The Lamb Family: Hudson’s 15 month update (from December)

I applaud anyone who can keep up regularly with a blog…it is not an easy task! Well at least it’s not easy for me. :) Prior to Hudson being born it wasn’t that hard for me, but now that he’s a busy 16 month old (today!) and I’m working full time it is getting harder and harder. My real motivation to continue to do it is to be able to remember all of these special moments with Hudson. And to be able to print this into a book in the future and save it for him, and for us too. So, here I go with some catching up…

Here are his stats from his 15 month check up with Dr. S in December:

Weight: 22 lbs 4.5 oz (40th%)

Height: 30” (10th%)

Head: 47 3/4 cm (75th%)

Here are all kinds of updates on what Hudson has been doing, saying, etc. these past few months. Oh, and by the way…If you want to skip all of my “mom talk,” and go straight to the picture updates, just keep on scrolling….. :)

Over the past few months, Hudson has learned a lot, become pretty independent, and even has given us some glimpses of what temper tantrums might be like in the not so distant future.
He started walking at the end of October and he hasn’t slowed down since then! He was pretty wobbly and unstable for a few weeks but now he’s very confident, stable and fast with his walking abilities. I’m sure running will be next!
His vocabulary has continued to grow. Some of his words or sounds might only be recognizable by us, but I think that’s pretty normal. (Here are the words he was saying when I did his 12 months post: Mama, Dada, Dog (Daaa), Cat (Dat), Hi (Hi-eee), Bye Bye, Uh Oh, Owww, Whoa, Dance (Datz), Thank You (Daa-Duu), and Hudson (Ud-Sa)).
Some new words since then include: Doggie (Doddy), Kitty (Titty…i know, i know), Shu Shu (my mom), Cheese, Po Po (That is what we call Jon’s dad, but Hudson pronounces it: Toe Toe), Ju Ju (my sister), Stars (shars), Duckie (dudee), Kaiser (shi-zer), Wow, Ball (Dah), Ho-Ho-Ho (he’ll say that when you ask him what Santa says), Oooh (he would say that when we turned on the Christmas tree lights), Outside (uh-sie), Eye, Nose (ose), Hair (air)
He can make some animal sounds too. Barks like a dog, meows (owww), makes a monkey sound (ooh ooh), attempts to quack like a duck, and Roars like a dinosaur.
He has some bath toys shaped like instruments and we’ll have little jam sessions during bath time. So now he knows to tap the drum with his finger and say boom boom. He will also “play” the keyboard, guitar and saxophone and will make noises to go along with them. Then just last night Jon was reading him a book about shapes and on the rectangle page there was a picture of a keyboard. Hudson immediately started to tap the keys and he made his “keyboard sound.” To someone that does not have children, that may not seem like a big deal at all, but to us, it’s the little moments like that when we realize how amazing children are. He just soaks everything up that we say to him, do with him, read to him, show him, etc. We really are aware at the big responsibility that we hold as parents to teach him and expose him to all types of things.
So, expanding on my point above, he’s just really starting to “get” things these past few months. Examples would be knowing that shoes go on feet and hats go on heads. He’ll bring me multiple shoes in the morning while I’m getting ready for work and will lay them by my feet. Same thing with ball caps….he will bring one to me and attempt to put in on my head. I can also ask him to bring me certain things and he will. Examples would be a diaper and the wipes, or a book or a toy. He knows what all of those things are and understands when I’m asking for them.
He knows which toys belong to Kaiser and will go get them and take them to Kaiser to try and play with him.
We gave him a bbq grill for Christmas and he is starting to pretend to cook and use the tools and cook ware that came with it.
He can point to his eyes, ears, nose, mouth and hair and he can also point to those same things on other people. He even pointed to Kaiser’s eye the other day and said “eye.”
He LOVES, LOVES, LOVES to read. At 12 months he didn’t have the patience to sit still and listen to a whole story, but he enjoyed turning the pages and looking at pictures. Now he is more into sitting on our laps and listening to us read. He will also sit by himself and “read.” He’ll turn through the pages and jibber jabber out loud like he was reading. Just tonight while we were cooking dinner he brought me about 8 books to read to him. When we finished with one, he’d be off to find a new one.
He still really likes to dance. We don’t really watch TV with him, so when we get home after work, we’ll put the TV on the music channels and he’ll dance away. I can just pick up the remote to turn on the music and he knows what I’m about to do and he’ll start bouncing and dancing around.
In the mornings we’ve started to let him watch some Sesame Street or Curious George while he drinks his milk. He loves Elmo’s World. I can really understand how easy it is for little ones to get majorly addicted to TV. They just zone in on it. So, we are trying to limit his TV watching to less than 20 or so minutes a day right now. Because of that, I’m totally out of the loop with almost all TV shows.
He still has a bedtime of 8pm, although some nights it turns into 8:30. He wakes up most mornings at 7:30. We switched to one nap about a month ago and the suggestion of his care provider. She switched him first and then we did too. Now he will take about a 2 hour nap around 1 or 2pm.
Sometime he is a good eater and other times he’s not at all. I guess this is normal for his age. He still loves cheese and yogurt. When he’s in the mood for fruit, he likes mandarin oranges, strawberries, apples, pears, pineapples, watermelon and banana. The only veggie that he cares for right now are peas. A lifesaver lately have been the squeezable baby food pouches. I can’t let him give it to himself yet because he gets a kick out of squeezing the food everywhere, but with a little bit of monitoring, he’ll suck one down in no time. So when he’s not in a mood to eat I’ll give him a few of those and at least he’s getting something.
He has been showing interest over the past month in using utensils to eat, so we’ve been letting him try it out. Tonight he ate most of his mac ‘n’ cheese with his fork! He is a messy spoon user, but I guess it takes lots and lots of practice for these little tikes.
He has 10 teeth now with 2 more top molars just breaking through.
He is starting to majorly protest sitting in his high chair and his car seat. He arches his back and spits, blows rasberries, screams, etc. And boy, he is strong!
He can throw a little bit of a tantrum when you make him stop doing something he’s not want to stop doing. Main examples would be making him come inside after playing in the back yard, or getting him out of the bath tub when he’s been having fun playing in it.
He gives high fives and low fives and puckers up and makes the kissing noise. When we ask for a hug and say “awww,” he’ll lean in toward us and touch his head to our head.
He’s been more snuggly the past few months especially at night time and we both love it.
For the most part, he’s been very healthy, but is currently on antibiotic #2 trying to get rid of a double ear infection. Luckily I think this second, stronger antibiotic is taking care of it. And he’s a really good medicine taker which helps :)
He can make a mess of anything in about 10 seconds flat. Whether it is unloading my sock drawer, his toy basket, his book basket or the clean laundry, it doesn’t matter. He’ll destroy them all in seconds. Most days after we get him down to sleep it really looks like a tornado came through our house.