SPL's Blog

Ok, so Sam is 1 week shy of 19 months as I type this, but hey, who’s counting?

This has been a busy month for Sam — lots of language development, imaginative play, and "new design" for his room.

As for language acquisition, I actually jotted some of the words down this month 🙂 — here are a few of his new additions:

• umbrella – unfortunately this was due to the patio furniture’s umbrella getting knocked down in the wind storm.  Sam *always* notices things that are "out of place" and upon waking up that morning, it was the first thing he saw when he looked outside.
• oops — Sam has said this for awhile but this month he really used it to note when he observed something tipped over or out of place.  He also uses it when he purposely knocks something over or pushes something — so he still needs to figure out the nuances of the word 🙂
• down — he’s really good about up and down now. 
• applesauce — loves to mix it in his yoghurt
• daddy’s hat
• tractor: learned this from doing one of his puzzles
• strawberries — even though they’re out of season, we’re still buying them :-). 
• "deeta" – his own creation; means "cat"

Imaginative play has also blossomed this month.  Sam will routinely uses his kitchen utensils and oven mitt to stir and mix some concoction and then offer it to John or me.

Obsessions of the month:

• tickling: as you can see from the video montage, Sam loves to tickle, especially his dad.  And even more than tickling, I think he likes the anticipation and the declaration of "I’m going to get you!"  🙂
• bananas at Trader Joe’s:  can I just say that this kid can put away 2 or 3 large bananas while we’re shopping at TJs?!?!?  I’m not sure how they fit in his stomach, but somehow he finds room
• moving toy bins around: this was demoed in the video montage too.  He’s also very particular about where the bins are placed and don’t even think about moving them or you’ll surely get a reprimand.

This month he mastered climbing the 2 stairs in our house one after the other (w/o bringing his feet together/to rest on the 1st step).  He quickly went from there to doing the same thing while carrying a bin full of Legos 🙂

He also can do one piece puzzles now — though sometimes has trouble turning the piece so that it fits in its position.  And one of his "quirks" is he loves kicking his shoes off when we get in the car (and sometimes at the grocery store and while he’s in his stroller too).

We turned his room into a "playable space" this month with the addition of 2 chairs and a table, a keyboard (he’s been so keen on our laptops that we pulled out a unused keyboard so he can have his own — he loves typing emails to you all :-), and the train that Grandee and Dana got him for Christmas.

Finally, he’s started noticing letters in his world and is calling most of them "S".  He still isn’t accurate about which letter is S, but it’s fun to see him recognize and acknowledge letters. 

I think that’s it for now.  Happy 18 months Sam!