Captain Adorable is 18 Months!

My baby boy is getting so big!  He is a happy little boy for the most part.

Captain Adorable LOVES balls and sports.  He will excitedly say "Bah!" and sign for ball whenever he sees one.  He is often seen carrying a ball under his arm.  And he has a pretty good arm when he throws.  He still needs to work on catching, though.  We have a book with all the different kinds of sports balls and he points to each one and says "Bah!"  He says "Ba-Bah!" for basketball.  One day he wore some socks with sports balls printed on and he was very excited to point them out to me when he discovered them.  He loves seeing sports on tv and he likes to try to make baskets with his little hoop.  He loves chucking his football at me.  He likes to throw things in general.

He is my mess maker! If something is where it should be, he always thinks it would look better on the floor.  He is in to everything.  We have everyone trained to keep the bathroom doors closed so he doesn't play in the toilets.  He likes to bang on my keyboard when I'm on the computer.  He loves to climb up on the table and drink from cups (spilling most of the liquid down his front).

Captain Adorable is a sign language maniac.  If he hears the word or sees something that he recognizes then he will do the sign.  He loves seeing stars and signing while shouting "Dar!"  He was very excited when he saw the moon the other night.  He signs lots of words and sometimes tries to say them: flower, apple, grandma, grandpa, ball, phone, potty "Pah-ee", diaper, hurt, blanket, milk, water, eat, more, please, sorry, thank you, rain, snow, cold, hot "Hah!", sad, sleep, peach, bug, dirty "Dir-ee", wash hands, brush teeth "Tee",  pajamas, bath, dinosaur, car "Gahr!", bus, Dad "Da!", boat, horse, frog, cat "Ca!" and I'm sure there are more I can't think of.  Even with all these signs, he still squeals to get my attention a lot more than I would like.  I'm just glad he can sign as much as he can or I think I'd be getting screamed at a whole lot more.

Whenever Handsome Husband comes home from work, Captain Adorable shouts "Da!" and runs to find him.  The funny thing is that whenever our outside doors open our house alarm chirps, so Captain Adorable is trained to associate the chirping sound with Daddy coming home.  So now ANY time the door chirps, Captain Adorable shouts "Da!"  He recently started saying "I Got it!" when he retrieves a ball and "Catch it" when he throws.  And he tries so hard to say things.  I love baby gibberish.  He is very good about recognizing things like when something is hot, he'll immediately say "Hah!" and do the sign.  And he loves when I go to the bathroom, he will follow me down the hall, shaking his little fist (the potty sign) and saying "pah-ee!" and then he'll step up on the step stool and sign water and wash hands.  He likes to play in the water while I go potty.    If he has a diaper rash, he will sign hurt while I am changing him and then he'll sign sorry with me.  He says "Uh- Oh!" a lot.  His voice sounds sounds very similar to Sweetie's and sometimes I can't tell who said what.  I just LOVE the amount of communication that goes on between us since he can sign so many things.  Even the girls pick up on what he's saying because they know the signs.  I can't say enough good things about teaching your baby sign language.  I highly recommend Baby Signing Time.  I used it for all three of my kids starting at 14 months for Ballerina, 7 or 8 months for Sweetie and from birth for Captain Adorable.

Captain Adorable has a lot of control over his body.  He will skip a step when he is happily running down the hall.  He is great at climbing.  He loves to bring me things from the pantry and sometimes he'll put them back if I ask him to.  He loves sitting up to the table with the family, but he has fallen out of his chair quite a few times.  He really likes these big chunky crayons that we have.  He tries to scribble on paper, luckily he hasn't tried to draw on walls yet.

Captain Adorable is shy around strangers.  He scowls and rubs his eyes like he is tired whenever he meets new people.  He takes a while to warm up to them, like he takes a while to wake up in the morning.  He is a little bit of a Momma's boy in that he prefers me to anyone else.  But he finds most solace in his blanket.  He LOVES his star blankets.  When I am pulling him out of his crib, he IMMEDIATELY signs blanket if he doesn't have it in his arms.  If he is walking around the house and realizes that his blanket isn't near him, he starts signing for it frantically.  If he sits up to the table and his blanket falls to the floor, he signs for it.  If he is in the car and his blanket falls to the floor he screams and signs.  He is a BLANKET BABY!  He HAD to have it in order to be decent in nursery at church.  He is very jealous of it and protests loudly if another kid grabs on to it.  If I am carrying it into another room and he sees me with it, he will scream and sign for it.  He LOVES it.

He gets really excited when we turn on the Wii.  He is already enthralled with video games (we don't play it very much).  He has some shows he gets excited about.  Baby Signing Time is at the top of the list.  He also really likes Blue's Clues and the Backyardigans.

Captain Adorable still loves his sleep.  He takes two naps a day still.  He takes a sippy cup of milk to bed, though.  I need to stop giving it to him at bedtime.  Some days he would prefer to live off of milk, like Ballerina used to.  But he does like bananas, smoothies, yogurt, applesauce, peanut butter, string cheese, spaghetti and beans.  He LOVES chocolate.  Some days he'll eat really well, other days he'll eat like a bird.  Half the time I don't know what to feed him.  He makes the biggest messes with crackers and my floors are in constant need of a good sweep.

He is not much of a snuggler, so I really cherish those moments when he lets me cuddle with him.  That's one of the perks to being his mom because I doubt he'd snuggle with me at all if I wasn't his mom.  I often scoop him up and smother his cheeks with kisses and say "I love this boy!" while he tries to scramble to get out of my arms.  He loves it when I tickle him.  Captain Adorable likes to push his toy cars around with zooming sound effects.  He also likes to fly his toy airplane while spinning in a circle.

I love my Captain Adorable so much.  I am so thankful to have my boy!