Oliver update: 16 months

This is the month that Oliver became a walker! He started his 15th month interested in trying to walk, but not taking more than a few steps at a time, and arrived at his 16th month nearly having abandoned crawling in favor of walking. Three weeks ago at our early childhood education class, I was reporting to the class that Oliver had started taking steps, but wasn't really what I would describe as a "walker" yet. Then I turned around and realized that the whole time I was talking, Oliver had been walking around the room and hadn't stopped once to crawl. After that night it was like he never looked back.

Other parents have told me that I'm lucky to have a late walker, because walkers are so much harder to deal with. But Oliver had to learn walk sometime and frankly, the advantages, like having him stand while I tried to zip his coat, or being able to set him down on his feet and not have him drop to his knees and try to crawl - a huge inconvenience if wherever I'm setting him is wet or dirty - outweigh the disadvantages reportedly coming, such as his speed.

I was warned that early walkers are nerve-wracking, because they have farther to fall while refining their new skill. While Oliver hasn't had any major mishaps, (yet) his early delight with himself in being able to walk seemed to give way to frustration that he was falling down so much. He never hurt himself, but I imagined that constantly falling on your hands and butt isn't comfortable. His mid-strut tumbles are occurring less and less frequently.

Now that Oliver is walking, I finally consider him a toddler and not a baby. His "baby" things are slowly going away. A month ago we stopped using his changing pad and just change him in the floor now, something parents of other kids his age have been doing for months now. His bottles have long been packed away and I'm getting close to packing up the last of the rattles and other newborn toys. Although the transition out of the crib is still months away, I'm already researching big kid bed options.

One of the more endearing things Oliver does now is wanting to sit in my lap. He'll toddle over to me with a book and nestle into my lap. Often he won't even let me read the book, he just wants to page through it himself. (And nine times out of 10, he holds the book upside down!) Sometimes I sit on the floor his room while he plays and he'll come over to me with a toy, sit in my lap and play with it for a minute or two, get up, find a different toy, circle back to me to sit in my lap while playing and then keep going. Our early childhood education teacher says that it this age kids are experimenting with new-found independence, but the world (or simply across the room and too far from mom or dad) can still be scary and retreating from playing for a quick hug or cuddle with mom or dad is reassuring for them.

And independence Oliver is just beginning to discover. At Tot Time at the nearby rec center, he's all over the gym, and sometimes out of view, without even a glance back towards me. Much of our time at the Children's Museum is spent in the one room truly designed for babies and toddlers, but then he caught a glimpse of a new room and while I was getting his snack ready, he disappeared to explore this new place on his own. And this all from a kid who still cries if I leave his sight.

One of Oliver's favorite places to sit is up on the couch. Chris and I don't know if he just likes the view from up higher or is emulating how his own parents veg out on the couch. Sometimes we'll take a couch cushion off and turn the furniture into a mini jungle gym, but in its normal state, it's still too high for Oliver crawl up top by himself and that frustrates him immensely. But he likes to climb on whatever else he can and especially likes to climb in things! If I get a package in the mail, I'll leave the empty box hanging around the house for a few days and it's instant entertainment for Oliver. He's like a cat the way he likes to sit in boxes.

Oliver's top two teeth have finally broken the gum line, but seem like they've been stuck in that position for weeks. He's had some uncontrollably fussy days, and then he'll have a string of days where he wakes up without a care (or ache) in the world. Whereas Oliver usually only got to use his pacifier while sleeping, or in circumstances where I needed to buy some time before I could feed him or let him sleep, I've found myself relying on it more and more lately. Sometimes I can't take listening to another second of whining and out comes the pacifier.

We haven't noticed much of a difference in Oliver's language development, but every now and then we recognize real words are starting to form from what is otherwise still just baby babble. He'll stand in front of the window, bang his little palm against it and say "indow" and finally we realize, "Oh, WINDOW!" (And that makes his father, an engineer for a window manufacturer, very proud.)

Even where Oliver can't yet verbalize, he can still make some opinions and thoughts known. He's started clapping and he can wave hello and goodbye, sometimes even if he just hears one of those words in conversation is someone isn't actually leaving the house. He's never been a kid to cry about a dirty diaper, (in fact, if I hear him "talking" to himself early in a nap and generally sounding like he's throwing a party in his crib, as opposed to crying, I've learned that he needs his diaper changed) but twice in the last two days he's walked (toddled) over to the gate at the bottom of the stairs and fussed. Then I realized he had a dirty diaper. He's also learned that standing by his booster seat and whining to get in is a good signal that he's hungry.

As is typical for toddlers, they understand a lot, even if they can't talk, and this has become a lot more apparent to us in the last month. I can ask Oliver if he wants more of something and he'll shake his head for no, or if he's interested, he'll exclaim something that more or less sounds like "Yes!" If I sense he's tired, I can ask if he wants to go to sleep, and sometimes he'll head straight for the stairs. I can explain things to him and sometimes I think he gets it. Well, at least if he throws himself on the ground and wails, I take it that he understood me when I said he couldn't have or do something.

Oliver has been on a regular meal and snack schedule for months now, a schedule that fits his needs (so lunch as early as 10:30 a.m. and dinner at 5:00 p.m.) but otherwise, I had been feeding him and offering milk on demand, just as I had since he was a newborn. But suddenly he was "asking" for a snack frequently and appeared to be sipping milk all day long. Because he was a "sipper," and not a kid who would chug a bottomless cup of milk in a sitting and end up drinking too much milk, I had given him free reign of his sippy cup.

Reading the book Child of Mine by Ellyn Satter, which was recommended by a pediatric nutritionist who visited our early childhood education class, helped me realize that while I had been doing a lot of things well when it came to introducing food and providing Oliver with a healthy diet, now that Oliver is a toddler, I can be doing more to set limits and expectations. I read the book right at the time that I felt like snacks were getting out of control (as in too many snacks) and that he might actually have started drinking enough milk to spoil his meals. I knew I was letting this happen because I had always thought you should feed a child if he or she is hungry and because, well, to be honest, I can only take so much whining. And Oliver WHINES, probably like any kid, when he wants something. But I learned from the book that toddlers are at an age when they can start to learn that everything doesn't revolve around them (i.e. they're hungry and want their dinner NOW, whether mom or dad is still cooking and regardless of what is expected of older siblings) and that if you are offering them filling snacks and meals at appropriate times, they won't starve to death if they're forced to wait 15 minutes for dinner. So I make sure Oliver has as much as he could want to eat at these designated times, but otherwise, the sippy cup of milk goes back in the fridge (he can always have water) and he's not offered food until the next snack or meal time.

It was really difficult to listen to him whine that first evening when I refused to drop everything I was doing in the kitchen to get his dinner ready first, but then something magical happened. He stopped whining and went back to playing with his toys. Ten minutes later, dinner was ready and we all sat down together. Miracle!

I still have to use the power of distraction and a pacifier during more challenging times, but I feel less stressed knowing I've regained some control over my kitchen and don't feel like I'm running a snack shack from sun up until sun down.

On the other end of the literature spectrum, the book Where is Baby's Belly Button inspired me to start teaching Oliver body parts. I thought he was catching on so quickly when I asked, "Where is Oliver's nose," and he promptly pointed to his nose. But ask him where any other body part is, or any question for that matter, and he points to his nose! Still got some work to do...