Caleb at 19 Months

Caleb is such a joy to Jon and I. He astounds us with his ability to learn, his love, his humor, and so much more every day. He has grown and changed so much since his first birthday. Though he is still a baby in many ways (as the youngest kid in his Sunday School class this is starkly evident), he has grown into a little boy! And this post is all about the things I love about Caleb at 19 months. If you're a big Caleb fan, well read on. If you just stop by for the general baby-related posts, this may not be for you!

About Caleb

1. When he pulls up onto something he shouldn't (an unstable stool, for example), he says, "Teefoo..." meaning "careful," which is what I'm always telling him!
2. He loves to color (and I love to watch him; it's fascinating to see how his mind works) and understands he should only color on paper, and only on his table in his room. So now, he scrounges paper from all over the house and dutifully carries it into his room to color on. Coupons, brochures, maybe important, usually not...but definitely not his pre-approved coloring pages! Stinker.
3. We have a tickle monster in our house! Caleb will attack anyone and everyone with wiggly fingers and "teetoo! teetoo!" ("tickle, tickle") and lots of giggles. He's even tickled his grandma on webcam!
4. Caleb has started showing empathy for his stuffed animals, giving hugs and kisses and setting them up in his booster seat for snack time (even buckling them in). Of course, snack time involves one bite for his puppy and one bite for him!
5. "What is your name?" "....Tabob." "Good job! Can you say 'Norvell'?" "....Niffle." That's my son. Tabob Niffle.
6. In the last little while, Caleb has discovered his running legs. It's more talk than action, with his legs pumping fast and a declaration of "Run! Run!" as he speeds by.
7. Caleb loves people. He remembers names (Todder=Tyler, Duck=Bro. Doug, Neen=Miss Eileen, Nitty=Miss Nicki, Aden=Adrienne, Abby, Tammy, Betty, and more, including many pet's names) and is so excited to see all his friends. He greets everyone with a good, long, squeezey hug and many times a kiss. The other day we ran into Miss Eileen (the church secretary) at Wal-Mart, and he insisted on giving her a big hug. When he did, he said, "Pieces, pieces." I told Eileen, "Well I don't know what that means!" She said, "Oh, every time he hugs me in the office I tell him I could hug him to pieces!" I couldn't believe that he remembered that and associated it only with her.
8. The truth is that Caleb is not really potty-trained. I'm not sure what he is! He will "hold it" for long periods of time (even when he's in a diaper), and will wait until I put him on his potty to go. But only very rarely has he told me he actually needs to go potty. If I am on top of things, we can go several days without accidents. However, if I lose track of time or forget, then Caleb will have an accident.
9. Though we've tried, I don't think Caleb understands the concept of being a brother, yet. He will give my tummy kisses sometimes, but it just hasn't clicked that we're going to have a baby in the house in two months.
10. Things Caleb loves to eat: cherry tomatoes, strawberries (calls them "boobies" which makes me laugh), grapes, cheese, pretzels, and pickles. He's still a varied eater, and will try many things--today he even tried cole slaw! But he can be finicky in that one day he'll refuse a food he ate the day before. But we can generally find him something he will eat. We are growing cherry tomatoes in our garden. One day I had picked a bowl-full of them and set the bowl within Caleb's reach without realizing it. I had turned away, and turned back to Caleb handing me a tomato stem. I took it, trying to figure out where he got it, and then watched him nonchalantly pop a fresh-from-the-garden tomato into his mouth and walk off.
11. Caleb's sleep habits: We are officially down to one nap. It seemed like a rocky transition, but in retrospect it went fairly well. His one nap occurs from about 11am-1pm, right across the lunch hour, so I'm trying to push it back further into the afternoon. Some days it works, but it usually means he's more tired and cranky than hungry at lunch time. He's sleeping a solid 11 hours at night.
12. Caleb's favorite playtime activities: coloring, playing with stickers, and blocks. He also loves to read. We've just moved up from his regular books (which he knew very well) to the Little Golden Books of my childhood. They're a little above his level, but he still likes them. We've also started attempting some crafts, mostly with construction paper and a glue stick. Maybe I'll get more adventurous at some point. And this boy LOVES his movies. He's the kid in Sunday School who knows how to work the DVD player and stands 6 inches from the screen through the whole show. At home, he would look at me innocently and expectantly, "Movies? ....Movies? ....Barney? ....Thomas? ....Movies? ...Mouse? ....Barney? ....Barney?" We use movies at home as a chance for him to sit still for a few minutes on the potty, and when I'm cooking something in the oven that is unsafe (broiling or lots of opening the door to baste or hot oil popping from the skillet). So they're not on all day, but he is like me: easily addicted to TV!
13. Caleb's personality: Gentle, sweet, funny, smart, needs time to adjust, a cuddler, helper, growing independence, happy, and a pretty clean kid. He likes to wipe his hands and eating area with a napkin, and will often put away what he's playing with before moving on to the next activity, even without my bidding.
14. Changes in the last few months: Caleb has become more expressive. When he was younger, his expression was mostly through his nose, crinkling it up when he was upset. Now he raises and furrows his eyebrows, shapes his mouth into a dramatic "O" when he's surprised, and gives a cheesy smile when the camera comes out. He is also more strong-willed, with a quick and high-pitched "NO!" whenever something is not quite going his way. However, he is no longer throwing to-the-floor tantrums, and can be settled and redirected fairly easily. He has figured out ways to ask us for things, taking my fingers and pulling me in the right direction. "Tummer tummer" is his plea to "come here, come here." Then he adds a "please" to make sure we really come. He'll pat the floor with a direction to sit, and if we're in his way, he pushes through with a "beep beep!"
15. I love Caleb's little language. If the act of bringing out the video camera didn't halt any and all cuteness that Caleb was doing at the moment, I'd get a video of Caleb saying his many words. He has yet to really make sentences, only a few pieced-together bits that mean something, like "Hon-ry...eat!" to tell me he's hungry. And lately he's added an initial syllable to many of his words. "Milk" has become "Muh-milk." Frog is fuh-frog, Shoe is shoe-shoe, etc. It seems like a step back in communication, and I don't know where it came from, but I'm sure it'll go away eventually, just like someday his "boobies" will be "berries" and his "bapples" have already become "apples."

Caleb is a sweet, sweet boy. We love him very much and are blessed to be his parents. Sometimes I think he's so great because of the great parents we are, but I know that's definitely not true! We make many mistakes every day. And there are frustrations with Caleb every day, but the good far outweighs the bad. After we lay Caleb down to sleep at night and the house goes from toddler hubbub to stillness, Jon and I smile at each other, very content with our little boy.