15 months

My sweet little man had his 15-month appointment this week! He's all grown up. The stats:

• 21 lbs 9 oz, the 20th percentile for weight (WOW! considering he's been in the 3rd percentile his entire life)
• 31 in tall, the 50th percentile for height (DOUBLE WOW)

The latest and greatest:

• We have a walker! He's almost a runner. He loves to toddle and fall on his bum or trip and get right back up. Here's a video for the grandmas of us at Jetty Island a week or so ago:
  
  

• He loves to make noise. He screams and chants and babbles and it's just gorgeous music to my ears. I love it.
• He loves to say "Hi," and is doing very well mimicking our sounds. The other day I was reading to him about a duck and he said, "duhhh," and another time I said the oven was hot, and he said "haaaa." We're getting close to real words, I can feel it!
• He is still a picky eater; he tends not to want to try something, but then as soon as he tries it and realizes he likes it, he'll gobble it up. I usually feel like I'm forcing just the smallest taste into his mouth.
• Another thing he loves to do is watch us, and when we have just taken a nice refreshing swig of a watery beverage and say, "ahhhhh," in relief, his eyes will light up and he'll say "ahhhhh!" -- an exact imitation of us. Or, he'll take a swig of his own beverage and say "ahhhhh." It's CUTE.
• When he's all done eating, he "clears his place" by throwing all the remaining pieces of food one by one into the floor, or running his hand over his tray really fast to brush everything on the floor. Um, it's awful, I hate it. I always tell him in a stern voice how that "disappoints mommy," but he usually thinks that's hilarious.
• Still no baby signs. Maybe this week I'll try really hard, one last gung-ho push, to at least get a "more" or "all done" out of him. Usually he signifies he's all done eating by the shenanigans of the previous bullet, and pulling his bib off and tossing it to the floor.
• His newest favorite thing: pulling my dish towels off of the oven door handle and dragging them all over the house. It makes me crazy.
• Pretty much anytime we (or anyone for that matter) say "good job!" or "yay!," he starts clapping. He claps a lot!
• He's finally getting more and more wisps of white hair in the back of his head.
• We're up to 15 teeth now -- the front 8, 4 molars, and 3 of the canine teeth. Just one more canine and one more set of 4, and his mouth is FULL! Wesley has one little friend -- his age! -- with ZERO teeth!
• He loves to take his balls and rings -- hard plastic toys -- over to the kitchen and throw them on the floor and listen to them bounce. It's something about the sound I think. He does this all day. He loves to bring all his toys into the kitchen.
• He loves to pull his books off the shelf and flip the pages and "read" them. It's so cute. I've even noticed that if the book is upside down, he notices and rights it. Impressive!
• He loves crawling all over, jumping on, closing, and pulling things out of the dishwasher. Is it funny it seems his favorite spot in the house is the kitchen?
• He is an excellent sleeper (12 hours a night and one 3-hour nap daily), and we are currently working on weaning him from the pacifier. He took a nap without one today, and he has been put down to bed without one for the last week or so. Those naps are just so precious, I get nervous jeopardizing them. But we're working on it! I figure it's easier now when he still can't be "reasoned" with, i.e., I don't have to explain anything to him and it's still in mom's control.
• He likes putting both fingers up both nostrils at the same time. Oh dear. At the fair the other day, I was waiting in line for ice cream and when I got up to the front, the gal said, "your little boy is so funny. He's got both his fingers up his nose." And I just laughed. That's my son... picking his nose in public.
• He also likes taking both hands and covering his ears at random times. We can't figure out why. Maybe because the muted sound feels funny?
• He loves to laugh. We tickle him lots. In fact, dad is doing lots of tickling right now as I write this. He's so dang happy!
• Mom and Wesley have started having Family Home Evenings on Monday nights! It's a work in progress, but it's fun. I'm following the Church's FHE guide. My M.O. is generally to find some toy of his that I can parallel to the lesson and use it as an object lesson. For example, we played with a shape sorter while I explained that keeping the commandments helps guide us to where we want to go. Make sense? We'll see. Tomorrow I'm going to use various assorted rubber duckies to explain how we're all different but all children of God.
• Here's a cute, super-short video of him in a perfect Wesley-sized rocking chair (he figured out what to do!):
  
  

I guess that's enough for now! I could go on all day! We just love him so much. We're so lucky. Today after Church I wanted to be so mad and frustrated at him (since he pretty much just screamed the entire third hour), but his big eyes are so blue and his precious face is so sweet, I just couldn't be mad. I love him so much! I can't imagine my life without the Wesley background noise. It's beautiful. Here are more of my favorite recent summery pictures:

We love our Wesley!