I’ve been wanting to write a post about El Guapo for weeks because he’s changing by the day and doing a ton of funny, cute things lately. I’m getting over a miserable flu, so today seems like the perfect time to finally do it. So, in no particular order, here’s what he’s up to lately:
1. He finally started saying “Mama” on Christmas Day. What a nice present!
2. He can sing the Star Wars theme song and does so often.
3. He loves cars. “Car!” is often the first word out of his mouth in the morning when he wakes up.
4. He knows how to make the appropriate sound effects when playing with his brothers’ toy light sabers.
5. He says Lego’s name, “Ee-la!”
6. He can’t say Duplo’s name yet.
7. He’s suddenly loving books. He doesn’t even seem to care which ones. He’ll grab a random book and demand, “Kook!” It’s so fun sharing a book with a little person.
8. He’s kinda tiny, but getting less so. As of his checkup last week, he’s finally passed the 21-pound mark, which average babies pass around their first birthday. He hit it at 18 months. People remark sometimes, “He doesn’t look big enough to be walking!” Um, he’s well over a year old. He’s plenty old enough to be walking, even if he’s tiny-sized.
9. El Guapo loves to go outside, so by extension, he loves shoes, socks, coats, and hats. Before the weather got bitterly cold and stayed that way for a month, he’d bring his socks and shoes to me when he wanted to go outside and then just sit patiently waiting for me to put them on. If I didn’t get the hint at that point, he’d bring me mine. Incidentally, “shoes,” “sockie,” “coke (coat),” and “hat,” are all among his first words.
10. He doesn’t like to drink from bottles or sippy cups. I used to be able to help him drink from an open cup, but he won’t even do that anymore. He sometimes drinks well from a straw, but sometimes not. Mostly, he eats his meal and then wants to nurse. I have been battling this since he was about 3 months old, and I really don’t know what to do about it. It’s hard having an older baby so dependent on me that I can’t leave him for more than a couple hours at a time.
11. At some point, he became really picky about food too. He’ll eat his weight in blueberries, cooked broccoli, and ramen noodles, but it’s anybody’s guess what else he’ll actually eat on any given day.
12. Speaking of broccoli, he calls it “trees.” Yeah, pretty cliche, but also cute.
13. El Guapo liked Christmas and gained a few Christmas-related words, which mostly surfaced after Christmas was over. But now all the Christmas ideas are getting jumbled. For instance, he says “Ho ho ho” to mean Santa, but I’ve heard him say “ho ho ho” while pointing at a Christmas tree. And now he sometimes says “ho ho ho” when pointing to regular trees too. I wish I could get his little “ho ho HO-oh!” on camera so you could hear it.
14. We’re working on improving his terrible sleep habits. He’s up every 2. 5 hours or so, which is worse than he was doing at 2 months of age. I had made some good progress one night, and then he got sick. Once he and I are feeling better, though, we’re getting back at it. It’s time to get this baby sleeping better.
15. He still loves dogs and cats.
16. The boys have trained him to make raspberry sounds while poking at either his or their belly button.
He’s learning new words all the time and figuring out what to do to act more like a little child and less like a baby. We love our little Bub.
