15 Months

Last Friday, Collin had his 15 month checkup and I was quite nervous about it. Earlier in the week I had weighed him on our scale (not terribly accurate, but close enough) and he weighed in at a measley 20 lbs. I was shocked. As I evaluated his skinny arms and roll-less legs it dawned on me that my baby looked like a scrawny street urchin! The doctor was going to kill me! I could swear to her that I feed him all day, but the scale doesn't lie. When he had turned one and was able to drink whole milk, I was counting on that to fatten him up. Well, after weeks of trying to "trick" him into drinking it (flavoring it with chocolate, strawberry, what have you) he finally started liking it! Well right when that happened the runny diapers started.... yes, the big D. So I took away milk and it was back to normal. A few weeks later, I tried again with the same results. So, no milk! And, no fat. :( My mom had had bad luck with soy milk with my brother so I didn't really think of it as a feasible option.

Back to his appointment... he tipped the scale at 21lb 3.8 oz. And I didn't even fill his diaper with water!

That put him at 10% accompanied with kudos from Dr. Bowman! I guess at 1 yr. he was 5% so she was pleased! Ah, relief!

 He was 30 1/4 in. (don't remember %, but it was under 50%)

And his head was 18 1/2 in which was 50%

He got two shots, one in each arm, and went absolutely ballistic. I've never heard him go that long without taking a breath. Then I pulled out the fruit snacks. Tears gone.

So the appt. went alright....

and she didn't even give me a hard time about this unseemly bruise:

Poor child. He had tripped and fallen right on the edge of the coffee table, giving him a nice, long, straight bruise across his cheek (Think Tommy Boy: "Not here, or here so much... but right here.")

We also ventured out to our first ward playgroup activity last week. We went to Spaulding Lake (the rich people's lake out in Clarence) since Natalie's in-laws live there and we could get {clearance} to use the beach. Collin is a scary thing in the water. No inhibitions. He goes as deep as he can and when I have to grab him after he's gone {under} he fights me to go back and do it again. But after a while, he decided to leave the group and hang out behind the garbage can. And that's where he stayed for quite some time. Love his little frog belly in this picture.

One afternoon, when I went to get him from his nap, I found him like this.....

Both his church ties hang from a knob on the rocking chair next to his crib, so apparently he grabbed them off, tried one on, and fell asleep. The other one was lying at his feet.

Must be something about accessories, because he wouldn't stop grabbing at my headband on Sunday.

So I let him try it on. Very dashing.

(If you're wondering what we're doing in the car.... I had just spent all of Sunday School trying to get him to fall asleep in his carseat. It had worked once before. Not this time. After driving up and down the freeway for 15 min., I pulled into the big, extra parking lot behind our building and just drove (or coasted) in circles. I thought for sure the women across the street in their lawn chairs were going to call the cops on the crazy lady driving her car in circles for 20 min. They didn't. Guess it wasn't of too much concern considering what they must usually see in downtown Buffalo.)

Other things Collin has been up to lately....

*He loves to dance. Of course that just means bouncing up and down and kind of grooving his head to the music. Commercial jingles count too. Especially the Marineland one.

*He can point to his nose, hair, ears, and bellybutton when we ask where they are. Still working on eyes.

* I thought he finally figured out some baby {signs}, namely the "more" sign, but now we've realized he just does that sign whenever he wants something. Anything. He sees what he wants and he signs "more". Sigh. At least he definitely knows the {milk} sign. (I just started the Soy Milk and so far it's working!) Also, he points to his nose sometimes, as though it's supposed to mean something. I wonder if he just thinks he can do any sort of hand gesture/pointing at a body part and I'll get him something interesting. Yes, I think that's probably it.

*He could spend hours on the driveway just walking around, picking up balls, then throwing them down, retrieving them, and repeating. He also loves to go to our neighbors driveway and try to join in on the older kids playing basketball. He wants to shoot a big basket so bad. And now that he knows the joys of {outside} he'll regulary find his shoes, take them to me, then walk to the door and whine.

*He still loves to throw everything in the garbage. It's now routine to sift through the recycling before we take it out to retrieve all his balls, animals, and puzzle pieces. Our garbage currently resides on the table. Yuck.

*He's finally loving books! Hooray! Except that is ALL he wants to do. Have me read to him. When will he be able to do that on his own?

*For the past month or two he has been cock-a-doodling at 6am. Sometimes 5:45am. *Groan*. I am not, nor have ever been, a morning person. Lucky for me, Trav is out of school and has been getting up with him most days. Blessings be upon Travis. I've been trying to shorten his morning naps so he doens't sleep as much during the day and therefore (hopefully) longer at night. Not a lot of success from that yet.

For the most part, I'd just describe him as busy, busy, BUSY! But I do love being home with him. Last Saturday I spent the whole day (10am-10:45pm) babysitting that family out in Clarence and I missed Collin so much. It was a good reminder for me to be grateful I get to spend my days with him. There's no job I'd rather have than being home with my baby. Although I don't know if he still qualifies as my {baby}, but I'll still be calling him that until I have another one!