Eighteen Months

Little man turned a year and a half this past Saturday and once again I am in disbelief that another month has passed us by (I know, I know…I say that every month!).

Here are some tidbits about our one-and-a-half year old…

Walking and Exploring
Elijah is walking/half running all over the place. Now that the novelty of walking has worn off a little; Elijah is stopping more to experience the world around him. He will catch sight of a toy and stop to play with it momentarily. I can't even begin to describe the amount of joy I experience watching him explore the world around him. Elijah is even starting to be naughty at times. He likes to play with the vertical blinds that hang in front of our patio door and watch them sway back and forth. Today he pulled off the towel that was hanging on the front of our oven and he likes to pull papers off of our coffee table. I can't help but rejoice over these things. The fact that he is capable of being "naughty" is a fantastic thing. Besides, he's not really being bad. He is simply exploring and learning about his world and I'm certainly not going to hold him back from learning. It's funny the things you will rejoice over when you don't know what your child will be able to do. Believe me, I am rejoicing!

Fine Motor Skills Improving
Elijah also seems to be improving in his fine motor skills. He walks over to walls and windows and touches them with both of his hands OPEN, which is so awesome. The more he walks, the more he seems to use his hands. I was even able to get him to rub his spoon on his lips a few times during meal time (and even put it in his mouth once!), which gave me renewed hope that Elijah will one day be able to feed himself. He will also pick toys up once in awhile on his own. Slowly but surely, his fine motor skills are plugging along too.

Speech
I think that Elijah has said "mom" a handful of times, but it has been so rare that I question if it really happened. So, we're still waiting for speech. I do think he is starting to make an "mmmm" sound during mealtime when he wants milk. And although he doesn't have any words, he definitely communicates with us in other ways and can understand a lot of what we are saying.

The Most Wonderful thing in the World!
I think my favorite thing that Elijah does now is walks over to me and raises his hands to have me pick him up. It makes me melt every single time. He'll be playing when he catches sight of me, gets excited, and walks to me laughing, holding his arms out to come and get me. Knowing that he loves me in this way is the most rewarding thing in the world. It's equally rewarding watching Elijah greet his dad at the door when Andy gets home from work, raising his arms up in anticipation of being held by his beloved daddy.

At eighteen months, I think the best word I'd use to describe our life with Elijah would be: fun. Oh, and challenging. He can be quite uncooperative at times…but I really wouldn't have it any other way.

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The Elusive Sleep

Elijah has never been a very good sleeper. I should take that back, because at one point, Elijah was actually an excellent sleeper. Between two and four months, Elijah slept eight to ten hours straight - every night. We thought we were extra special, that because we had been through so much at his birth, God gave us a good sleeper. But, Elijah was still on Phenobarbital at the time and was probably groggy. Not to mention, he had a massive injury to his head at birth. That'd make anyone tired. Needless to say, his sleep habits have changed many times over these past eighteen months.

3 weeks old - the day we got to take him home from the hospital

When we got to bring Elijah home from the hospital, he was still extremely sleepy. We actually had to wake him up to feed him – something I never thought I'd be doing in my pre-parenthood days. (Don't they say: Never wake a sleeping baby!?) Eventually we stopped setting the alarm clock to wake him – he became quite capable of waking us up on his own. Then came the aforementioned glorious two months when Elijah slept through the night – and he has only done it a handful of times since!

I can't seem to figure the little guy out and I guess that's probably just part of the parenting ritual. You think you've gotten things figured out, when Wham!, everything changes again. The only time Elijah has been a really good sleeper is when we were doing HBOT. So, perhaps next month he'll be sleeping like, um, a baby.

On the rare instances Elijah has fallen asleep in the car, I take a picture.

Elijah sleeping in the car at 11 months old

Elijah sleeping in the car at 17 months old

Perhaps someday the boy will sleep through the night. Perhaps someday he will take naps without a fight. Perhaps someday he will curl up on the floor (and without any assistance from me) go to sleep. Someday. In the meantime, how can you resist this little sleeping face?

Little man sleeping peacefully at three months old

If I've learned anything since becoming a mom, you just never know what is going to happen next. Perhaps ten hours of uninterrupted sleep? Hey a gal can dream, can’t she?

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