16 months - CJM

We have a walker!! Hallelujah!! It's been weeks and months in the making, bu he's finally done it and boy, is he proud of himself. Over the past two weeks he has really just taken off. He loves to practice and will walk laps back and forth in our kitchen/breakfast/living room and make his little pivots to turn around. He flaps his arms and squeals with excitement. And a lot of times, looks like Frankenstein while perfecting his skills. We are just so happy he finally did it. I would say he is now about 50/50 on when he walks versus crawls. Here are two videos. The first is from when he just started walking right at 15 months and the second was a few days ago.

Enjoy the little comic relief at the end of the video.

As you can see, we are in the midst of potty training!

It's crazy how quickly they get the hang of it.

The boy loves to mess around in the pantry. I think he would climb the shelves if he was able. He of course goes for the heaviest items and usually ends with dropping them on his toes.

He LOVES (and I mean LOOOOVVVEESSS) to faceplant on the sofa, head first. He climbs up on, stands up, screams with delight, then falls head first on the cushions. He then looks back at me grinning ear to ear because he knows he is not supposed to do that and then does it all over again. I swear, my heart drops into my stomach every time I look in the living room and see him doing this. He now just thinks of it as a game.

Another favorite pastime of his, is to get on our backs or our stomachs and "play the drums." There is usually a lot of slapping involved.

I think this is hilarious. I remember when B used to do this to Ryan, now it's his turn to be pushed around.

 A green crayon pairs very nicely with chocolate pudding - this captures the essence of Charlie.

 A daddy's boy through and through, there is no doubting that.

 Leave him alone for 10 seconds and he can make a mess no matter where he is. I will give it to him though; he can destroy a room in a minute, but he is really good at independent play. He doesn't mind wandering around the house, entertaining himself. He loves to find any sort of toy basket and then just dump everything out of it. His favorite toys to play with are cars and he's started loving the train table as well. Mostly, he just wants to be doing whatever it is his brothers are doing.

His eating is pretty much unchanged. He wants anything the boys have and will grab at anything he sees on the table. Usually though, he will only try a bite and make a mess with it. He still likes to eat off of our plates, and most mealtimes are a struggle with him as he would be perfectly fine skipping 2/3 meals a day. He LOVES eggs more than just about anything, really. He also loves cherry tomatoes, trail mix, and corn dogs.

Like I said before, he is able to entertain himself with just about anything. Amazon Mom delivery day is a big deal around our house. The kids love when the boxes come so they can turn them into rocketships and play houses.

This boy loves Ryan. He will just attack him for attention and love, sometimes resulting in injuries to Ryan.

Time to play the drums!

He loves to run around with hats on. He gets really excited when someone puts one on his head. He immediately starts crawling around, really excited, like he wants to show everyone.

Loving this pic. He looks so old and so tiny all at once.

This handsome lil guy is 16 months! I adore him :) He really seems grown up this month. He is able to start following simple directions like go get this, sit down (which he hears A LOT while on the couch), go play with Magna Tiles (it seems to occupy him when he gets fussy). He still sleeps really well (about 11 hours at night) and is slowly transitioning to one nap a day (he's done it a handful of times now). He is 12 teeth and loves to talk. He does a lot of mumbling, but seems to be trying to mimic more and more words. He runs around saying BOO all of the time; sounds like he tries to say Bradley sometimes; he said CoCo this month; and I swear he just walks around saying "here you go" whenever he wants something or wants to give you something. This boy loves to laugh, be tickled, and is just usually a really happy guy (except when you have something he wants or dad is in sight - then of course he wants to be held). We love you Charlie Bear!