The Harvey Family: Blake

Blake:

will go to the bathroom on command. He still stands at his post outside of the bathroom when I go and he likes to join in on the fun when I tell him that I'm going potty.
is really close to running. He walks so fast now that sometimes I can't outrun him to go and close a door or gate to keep him out. He's getting better with shoes and socks on but I really wish he'd look where he was walking...
doesn't look where he's walking most of the time. He'll trip over really big things on the floor in front of him. He always cries these big ol' tears but I keep trying to explain that he needs to watch his feet. I've been asking him where his feet are while he's walking (because he knows what they are) but it's not completely working yet.
has weaned himself. We had this whole plan (imagine that) to drop each feed and replace it with the right foods to provide fats, calcium, protein, etc and then he decided to start refusing to breastfeed before we could implement them. It took less than 2 weeks to go from 3 feeds a day to 0 which was much faster than I anticipated. So much for all our planning, but at least we have some food options for him as we move forward. I have to admit, I never expected him to wean himself since almost all the people I talked to about this said they had to pry their children away from it and distract them with other foods. Either way, I'm excited to finally be getting back to my old eating! My first meal was a Subway sub and it was incredible!
hates diaper change time. He didn't like it before, but now he'll just start rolling over as soon as I put him down on his back. Needless to say, diapers are hard to put on when your child is on his tummy or side. All the lotioning is also quite difficult while he is wiggling around. He also hates being in his highchair again. I know he's done eating when he starts wiping his tray off frantically and all the food gets thrown to the floor (we're still working on sign language). Then if I set the tray on the floor once he's down, he'll come by and eat food off of it (which means he wasn't really full, just sick of being strapped down). He really does eat his best "meals" one bite at a time as he runs around the house... not a good habit I know.
started eating sunbutter sandwiches and vanilla almond milk. Sunbutter is such an interesting food after growing up with peanut butter, but it has lots of good fats and protein for Blake. We also found some vanilla cookies that he likes that are diary and soy free. His favorite food right now is probably bananas and he gets so excited when we're at the store and get some in the cart.
can shake his head "no". He isn't trying to say no per se, he just likes to shake his head around. He started it in the car when we pulled out of the driveway or the neighborhood and the car wiggles back and forth so he just kept on shaking his head the same way. He does it now when he's running around and I guess it's a fun dizzy feeling because he'll get this huge grin on his face (as he runs into a wall or cabinet).
has been using all his electronic toys so much that they seem to have all needed their batteries changed over the past couple weeks. He always has to have noise in the background so all his toys have become his iPods.
has been babbling again but mostly before naptime and bedtime when I'm rocking him and need him to quiet down. He hasn't really started saying many words except he's working on "bye bye" and he'll say "hi" in response to "hello". He recognizes a ton of other objects but he calls them all "ck" and he is very adamant about it...
got a croupy cough that lasted about a week and a half. He had been sleeping in his crib for about a month when the cold hit and the only way he could sleep was upright, so we had him back with us for about a week. Luckily he's done pretty well getting back into his bed except he will never go to sleep the first time I say goodnight and leave the room. He makes me come back in and settle him and rub his back and then he'll go to sleep. I don't see why this has to be part of the routine but hopefully he'll grow out of it eventually.
runs away from you when you need him for something, like to refill his empty drink, or take something away from him that he's eating and not supposed to be, or to change his poopy diaper. Sometimes he'll even act like he's going to give it to you and then once you reach for it/him he runs away in the other direction... so devious.
has either grown a lot taller or has just gotten really good at being on his tiptoes. Either way, we thought we had the house baby proofed but he can now open all the drawers in the kitchen and pull stuff out of them so they had to be baby proofed too. Also, anything within 4 inches of the edge of the kitchen table is fair game now.

Pictures:

Doing a little redecorating of the floor mats. It is time for the colorful side to show.

Blake thought it was so cool that he could put his hand through the middle of the toy and touch my hand.

The Alphabet Train is one of his favorite toys these days.

I just love the look on Blake's face.

We got another full week out of the photo shoot balloon so I tied it to Blake's music box so he could carry it around with him.

Being outside is the greatest, there's always some pollen or leaves to pick at.

Stick, check.

Such a cutie! <3

He moves so fast now it's hard to get a shot in focus.

On Easter weekend we went out to Dunedin's first helicopter egg drop. According to the news, they expected around 1,000 people but an estimated 7,000 showed up to all go after 10,000 eggs that were supposed to be dropped out of a helicopter. I'm at least glad that Blake wasn't old enough to want to take part in the mass chaos because we surely would've been trampled before getting a single egg. If you look closely you can see the eggs being dropped from the helicopter.

Putting blocks into the Alphabet Train.

He loves the train, and pushes it around everywhere now.

It's fun to dance to the music when you put a block in it.

Yay!

Since Blake was still trying to get over his cough and we couldn't go to Gymboree, we came out to the park so he could walk around and I could have fun taking some pics. As always he found himself a stick to wave around and he trudged through the leaves.

The zoo was a good way to keep Blake distracted while on the changing table. It kept him occupied for diaper changes for a whole 3 days I think. Then it became just like any other toy and was thrown to the ground. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.