when I say "It's time to go night-night", but it pops up again 2 seconds later. That's ok, it's our new bedtime routine. We talk and laugh a lot more than cuddle quietly, but I still cherish that special time with him.

We dropped a nap about a week ago and now he just takes one nap around 11:45. I held off as long as possible, but it became clear that I was putting him down for 2 naps only because it was routine, not because he needed both of them. We got to a point where he was not tired at either naptime or bedtime, and it would take him a long time to fall asleep. I bit the bullet and started doing one nap, and he is just fine with that. He falls asleep quickly at naptime and bedtime now. He wakes up between 6:30 and 7:00, goes down for nap around 11:45-12:00, sleeps for about 1.5 hours, and goes to bed at 7:00. I'm hoping the nap length will increase over time, but even if it doesn't he seems to be ok with the sleep he's getting.

If Isaac sees food, he has to have some (or so he thinks). No more sneaking a snack from the pantry.

He loves Ellen Degeneres, and says hi and waves at her on the tv every day. He'll sometimes do that to other people on tv but he does it to Ellen every time.

Isaac is obsessed with the cows that live in the fields outside our house. I put a stool under the office window so he can stand and watch the cows. He will often say hi and wave to the cows, too.

Nothing is safe on the edge of a table or countertop. He is a pro at spotting something, and stretching on his tiptoes to reach it. We have to had to up our babyproofing big time this month.

We have reached the phase where he wants to read a book over and over again, mostly his lift-the-flap books. When we come to the end he turns it over and hands it to me again. We read Where's Spot? a lot this month. Typically during the day I sit on the floor with him, he brings me a book, and I read it to him while he plays around, but lately he has been crawling into my lap while I read. It's so sweet.

Isaac is such a ball of energy these days. Every morning when I open his door, he enthusiastically says "hi!" before I can even turn on the light. He loves bathtime and will run to the bathroom when we say it's time to take a bath. Diaper changes are a struggle, and many tantrums are thrown when he doesn't get his way. Not really major "tantrums", but he definitely will cry and scream for a minute or two. He's becoming very independent and testing his boundaries. Our warm January weather has allowed us to play outside some, and he LOVES it, but he absolutely freaks out when it's time to go back inside. He is a typical up and down toddler, and we love him so much.