18 Months Old

Camden turned 18 months on Friday! We consider ourselves so blessed for such a healthy, fun little son! Just for fun I decided to take an updated dog picture to compare how much our sweet boy has grown. Here is a look at what Cam’s up to at 1 ½ years…

• Not much has changed in the size department! Camden is 35 inches (95+%) and 28 pounds, 8 ounces (85%). His weight is actually really deceiving since he is so tall; people usually call him skinny!
• Who really knows what size Camden wears these days? With the crazy weather we are experiencing these days, Camden wears 18 month summer clothes (because I refuse to buy more!) and 24 month or 2T fall clothes. He wears size 7 or 7.5 in shoes and is in size 5 diapers.
• We continue to be blessed with great night sleep; he sleeps from about 8:00 pm to 7:30-8:00 am. We transitioned to one nap a little over a month ago and it has been pretty rough. Mama stresses about how much sleep he is getting, but our doctor assures us he is in the normal range. He goes down at 1:00 pm for his nap and sleeps anywhere between 1.5 to 3 hours, but usually more on the 1.5 hour end. The main concern for mama is that he often wakes up fussy where as he used to always wake up happy. Ok, I will stop or this will turn in to a whole blog about my nap issues! Camden has started to become really opinionated about wanting to be covered with his blanket when he goes down to sleep. He also never resists sleep and usually asks to go “night night.”
• Camden tends to be a finicky eater and we sometimes have to work hard to get him to eat. Other days we can’t seem to feed him enough! Sounds like typical toddler behavior, huh? Some of his favorite foods are: whole grain waffles, frozen strawberries, cheese, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, peanut butter, and the occasionally ice cream. He is not a fun of veggies at the moment but loves most any fruit! He still drinks only milk and water.
• We usually get told that Camden looks just like Daddy, but with Mama’s hair and eye color. We love that he is a blend of us both! He now has 16 teeth and we are so thankful that we are done with the I teeth…they caused us a lot of pain!
• Camden is a big talker! It is amazing to see how much his vocabulary is growing, even though a lot of his words we can only understand. He just started putting together a couple of words like “bye bye, Dada” or “Mama shoes.” We love that he can usually communicate what he needs or wants, which cuts down on a lot of frustrations. We have worked really hard at “please” and “thank you” in the past few months and he initiates using them about half of the time. Daddy and Mama continue to be amazed at how much he understands; makes for very happy parents!
• Camden is still super active! He runs, climbs, dances, and jumps (not very high). I still frequently get told what a busy boy I have…which makes me laugh, like I hadn’t noticed! He is also super tough; with all his activity comes lots of falls, but he rarely cries and does the cutest “shake it off” after he crashes.
• We stay very busy during the weeks! Our days are usually filled with lunch dates, music class, volunteering at church, library story time, and playgroups. Camden loves seeing his friends and has started recognizing them; he loves to give his friends hugs…well let’s be honest, he also loves to hug complete strangers. This boy is not shy!
• Time-outs have become a really effective way to deter behavior or help him calm down when he is worked up. He does great at staying there until we talk about his sad choices and he says “sor” for sorry. His increased communication has help to cut down on fits too!
• Some of his favorite things right now are: any kind of balls (he loves “botball”, “base”, “goccer”, “gof”), trucks, sidewalk chalk, play dough, music, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Donut Man, animal sounds, kicking footballs, giving hugs, tickling other people, washing his hands, reading books, shoes, light switches, blowing kisses
• It has been really fun to watch him start pretending! He likes to feed or give drinks to his stuffed animals, his parents, and people on TV or in books. Two of his favorite things are pretending to drive our cars (don’t worry they are turned off and parked safely in the garage) and talking on the phone…it is always Dada on the phone! I also went to pick him up at church last week and watched him at the play kitchen. He washed his hands and dried them; then he put food in the microwave, pressed the buttons, and then took it out. So fun to see his imagination taking off!

What a fun 18 months it has been! We love our precious Camden Lloyd so much and cannot imagine life without him.