14 Month Update

He spent our park outing at this concrete step at least half as tall as he is. He did end up getting up it all by himself and without using his knees! :) (one foot up, then the next foot up- it looked like it would be pretty hard!)

So it has been way too long and way too many things have happened since I last blogged. What a busy time the last month or two have been. But, most importantly for my sake, I want to write down a little bit of what our Jakey has been up to since his first birthday two months ago. He's had a rough couple of months with my brain surgery and hospital stay, and still seems to showing some signs that it was somewhat life-changing for him. Anyway, he is still happy and healthy and doing new things all the time. And, most importantly is still such an adorable and perfect baby! =)

Jakey is still a perfect sleeper! If I have any complaints it is that some days he sleeps too long. :) But normally I enjoy some alone time to chat on the phone, clean the house, or relax. He generally sleeps 12 hours at the very least and usually still takes two naps per day, sometimes napping around 5 hours total each day. We sleep with a video monitor on with the volume loud and usually don't hear as much as a peep out of that boy until at least 9am. I am one lucky mama!!

Jakey is a great eater. He's been hand feeding himself for months but he's now begun successfully (but messily) feeding himself with a spoon. The only thing we've really let him feed himself is mashed potatoes because it is light colored and sticks to the spoon! But he's really pretty good at it. His fine motor skills continue to impress us. :)

Speaking of fine motor skills, he loves to figure out how things work. He's now unlocked the back door a few times, tried to turn on the stove, opens and shuts doors, gets into every cabinet, tries to open the baby gate when locked, and loves cell phones and remote controls. He knows what a brush is and loves to brush his hair and ours- it's pretty cute! He also LOVES for you to let him play with the light switches. He loves emptying toy bins and filling toys with other toys. At least now he is occasionally putting his toys back into the toy bins! His other favorite activity is opening the doors of the armoire and taking out all of the dvds and hitting them together. I sometimes find myself annoyed at his getting into things, but often try to remind myself that he's learning, exploring and that if he weren't curious, intelligent and healthy then he wouldn't be getting into any of those things!

His gross motor skills are also great. He can run, he LOVES steps and hardly ever needs help using them. He loves to run down the driveway and go down the little step at the end. And of course it's a slope and concrete and I just cringe. But he loves getting the mail with me! He's also great at getting off of furniture by himself and rarely falls down anymore when walking or running. He can reach things on the kitchen cabinets and the kitchen table and knows to pull the place mats if there's something on them he wants.

His vocabulary has kind of been at a stand-still since my surgery. He's actually gotten a lot quieter this month in general. The things he understands are amazing to us, but obviously he cannot match that understanding with words. My mom usually asks him "Where's Papaw?" and Jakey always scans the room and smiles once he's made eye contact with my dad. He knows how to "bring something to Mommy/Daddy" and other similar commands. He knows "Where's ______" (blanky, mousey, the dog, keys, etc) and he will go get them and bring them to us. Lately he's been hugging everything animal and saying "awwwhhhhhh". It's so cute! Last night in the bathtub he said "daaauuuckkkkk" to his rubber ducky and then hug it by his face and say "aaawwhhhh" and smile. Wish I'd gotten the video camera out!! We did call Daddy in to show him how sweet Jakey was being to all of his bathtub friends. :) He has a few words he uses somewhat regularly, nothin' fancy though- dog (daahhhgg), duck, dad/daddy, mama, hi, this, that, and some other things that we can't tell what the heck he's sayin'! He's very hit or miss with speaking- a few hours on, a few hours off. We love that he's somewhat trying and still somewhat quiet! =)

I know I'm going to have pictures of Jakey at 14 months, but I just want to describe what I see in him at this phase so I can look back on it later when I'm seeing him "in the moment" at future stages.

Jakey is such an angel most of the time. He's grown so much, yet he's still this tiny little baby. He looks so cute walking around so close to the ground, and so little when he's sitting in the bathtub. He's so much more beautiful than I could've ever imagined he'd be. He has perfect, flawless skin, a beautiful mouth with the cutest teeth I've ever seen and the most bright blue eyes. He has light blond hair and so many people tell me that it's a beautiful color. He still has ginormous hands and pretty big feet. He has the perfect amount of fat and the softest skin I've ever touched. Can you tell than I'm loving being his mama and that I attack him with more kisses than he might care for every day?

He's finally leveled off in the growing department. He's in anywhere from 18 month to 2T clothes/pajamas. He's in a size 6 shoe and size 4 diaper. He weighs around 26lbs and is still a big boy! He's looking much slimmer than before now, too.

I'm not sure how Jeremy and I made something so perfect, other than the fact that he was created by God before he was given to us. We are so blessed and are soaking up every minute with our little toddler.

(PS- I'm sure everyone quit reading several paragraphs ago! But over the past month I've just learned to take nothing for granted and I cherish each moment with Jakey even more now- and I want to remember EVERY detail to the best of my ability! :)