the blackburns: 18 months

Yesterday my baby officially turned 18 months. I can't really call him a baby anymore since he's into the full-blown toddler stage, but sometimes I look at him and I still see this:

There are so many days where I feel guilty that I'm not enjoying this stage enough and hours seem to drag on so slowly but then I look back and see that time is flying. We have another little baby coming in a few weeks and I'm still trying to process that this little man isn't a baby anymore. He's my little dude. My buddy.

I'm probably going to miss all of this one on one time and suddenly it seems like there aren't enough hours before our life changes yet again, forever.

Since becoming pregnant, I feel like I've failed miserably as a mom. The word "no," comes out of my mouth more often, play time becomes less and less because I haven't felt well or have no energy, my patience runs lower, time outs become more frequent, but Patrick still loves so unconditionally. If only I could remind myself, more often, to learn from my little example that I get to watch everyday. He's teaching me how to become a better person and I'll forever be grateful to this little man.

This little man who is now in nursery! On January 6th, we took Patrick to nursery for the first time. We decided to go a couple weeks early so that Jon and I could hang out with him to see how he did and he loved it. This Sunday he gets to go all on his own. I don't think we'll have a problem with the whole separation thing, he already loves all of the leaders and he thinks it's great that they actually have a full kitchen set he can play with. Plus he gets raisins. He totally cried when we left nursery last week.

Patrick also has quite the vocabulary now. Words he says: mama, dada, baba/baduh(bottle), yes/yeah, pwease, why, bye, hi, mine, nye(he says that for light...the L sound hasn't been figured out yet), ball, hat, eye, mow(mouth), no(nose), shoes, socks, ow, baby, poo poo, apple, more, done, gamma(honestly the word grandma changes between two or three different words. Still working on that one), push, etc. I really can't remember them all but it seems like his vocabulary has increased a lot in this past month. Just in the last week, he's started copying a lot more words from us, but he doesn't say them on a regular basis. A couple weeks ago, he started putting two words together and says, "bye dad!" "all done," "one more," and "Ya! Gamma!" when we pulled up to Grandma's house. We try to do animal sounds but right now he's really only interested in what sounds dogs and cats make. He's slightly obsessed with cats and will say meow over and over again.

Patrick's shyness is starting to come out more and more. If he's around family, he will talk constantly, give kisses and hugs, constantly tells "jokes" and laugh at himself, folds him arms for prayer every time we sit down for food or put him to bed(which is really great because it reminds Jon and I to do it all the time), but when we're around other people, he tends to get really quiet and likes to hang onto us more. He didn't have much of a chance with Jon and I both being shy but hopefully nursery will help him get used to being around more kids and grownups.

Favorite toys: pots, pans, cooking utensils, brooms and vacuums. He'll play with his other toys if I'm playing with him but if I want him to play by himself for a little bit, kitchen supplies are the popular toy choice. That's what he's playing with right now, actually. He's very particular what goes in his pots and pans and then he likes to pretend like he's cooking. This phase has actually gone on for a couple months and doesn't seem to be dying down. If anything, he gets more and more interested in what I'm cooking and with wanting to play with the things I use, so I'm looking forward to the day when I can actually let him help me with the real food. Like, becoming my permanent cheese grater. ;)

This is my view right now. I forgot to mention a new favorite activity is taking all of the couch cushions off and using the couch as his table. Apparently VHS is the food choice for the day.