Showing posts with label discipline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discipline. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

15 Month Check Up


Weight: 23lbs (although he was pretty wiggly and I think he's closer to 24lbs) - 25%
Height: 32in - 75%
Head: 49cm - 90%

Mobility
Micah now walks everywhere and can get up and down the stairs with ease. He can also open and close doors and drawers. He's usually pretty persistent and determined when he wants something he can't have or do like turn on and off the T.V. or dig through my night stand drawer. As a result I have resorted to locking some doors from the outside (particularly bathroom doors) when I cannot devote my attention solely to him.

Feeding
Micah has at least 11 teeth now and handles table food very well. He has breakfast at 8am, lunch at noon, a snack at 4pm and supper at 5:30pm. Most of his meals now are finger foods with ocassional things I spoon feed him like applesauce and yogurt.

He prefers to feed himself and lets you know what his preferences are at meal time refusing to eat anything unless he gets what he wants. However, usually the old "out of sight, out of mind" trick seems to work well with him.

Sippy cups are no longer an issue and he drinks about 20 ounces or more of vitamin D milk in one day.

Sleeping
On average, Micah sleeps from 8:00pm - 7:30am. Sometimes he'll wake at 6:30am and go back to sleep and other times I have to wake him up at 8:30. Regardless, the earliest I'll get him out of his crib is 8am unless we need to be up early for a specific reason.

He's transitioning from two naps to one by taking one short nap in the morning usually at 11am that's about 45 minutes to an hour and one longer nap in the afternoon from 2 - 4pm. However, lately if he sleeps an hour in the morning he's less likely to take a long afternoon nap. There have been a couple of days that he has taken one long 3 hour nap, but then he's usually crabby the next day. My goal is to get him to take one long nap from 1 - 4pm every day.

Communicating
Micah communicates very well. He can sign: "milk," "all done," "more," "book," "nigh, nigh." He can say: "mommy," "dada," "da-din" (jackson), "cra-grr" (cracker), "nigh, nigh," "ah-me" (amen), "Bapa" (Papa), and he mimics and tries to say more and more every day.

He'll cry and or throw a mini-tantrum if he doesn't get what he wants, but it usually lasts seconds and as he gets older we will definitely begin to discipline the behavior, but right now I feel he's too young to understand when he's throwing a tantrum.

However, he gets disciplined on a pretty consistent basis when we know and MICAH knows that he is being directly disobedient. Usually that entails touching something he's not allowed to or going up the stairs when we tell him not to.

I've thought about "baby proofing" those sort of things to prevent having to battle with him. I think I would if I was convinced that he didn't understand what I expected from him, but it is SO CLEAR that he understands when he's disobedient. I've come to the conclusion that the battle is worth it now so that I don't have to fight a WAR months or years from now. Consistent boundaries bring a sense of security (especially to children) and Micah is testing those boundaries which is a good and natural thing for him to do.

Playing
Micah's favorite toys right now are anything that has buttons and makes noises and anything his big brother is playing with at the moment.


As of late he's also taken a liking to fleece blankets (which is what he sleeps with) and the other day insisted on carrying one around. I'm trying to put the kabosh on that one, but we'll see.

He also loves to hide in closets, forts, cupboards, etc. He can sit through whole books now, but Bible story time is still a struggle (especially when we're explaining the story to Jackson).

Micah ADORES his big brother and mimics him in just about everything that he does. (I'm secretly and publicly hoping that that will aid in future potty training, but we'll see).


Micah is a pretty active player and I now have to use the cry room in church (we do not have a nursery) during the sermons, but he'll sit through most of the singing.

Micah loves to play outside when we can and is very brave at the playground going up stairs and down slides without any fear or hesitation. I may have a dare devil on my hands.

Personality
Micah is quick to laugh and smile and even quicker to make someone else laugh and smile.

He's shy around strangers and will cry with a babysitter or at the doctor's office, but once he gets to know you he's a hoot. He's definitely a child that should make you worry if he's off playing by himself not making a peep (that usually means he's into something he's not supposed to). I think he's going to be my "sneaky" one. So far he's not a "people pleaser", but loves doing his own thing. He loves to cuddle unless he's really tired and then he'll insist on laying down in bed. His exictment and smile when you walk in the door makes you feel so loved.

I'm blessed to have you Micah! I love you SO much!

Monday, November 23, 2009

12 Months

Okay ... I'm really behind on this post because Micah had his 12 month check up before we left for a long trip to the Midwest.

I also left his stats on a piece of paper that I left in the Midwest ... oops. I don't remember the exact measurements, but I do remember the percentiles.

Weight: 48% (about 22lbs)
Height: 75%
Head: 90%

He's been done nursing since we left for our trip (note: I plan on writing a weaning blog soon) which worked out well because we had to leave him with his Aunt Katie for a few days while Colin and I packed up our house in Omaha.

The unfortunate thing for Aunt Katie was that he started separation anxiety around the same time. It started right before we left ... he wouldn't even let me leave the room without crying (perhaps it may have been related to the weaning?).

It took him quite awhile to warm up to his relatives and by the end of the 2 week vacation he was finally becoming more comfortable being without me. Since we've been back home the separation anxiety has seemed to lessen ... go figure.

I try to get Micah to drink about 20oz of whole milk a day (about two sippy cups worth) and he drinks it best when he uses a cup with a straw, but we're working on a regular sippy cup as well (although we take the one way valve out to make it easier for him).

He eats three meals a day and gets one snack in the afternoon. I'd say he's eating about 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cups worth of food ground up in the baby food grinder for meals and has about 1/2 - 1 cup of cheerios or crackers for a snack in the afternoon. We've slowly been adding more texture/chunks to his ground food (i.e. oatmeal with raisins) and offering more finger foods as well. I also want to note that we've introduced him to honey and peanut butter now and he loves them!

His hemoglobin test came back low during his 12 month check up so we've been really pushing the cheerios and the baby cereal as well as adding a vitamin supplement with iron to his diet in the evenings as well. We'll go back at the beginning of December to check his hemoglobin again.

Micah's taking two naps a day (10:00 - 12:00 and 2:00 - 4:00), but it seems like he'll sleep his whole morning nap lately and shortens his afternoon nap showing signs of being ready to go down to one nap soon. The past couple of days I've tried to wake him up early from his morning nap to see if he'll sleep longer for his afternoon nap (so that both boys are taking long afternoon naps and I can have a few more moments to myself to get things done), but that hasn't been working.

However, I can't complain because he's still sleeping wonderfully at night. There were a couple of nights when we were on vacation that he woke up in the middle of the night, but that was because he was sick and/or not used to having us sleeping in the room with him. I feel the need to dedicate a future blog to our travel adventures though.

Micah has become VERY efficient in his crawling and can get around pretty fast. He LOVES to be chased ... it makes him giggle so hard that he buckles over and can't crawl away anymore ... it's pretty adorable if you ask me. He's also cruising more and walks pretty well holding on to one hand. It won't be long until he's walking on his own. Although we are entering the season of bumps and bruises until he can master walking and running.

Due to his mobility, discipline has been coming more frequently. When Jackson was younger he'd cry even if I had a serious tone to my voice let alone give him a spanking. Not true for Micah. He will sometimes laugh after I give him a spanking (SIGH)...oh boy ... it takes a few corrections before he obeys, but he eventually obeys. He's a pretty persistent little bugger sometimes, but that will be to his advantage in the future if he learns to use it "for the greater good."

Micah is a go, go, go kind of guy. I rarely see him sitting still to examine a toy or book, but that's usually because he's trying to keep up with his older brother. He's showing signs of being a tantrum thrower, but he has yet to have a full blown tantrum yet.

As far as communicating is concerned Micah can say/sign the following words:

Dada: Dad
Mama: Mom
Da-Din: Jackson
Aye: Hi
No-no: No
Nigh-Nigh: Good Night
dant-du: Thank you
(signs) please
(signs) all done
(signs) more (sort of)
uh-oh
t-t: touch it

I've found that it's REALLY hard to keep up with his vocabulary when I have a 3 year old talking in my ear 24/7. Don't get me wrong ... I'm grateful that my 3 year old is very verbose, BUT there are times when I wish I could pay sole attention to Micah. I'm sure there more "words" he's saying, I just am not able to pay attention to them.

Micah is such a delight! He's so curious and he loves to be with his family. He loves to cuddle more than I remember Jackson cuddling. He's SO ticklish and can be such a silly goose sometimes (I'm wondering if I have a class clown on my hands here). I LOVE that his personality is really starting to shine lately.


That's about it! I'll leave you with this picture of Micah on the morning of his birthday with blueberry muffin shoved in his mouth!