Sweet Sixteen

"Sixteen candles"....That's the tune we're humming around here lately! Our little guy turned a sweet sixteen months old last Friday. Your probably thinking, "When will they stop celebrating month to month?" It's important to me to document every facet of Miller's growing personality so I don't forget little priceless memories along the way.

Miller is mastering spoon usage. He picks it out of my hand and is showing near perfect aim into his mouth. We're going to move on to forks next. I serve him alot of finger foods so my goal is to give him the opportunity to use plastic ware more.

Miller's new favorite passtime is looking at books. He'll sit uninterrupted for 10-15 minutes turning the pages of small cardboard books while talking jibberish to himself. Occasionally, he'll spot a familiar object on the page and point to identify the picture. He LOVES to "read". His little vocabulary is growing daily. Miller spoke his first phrase last week, "See the car?" We kept pointing out the cars, firetrucks, and airplanes in a Richard Scarey book and then he would mimic pointing and uttering the same phrase. He now loves to comb the house on a car hunt to voice his new phrase proudly.

Funny Story:Miller spotted his first airplane in the sky and to our surprise, he pointed up and said," See the car?" I guess anything that moves and has a motor sound is a car to him! His other new phrase is "more crackee" signaling me to give him another graham cracker after his lunch. It's too cute to hear him say more. It sounds like...." mmmm - or". I've been trying to use words he already knows and then model putting them together.

When Miller wants me to help him play with something, he'll open my hand and place the toy or book inside it, then he closes my hand around it! He knows how to get my attention one way or another. It can be somewhat of a frustrating stage because he's so aware of what he wants but doesn't have enough words to communicate yet. Sometimes he'll get so frustrated that he'll just shrill. He's does wonderfully during independent playtime. I love to watch him entertain himself while talking jibber jabber.

His newfound passion is blowing bubbles. He stands at the back door looks outside and says, "Bubbee", "bubbee". We spend a little time each day enjoying bubbles on the back patio and Miller thinks he's in heaven. He loves to pop the bubbles that stick around on the ground using his pointer finger. I found gallon bubbles at Wal-Mart with a long wand to make bubble blowing a little easier on my cheeks.

Sixteen months is SO sweet already. We're excited for what this month has in store for our growing boy!