18 months old: What a fun stage!

Today Axel is 18 months old! What a big boy he is turning into and we LOVE IT. His 18 month check up isn't for a couple more weeks, so we'll see where he is at growth wise then.

We absolutely adore this stage that he is in. Sure he has his moments, but most of the time, he is pretty fun and such a joy to be around. I couldn't ask for a better kid. In fact we are pretty terrified for baby number 2 because he has been so great, we are worried we are going to be in for a huge shock when we get a kid that is not so easy.

He is just so curious about the world around him, and he has this disposition about him to do what he is supposed to do, he is all about learning the rules of the world around him.

He is great at following directions and doing what we ask him to do, with a few exceptions of course i.e diaper changes and getting dressed, still haven't quite mastered that yet with him. Although, when you change his diaper he will lift his bum up when you say "bum up" and my favorite is he'll say "AH SICK" when you wipe. He also says that when you wipe his nose. This was after I got tired of fighting him or him treating me like I am just horrible, so one day I showed him what was in his tissue, and since then he is much more cooperative.

Clean Boy

But he is great at picking up his toys, and putting things back after he plays with them. Last night he brought out a horse, then ran back to his room and put it in his drawer I was very impressed, then he pulled out a fire truck and brought it to us and played with it for a while then went back to his room, and started to play with something else, so I looked to see where the truck went and sure enough he had put it in his drawer where he got it. He is one organized and clean tot. A lot of people blame me for this, they think I am constantly picking up after him, but in truth we clean up together every day, and I just try to show him how things go, and let him do it, and because he likes to obey and do what is right, he puts things away where they go. I think it's just in his personality, he likes to do what we do, granted if I were not the kind of mom to sit down and teach him how to clean up I don't think he would learn that, at least not this early. We have two clean up rules at our house, all the toys get cleaned up before nap time and at bed time.

If he spills something on the floor he'll grab a towel from our drawer and say "Oh a mess" and then clean it up.

He also has taken it upon himself to feed our dogs now. (with a little help from us of course) But all we have to say is Axel lets feed the dogs, and he will run to their cupboard and get the scoop and put a scoop for Big dog in her bowl and then one for Zoe and then put the scoop back. So smart he even knows Zoe gets a little scoop.
Our Little Chef
He also loves helping me cook, his favorite of course is cracking eggs, but he also loves adding the ingredients to the bowl, but is absolutely terrified of the hand mixer. We enjoy cooking together, sometimes it's more work for me, but a lot of times it helps him stay in a happy mood, instead of begging and crying for food while I cook. I think its also a good opportunity to teach him something new. I am amazed how much they can take on at such a young age.

He also does a great job getting dad for mom when it's time to eat. He'll put up his hand to his ear and yell "DAD" "DAD" at the top of our stairs.

This blog sounds like I work my kid to death, make him clean, give him chores and even have him cook dinner every night...I promise we do other fun things to...Blocks
We build towers from blocks, which he is a pro at, he as been known to build a 9+ block tower. It is really funny to see him put blocks on top of each other because he places it on very delicately, and then quickly pulls his hand away like he knows it will fall if he lingers too long.Shapes
He also has a shape toy that you put shapes in, and he will take the shape and say "no, no, no, no and yeah!" When he gets it in, or when he gets it in the spot he wants it to go in. He can recognize and say "Star", but that's it. He can also say "Shapes".

SportsBoy does this kid love sports! Poor kid needs a basketball hoop, we found him making one out of a fold up chair the other night. We think it was because it looks like a back board. He just kept throwing his basket ball at it and then saying "YEAH" But also he has found a new sport to love , baseball. His Grandma Julie gave him a baseball tee and bat for his birthday, and he could play that for an hour at least. He has got a pretty good arm too. He also loves soccer. And can say "Soccer ball". Remember how I said he would probably grow out of the balloon thing? Nope, still hasn't still loves balloons, and we found that ones filled with just air are even more fun than the helium ones. The other day after he tripped on his balloon ball I said "Oh fumble!" He jumped up and yelled "Fumble!". Where did this kid come from? ha ha

Skateboard
He finally has been using his skateboard we got him for Christmas. I can't wait for it to get warmer outside and for him to be a little better balanced, and he and Kory can go outside and skate. He can say "Skateboard" and can balance on the skateboard all by himself, but needs help going on it.

Working with Grandpa and papa
He loves when grandpa comes to our house to help Kory, he always runs to the door and knocks and says "Grandpa!" and "Hey! Hey! Hey!" then he'll grab his "mammer" and run to the back door to meet grandpa at the back door. He also loves going downstairs to help dad in the basement, he always parks himself next to Kory and tries to help him with whatever it is he is working on.

Reading
We also read A LOT of books around here. What he has been doing over the past few months is reciting the books to us, it's great. He'll finish a page for us! Our favorite is "Hop on Pop" he loves telling "Pat" to not sit on the cactus, and to get mad at the kids for hopping on pop. He takes that book very seriously. Another recent favorite is from Grandma Julie, a book that is about things that GO, and he will say the end for us. It's really adorable, I want to get it on video one of these days.

Talking, talking and more talking
His language skills have exploded recently, I mean the kid has always been a head of the game when it comes to speaking, I like to think it's his thing, you know some kids walk or crawl early, for Axel it was communication. When he was 6 months old he said "Ba" for ball, and hasn't stopped since. Some new words are: Shovel, flower, nana (banana), mammer (hammer), tractor, shark, bubble, mouth, ear, nose, eyes, no, Grandma, who who (whistle), tory (story) Book, train, choo choo, chocolate, cookie, and my personal favorite "dumb dog" (Not that I don't love my dogs, but after one certain dog ran away and I had to go get her for the millionth time, I said "dumb dog!" and since then whenever said dog is in trouble we hear a little voice say "dumb dog")
He has started to put words together to form sentences like "I got it!" , "There he is", "here you go" he'll ask for things too, like "mama, cookie" or "Mama, bottle" we are still working on the whole please thing. He thinks when he yells my name "mama" that is asking. I kinda think he got that from the kids we watch all the time because he used to say it like "AMMMY", Kory and I have been working on correcting that. The other day we were at Macey's and we saw a lady with an Ice Cream cone, and he goes "MMMMM Ice cream YUM YUM!" It was pretty adorable.

There is soo much more too, I just can never think of it all, I wish I had a bank in my brain that whenever he did something new it would catalog it and then I could just download it here. I hope to get better at the whole documenting his life and the life of our new baby, but as you can see I kinda just get worse and worse as time goes on.