Our precious little big guy is 20 months old now.
This picture almost takes my breath away...because he just looks so big.
But one minute he seems so big and grown up now...and the next it is obvious that he is still my little baby.
But he is a big little guy who definitely is full of personality...
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| He loves to cut his eyes and loooooook at you out of the corner of his eye...and then laugh hilariously! |
...and humor.
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| Sucking his thumb AND laughing his head off...he is so good at multi-tasking. |
Gabriel's favorite thing lately is....outside. Doing anything...outside. As soon as he is done eating...he wants outside. Now.
He loves to roll and throw balls...and he is actually very good at it.
More "loves":
He still loves headbands. And hats. And glasses.
He loves baths. He will sign "bath" (rubbing hands all over chest/belly) and get excited. We try to give him a detox bath everyday (for GAPS protocol), so it is a very good and helpful thing that he actually loves baths. The older children take turns taking a bath with him...and a good time is had by all!
He loves music. It has always calmed him, but now he gets excited and starts trying to sing along and/or dance. And now that he can stand and walk around, if music starts he may just bend his knees, stick out his bum and start boogy-ing! A few days ago we were in the van - he was buckled in his seat - and he heard loud music in another vehicle, and he started waving his arms around.
He loves "This Little Light of Mine." We sing lots of different songs with him, but he has decided that this is his current favorite. A few days ago, when we E and I sang it with him, and then tried to start singing any other song he would say, quite authoritatively, "Nyooo....NYOO!". And would then smile sweetly when we began singing "This Little Light of Mine" again.
He loves butternut squash. He usually has some everyday...with a little tallow that I rendered (from the 1/2 a grassfed cow we bought) and salt. I think it is...ok... but he thinks it is Yummy!
He loves playing with the remote for the Silver Bullet. Why? Because of that pretty red button right in the middle. The one that makes the alarm go off. Loudly. Thankfully, he has also figured out that if he pushes the red button again, it will make the alarm stop. And he is very obliging to do that when I ask him to.
He loves my phone. Jas surprised me with a new phone recently (yay, I don't have a "dumb" phone anymore!), so I've been letting G play with it again since he can't slide to unlock it, and even if he could, I have a 4-digit code that you then have to enter to finish unlocking it. BUT, when we were shopping at Wally a few days ago, I looked down and even with all the safeguards in place, G had somehow managed to take a picture of the lady down the aisle from us.
He loves walking. YES, he is finally walking!
He is actually much more stable than he appears in the above picture. He still has his share of stumbles and plops, though. But it is so adorable to watch him toddling all over the house. He goes round and round through our school room and family room. Over and over again. But he really likes it when one of us will jump in and start "chasing" him and/or playing peek-a-boo around the doorways.
This boy loves. his. sleep. My mom is continually amazed with how much he sleeps. But I have another one (our precious Libeth) who has always loved. her. sleep...so it doesn't shock me too much. He's got lots of growing and learning to accomplish and assimilate...you need to rest up for that.
His normal daily schedule looks like this now:
- Wake up usually between 9 and 10 a.m. Eat breakfast.
- Lay back down for 1 to 2 hour nap.
- Wake up and eat lunch.
- Afternoon nap that last 2-3 hours.
- After-nap snack. Lately this has been about 16 oz of freshly made juice...normally carrots, beets, apple, celery, cabbage. He. Loves. This. Juice! Now that I give him his own whole, big glass, he doesn't cry when he's done anymore. He wakes up from nap every afternoon, begging pitifully, "Duice.....duice..."
- Eat supper with us (ummmmm....this could be anywhere between 5:30 and 7:30, depending on what we have going on that evening. Thankfully, G is flexible)
- Bedtime at 8 p.m. (or 9 p.m. if mama is in charge of bedtime because Daddy is not here for some reason, like last night)
The reason that we have sometimes been eating supper at 7:30 lately is that the four older children are doing soccer right now. Gabriel loves being out there...but he'd really much rather be out on the field playing with the balls himself. And he lets everyone know. (So sometimes he gets to watch from up on daddy's shoulders right on the sidelines...and he is happier for a while.)
G is talking up a storm. It surprises me - in our loud household - how verbal he is. I would have been less surprised if he was just quiet all the time...listening to all the ruckus around him. But he "talks" alot. In some foreign language.
He can say quite a few words that we do understand, though: mama, daddy, bye, hey, please ("pease"), more, apple, amen....
He will try to imitate anything you try to get him to.
He is still using some signs...even ones that he now knows the words for. He just signs and speaks simultaneously. He makes up his own version of signs, though...like "water" (instead of a "W" tapping the chin, he just uses his index finger and it looks like he is saying "hush") and apple (instead of a fist rotating at the cheek, he cups his hand around his ear and bends his ear forward...thankfully he very clearly says "apple" at the same time, otherwise this may be completely lost on us).
When Gabriel turned 20 months and 5 days old, he hit the age that Noah was on the day we first met him.
G weighs a couple pounds more than Noah did at that point (25 vs. 23), but I think Noah must have been taller, because G seems much stockier...and has a much bigger belly.
On the one hand...it is neat for Noah to get an idea how little he was when we brought him home. On the other hand (I can be such a Debby Downer), it makes me so sad to think back on everything we've been through with G and know that we missed Noah's first 20 months. (Although Noah was still on a bottle, and wasn't crawling or walking when we met him, so we got to go through those milestones with him.)
This blue and white checked outfit that G is wearing in all these pictures, btw...first belonged to my oldest son. Noah loves that!
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