The Harvey Family: Blake

Blake:

has gone back to the high pitched screeching at random times. He did it while we were grocery shopping and I had to be the totally embarrassed mom who couldn't get her child to stop screaming. It is so piercing it makes me ears ring afterward.
backs into you to sit down in your lap when he wants you to read him a book. Unfortunately he also walks backward sometimes when no one is there and trips over things and falls down. He has trouble looking where he's going when he's walking forward so going backward is that much worse.
wants to climb constantly. He'll throw a leg up on anything to see if there is a chance he can climb on top of it. He's gotten much better at climbing onto the love seat without standing on anything. He also has gotten really good at climbing everything at Gymboree and even a lot of the steps on the playground. We went to the Dunedin Community Center playground and he climbed up all the steps and went down the slide without needing any help. We're still working on making sure he gets his feet in front of him before going down the slide because I'm sure he'd go hands first if he were in charge.
has become quite a picky little eater. Some days he doesn't eat much of anything and just fills himself up on milk. The things I can mostly count on him eating are bananas, chicken, and green beans. He also is obsessed with these little rice cake Pop Snacks by Earths Best. He lets me know he's tired of a certain food by taking it in his hand and squeezing it until it oozes out of his fist. This mainly happens with bananas and avocados. If he doesn't want any other food I can pretty much count on him eating a good handful of the Pop Snacks.
wants to throw everything. I've become that Mom who cowers everytime her son comes near her with a toy/book/drink/food/etc. We were at Gymboree and a little girl came over to show me a toy that she had and I saw her out of the corner of my eye and flinched and shielded my head and realized everyone was giving me a funny look. (Sidenote: Gymboree is closing in a few weeks and we're really sad.) But he seriously throws everything and we're quite scared for the tv.
has littered me with bruises (reference last bullet point).
has figured out that his finger fits in his nose. What is it with kids digging in their nose and then sticking their finger directly into their mouth?
still takes his morning nap in the carseat. We take a trip out of the house every morning (there is no way I could make it all day in the house with Blake and all his energy) and he typically falls asleep for a 30 min nap. I'm very grateful that he is so good in his carseat! He has been taking naps at 10am and 2pm for the most part recently and they keep him in a good mood. He only gets 1 nap on Tuesdays because Gymboree is during the morning nap time and he ends up falling asleep on the way home and it becomes an early long nap. He normally has to be awake for 3 hours before going down for a second nap and that just pushes the time too late.
has been doing much better with going to sleep at night. We still do our reading and songs routine and then I put him in his crib fully awake and rub his back for a minute and leave the room. He puts himself to sleep now which is so nice (I really hope I don't jinx it)... I'm glad to be past our previous routine of me having to go back in there almost immediately. He's even been sleeping through the night more regularly too and waking up closer to 7am, woohoo!
has apparently taken up yoga. He loves balancing on his hands and feet in the downward dog pose and sometimes balances on his head so he can reach his hands through his legs. Silly boy.
says daddy (da-DI), eieiei (when Old MacDonald is on), and banana (ba-ba).
can tell you what a sheep, bird, and mouse say.
knows his head, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, hair, belly button, fingers, toes, and knees.
signs "all done". It reminds of the movie Team America when they are in the back of the car and do their signal with both hands waving up in the air.
went to a restaurant for the first time when we met up with my friend Jordan a couple days before her wedding. He did pretty well as long as he was eating and had his hands busy. It was all so new and exciting for him and he just wanted to touch everything and all of our food as well. The next day we went out to dinner at Olive Garden with Mimi and Grandpa Joel and he did pretty well again. He got to play with crayons which turned into toys that you bang on the table. It gave us an idea of how the plane ride up to visit my family is going to be next month. One hour at a restaurant was SO LONG. I really hope he sleeps on the plane...
imitates us by talking on the phone. It is so cute! He says hi, yea, other random noises, and bye. I didn't think we talked on the phone that much with him around but I guess it was enough for him to figure out to do it on his own.

Pics:

The biggest stick he could find.

Playing with Kalia one last time before they moved away to Dallas. She clearly was more interested in her doll than playing with Blake, haha.

Always dragging around his "sword".

Story time with Daddy. When Blake whines and throws a book at you, you know he wants you to read it to him.

We went to "Touch A Truck" where they had tons of different trucks for the kids to climb into... everything from fire trucks to refrigeration trucks and city buses. We got to see a helicopter up close too, but I think it'll be a couple years before Blake will really appreciate this event. It got so loud with all the kids honking the horns of all the trucks at the event so we had to leave.