The Harvey Family: Blake

Blake:

has been starting to talk in 2 and 3 word sentences. More milk, magnet no no (pointing to the trashcan - since he knows he's not allowed to throw them in there), I did it, are a few I can think of off the top of my head. He says "more" with a lot of things and it's nice to finally have him able to communicate what he wants (unless he's teething and he doesn't know what he wants).
doesn't really use sign language anymore now that he can say the words well enough. I had heard some people were concerned that if their kids learned sign language that their speech development would be delayed but it doesn't seem to have been the case with Blake, thank goodness. Looking back I think teaching him a few signs made things much better for the few months before he started talking.
started learning his numbers and he recognizes 2, 3, 7, and 8 most of the time. If it's a number he doesn't know, he'll call it 2. When he counts it's two, two, two, etc. We're working on counting to five and he did it one time counting the fingers on Chris's hand.
in addition to saying "hand" and waiting for you to grab it, he'll then say "pull" and pull you wherever he wants you to go. It's getting pretty ridiculous that he wants to pull you pretty much everywhere he goes. He is still a "togetherness" child and rarely tolerates being alone or playing by himself.
still loves containers and putting things in them and dumping them into other containers.
can't sleep without his teddy. We're really excited that Blake finally has a comfort object that helps him sleep through the night. Mommy and Daddy were his comfort objects for too long and he had a lot of trouble sleeping through the night for a long time. Now he has to have his teddy as part of his bedtime routine and he either lies down on top of his teddy or drapes him across his chest before he can fall asleep.
got a pillow in his crib. He sleeps so well in our bed on our pillows that we decided it was time to try a pillow in his bed to see if he liked it and would sleep better. (I even gave him my favorite pillow that he also loves.) It seems to be hit or miss as to whether or not it helps him sleep better. Some nights he'll stay on it most of the night and others, he won't touch the thing.
is getting into stickers. He started playing with a Chiquita sticker on a banana at the store and now he tries to stick any small piece of paper on himself to see if it'll stick. He's slowly realizing how stickers work and that only certain items are sticky.
can stack 7 peek a blocks if we give them to him one at a time. If he has a pile next to him he won't do it on his own. He'd rather put a couple on top of each other, just high enough so he can swing his arm and send them all flying.
loves his small fort that we made in the living room out of an old gate and blanket. We tried making a bigger fort so Chris and I could both fit under it, but Blake didn't even want to go in. Apparently he likes the tiny fort just big enough for himself and his teddy, as well as a couple toys and maybe my legs or head but not my whole body.
says uh oh to the tv when something bad happens. He says uh oh to a lot of things. I think he's figured out that when he says it that I'll ask him what's wrong so he knows that is a good way to get my attention. But he knows to say it if someone on tv falls down or drops something or does something worthy of saying uh oh.
understands break it and fix it. He has this little diving board for his water table that is 2 pieces that fit together and he knows how to take the pieces apart. He likes to rip them apart and say "break it" and then hand it to me and say "fix it"... and repeat.
knows how to lock his bedroom door after he closes it. He's always been big on closing doors but now he's tall enough and has figured out how to lock the bedroom doors in our house. After he closes the door, he'll spin the lock so quickly that there's no stopping him. He'll rarely close a door if he's the only one on that side of it, but he's done it once but luckily they're easy to unlock from the outside.
went on a train ride at the Largo Central Railroad and got his first stamp on his hand. We waited in line for 45 minutes for the free train ride and Blake was quite fussy because he hadn't napped so I was afraid we'd get to the front and he wouldn't want to ride, but luckily he became more interested as we got to the front of the line and had a great time riding the train around. They stamped our hands once we got to the last part of the line and Blake was so confused with why he couldn't take the stamp off his hand like a sticker.
joined MyGym finally as a replacement for Gymboree that he loved. After 2 weeks of going to MyGym, I think he likes it better than Gymboree. However, he is older now and I think there are a lot of new exciting things for older kids there so that may be why. He's gotten to experience a trampoline, a gymnastics bar, having separation time (from Mommy) with the teachers, and a few other unique activities that they have set up during class.
cut his last 1 year molar and was quite grumpy for the few days beforehand. Poor boy. =(