The Harvey Family: May {2015}

This month Brett:

pushes me away when I try to console him if he gets hurt. He is not a snuggler for the most part so I'm lucky that Blake is and I can get my snuggle fix from him. Brett is fussy when he gets hurt but doesn't want me to hug him or kiss his boo-boo. Hopefully he'll grow into it eventually?
eats solids for 3 meals a day. Now that he eats finger foods, he WILL NOT allow me to feed him anything on a spoon. If I try (which I have a couple times) he swats the spoon rather violently and food goes flying. He loves being in control of feeding himself and he does really well with it. He is really coordinated and has picked it up very quickly. He has even started eating with a fork and within a day or 2 he successfully figured out how to use it. He was so excited to be using a fork like his big brother and he'll shovel food into his mouth faster than he can chew it. He loves carrying around the fork and spoon from the play kitchen and brought it to the table with him one day and tried using it but the spikes on the fork were just way too dull so we moved onto the real one. His favorite foods right now are avocado, apples, peas, pop chips, pineapple, and sometimes rice noodles. He will eat puree in a pouch so his favorites are prunes, apple/peach, and apple/carrot.
has started biting. It seems to be mostly in the evening when he is tired and ready for bed that he starts it. He'll act like he's snuggling into me and then all of a sudden he'll bite down. He thinks it's hilarious to get such a good reaction out of me. I've tried biting him back, telling him no in a stern voice, and pretend crying to see if he'll respond and the only thing that makes him upset (and not laugh) is for me to get up on the couch where I'm out of his reach. He hates it when I'm out of reach.
wants to be just like Blake: wear his hat, eat what he eats, play with race cars like he does, etc. He watches Blake like a hawk and imitates everything he does. He picks up on things pretty quickly and wants to play with Blake and do it just like him, but most of the time Blake is worried he'll mess things up and just yells NOOOO at him.
has a big appetite. Since moving from puree to finger foods, he's been eating a lot more. It seems like he could fill up two 4 oz jars with what he eats at a meal. When he's done eating he starts dropping food on the floor or hands it to me. He would much rather fill up on avocado or fruit than eat meat or protein right now.
started throwing temper tantrums. Has already started the whine-cry... my favorite. If he doesn't get what he wants his fussing and screaming goes supersonic.
goes up and down the steps at MyGym. He picks up things so quickly and now he can go up and down 3 steps while holding onto the handrail. It took him 2 visits to master it and he is so proud of himself. He actually did another thing that surprised me; after climbing up onto the big trampoline (without assistance) he got off by turning around and lowering one foot at a time instead of just trying to crawl off head first. Thank goodness, since it isn't easy to keep track of 2 children who are running around like crazy.
loves spoons or spatulas or anything that extends his reach. He'll hold them in his hand and pretend he's stirring things, or try and carry around cups or shoes on the end of them, or sometimes he just carries them around by themselves for a while.
started making a bwah sound and says night night (with a cute little limp wrist wave). He also seems to be calling his drink "ink". His version of "yes" is getting more clear as well. He really makes all kinds of different sounds so hopefully he'll start picking up more words soon. We've been working on baby sign language but the only thing he will do (if I pry it out of him) is all done. He'll shake both hands up high, and even this is easy to mistake for "I have food stuck on my hands and I want it off".
can bounce on the trampoline a little. He's gotten really steady on his feet and will bounce his knees with his arms up but obviously doesn't get any air just yet. Everyone comments how coordinated he is for his age.
outgrew 12 month shirts. He's wearing mostly 18 month tops right now because the 24 month are still really big. He still has a pretty thin waist and short legs so he's still in 6-9 month pants for the most part. I also put his first mark on the growth chart and he measured 28" tall so maybe he's growing.
slept 9.5 hours the night before his birthday and woke up at 5:30am! He's been sleeping longer stretches more often, thank goodness! This past week he slept 8:30pm-6:30am with one wakeup at 9:30pm, and then went 8:30pm-7am with a wakeup at 2am. It's inconsistent for the times but I'm so excited to be moving in the right direction!!!
will climb anything. He is such a good climber which is a new thing for us. He'll use anything he can get his feet on and throw up a knee. It doesn't always have to be stable but he'll certainly try.
has had terrible separation anxiety. One of my projects this month has been to pressure wash our driveway and sidewalk and it has been a little here and a little there since it is taking forever, but each evening that I've gone out there he stays inside with Chris and cries his little eyes out since he can't see me. I'm not sure if he was fighting a sickness or teething but he was so much better once he was in my arms again.
stands on the scale so I can weigh him. He watches Blake and me weigh ourselves on the bathroom scale by holding one hand on the wall (since it sits right next to the wall). Next thing I knew, he was doing the exact same thing and was up on the scale (he weighs 21.6 lb most days).

This month Blake:

calls Chris, Dad-o. I guess there must be a tv show that the father is called Daddy-o so that's what Blake calls Chris. It's pretty cute.
likes feeding Brett. Now that they are eating some of the same foods, Blake loves to give Brett small pieces of what he's eating (usually Pop Chips) and they both laugh. He also will feed Brett his drink and hold it for him.
wants whatever Brett is playing with but doesn't want to play with him.
still loves his race cars. He calls them his collection and his favorite thing to do with them is to sort them by color (he makes me or Chris do it while he supervises mostly) or put them down a ramp that I have to make for him. I like making him ramps out of cardboard but sometimes he likes to line up a bunch of books and have the cars drive down them like a long drag strip.
says "you know what?" all the time. Apparently I must say this to him because he is hooked and says it all the time before actually telling you what is on his mind (and there's almost always something on his mind, haha).
has become very sensitive to smell. If something doesn't smell good to him he'll fuss and have to leave the room or he wants to get out of the car if he smells something out of the ordinary. Poor boy must've gotten that from me... heightened sense of smell isn't a good one to have for the most part.
still says the funniest things, (in reference to the slide at the playground) "I tested it out and the temperature feels swell".
took a bath with Brett for the first time. Brett was getting a little too reckless in the baby tub so I had to do something different. Since he would stand up and reach for everything I figured it made sense to just put him in the big tub with a non-skid mat. Then once we had put in that much water, it just made sense to get Blake bathed at the same time. They both really seem to love all the water and space for toys. I guess the most difficult thing during bath time is trying to get them both to sit down and not dumb water directly on the bathroom floor.
loves the show Blaze and the Monster Machines. It is a really cute show on Nick Jr. where they teach about science, technology, and math. Needless to say, Blake is obsessed with it and he likes to use the new words he learns (solution, hydraulics, etc.).
says "I love you so much" at random times throughout the day. We can tell he's having a good day and is feeling good when he'll randomly say this during the day. He tells each individual person he loves them and then he says that he loves himself too. Sometimes he'll just say that he loves everybody. He is such a sweet and sensitive boy.
eats his sandwich in strips. We've moved on from cutting the sunbutter/jelly sandwich into 4 squares. If we're at home he asks for them in 4 long skinny strips instead. Yes it increases the chances of the sandwich drooping and breaking off onto the floor but it has made it more exciting. We still do squares if we're going to eat on the go (in the car).
went poop on the potty for the first time! He was complaining about how there wasn't enough room in his diaper when he'd go in it so I told him that it would be much nicer to go on the potty. Well, after a few weeks of this logic sinking in, he decided it was time and he did great! He ended up going on the big potty with the little potty topper with handles and it was perfect. I really thought it was going to be another year before this would happen. I'm so proud of him!!
is still working on his potty training. I had no idea potty training would last this long and be this exhausting for the parent. He does a really good job of knowing when he needs to go, getting the potty ready, pulling down his pants and going, but then he can't get his pants back up. So he ends up waddling back into the living room with pants around his ankles and it's a battle to get them all pulled back up before Brett takes a bee-line straight for Blake's private parts... such a curious little boy.
started reading! He's been loving the Leap Frog learning videos Aunt Lindsay and Uncle Travis sent for Christmas and one of them teaches letter sounds. He has all the letter sounds memorized (just short vowel sounds) and he can sometimes sound out 3 letter words. We practice before bed at night and even in the bath with the foam letters on the tub wall. He's doing great and is so excited (and sometimes surprised) when he reads it correctly.

Pics:

His first time walking around outside was really scary because he can walk really fast inside on the flat floor and he thought he could do the same outside on the slanted (sandpapery) concrete.

Blake trying his first popsicle. He gave it a good lick or two and maybe a small bite before calling it quits. We made them with apple juice and he was so excited to try them. Oh well.

Brett's first time seeing sand. We went to the Dunedin Causeway one evening since it is much closer than the beach. He did really well walking around in it but it was tough to keep all the shells and trash that he found out of his mouth.

Getting used to the uneven sand.

I don't know what to put in my mouth first!

I guess I'll try and scoop it like Blake is doing.

Double hat.

Already slam dunking. He will put anything in the hoop including tools, clothes, and even dirty diapers before I can throw them in the trash.

The cute flowers that the kids made at preschool for Mother's Day.

Working hard at the tool bench. He can't screw in the screws yet, but he can place them in all the holes.

It is so cute how he wears this construction hat backward. He looks like the fisherman from Gorton's foods.

His new thing is sliding around on his belly in the kitchen. Maybe because he throws food off his high chair and he comes back and finds it once he gets down... hey, I try to keep it clean but it's a losing battle.