Happy Birthday Tigger!

Today Tigger is 18 months old! It seems just yesterday he turned one and now he's halfway to his second birthday!

Yesterday, Tigger went to the doctor for his 18 month checkup. He remains tall and skinny:

• 23 1/2 pounds (10-25% percentile)
• 33 1/2 inches tall (75-90% percentile)
• 18 1/2 inches head circumference

Tigger is on track for all developmental milestones, except speech. At 18 months, babies should speak 7-10 words; Tigger knows 4 (mama, dada, breakfast and thank you). We're not sure if this is because of all his ear infections or because one of his daycare teachers speaks spanish to him. The doctor is not worried; she said let's watch him for a couple of months and reevaluate if he hasn't learned any more words.

She also asked if he knew body parts. He knows belly and nose, but Papa Tigger decided to quiz Tigger on body parts last night. It was an exciting Friday night in our house!

Here's Tigger pointing out Papa Tigger's belly:

And his own nose:

And playing with his new book from G-Ma and G-Pa T. Then it was bedtime!

Tilly Hides Tigger

A quick video Papa Tigger shot this evening....

The difficult napper

Now that Tigger knows how to get out of bed, nap time is more difficult. Here he is last weekend, asleep on the floor because he was playing instead of sleeping in bed. You can't see it, but he fell asleep on top of
a book.




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Raising a Good Eater

I just finished a good book called My Two Year Old Eats Octopus. It was an interesting look at how to raise children who love to eat everything. The book isn't just about keeping your child from turning into a picky eater, but rather about raising a child who appreciates food. The author's key goals are for parents to raise children who 1) have a broad palate and 2) respect and enjoy food. To do this, she offers many tips including:

• Avoid children's menus at restaurants. This one was my favorite. Why do restaurants think all children want to eat is chicken fingers, mac-n-cheese and hot dogs?
• Take your children to restaurants early and often. They need the practice. But leave the electronic gadgets at home - kids participate in the meal.
• Have dinner together as often as possible.
• Do not, repeat do not, fix your children separate meals. They eat what everyone else in the family eats; you are not a short order cook!

The advice pretty much falls in line with what Papa Tigger and I have been doing. Since Tigger has progressed to 'regular' food, we've started taking him to restaurants again. We recently took him to a nice Italian restaurant in our neighborhood where they were to happy to have us (we went early before the crowds, like 6 pm), though they informed us that they didn't have high chairs. Tigger sat next to Papa Tigger in a regular chair, perfectly happy to devour his gnocchi. He was a doll! And last month, we brought home leftovers from Papa Tigger's birthday dinner. We all shared the leftovers the following night and Tigger gobbled up the goat (yes, I said goat).

I'm not going to kid myself that we'll never have trouble with Tigger and food or that he'll never have a meltdown in a restaurant. I think all toddlers exert their independence using food. But we'll stick with our strategy and hopefully raise a kid who truly does enjoy a variety of cuisines. So far so good!

Tilly Checkup

Yesterday, Papa Tigger and I went to the doctor for our monthly checkup. Everything looks great; the important measurements are:

• Weight - 2 lb 11 oz
• Heart rate - 144 bpm
  
• AFI (the all important fluid level that needs to stay above 5) - 17

We didn't get any pictures of her, but we'll start weekly doctor visits in two weeks (to monitor things), so we'll have plenty of opportunities to see her again!

p.s. Papa Tigger and I have been working hard to get Tigger and Tilly's rooms ready (he gets a new room and she goes in Tigger's old room), so we'll have pictures soon of the finished product!

Snow Play

As I sit in the middle of Snowmageddon, I'm reminded to post pics and video from last weekend. We actually got a fair amount of snow then (6-8 inches) and Tigger and Major had a great time playing in it.





Tigger enjoys the snow so much, he throws a hissy fit when it's time to come inside!



Tigger also enjoyed the Washington Auto Show last weekend, taking Sunday afternoon to spend some boy time with Papa Tigger:


This weekend has been a doozy for snow! We're in blizzard like conditions and have had 2-3 feet of snow. Papa Tigger and Tigger have enjoyed a lot of play time outside (I'm taking it easy inside where it's warm). A few pics from their adventures:




Our car under feet and feet of snow:




Yes, that is a big ol' stream of snot in the last picture. Playing in the snow isn't always pretty!

While the boys played outside, I organized baby clothes. We need to get ready for Tilly so I pulled out all of the clothes Tigger has outgrown and set aside those we could use for Tilly. A lot of the newborn clothes and pants/PJs can definitely be worn by a girl! I think we are good on clothes:



I couldn't believe how small some of them were. Can you believe Tigger wore this during his first few weeks?


And finally, two random pictures. First, what happens when Papa Tigger is in charge of buying diapers....


...and second, a final picture of Tigger LOVING his oatmeal. Could his mouth be open any wider?

Black Beans

Nuff' said...



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