Lincoln: 17 Months

Lincoln has been 17 months for quite awhile now. I actually did take photos, but none of them turned out. It was bad weather and he was still sick so his puffy eyes are closed in all of them or he's making a contorted face. So, iPhone and Instagram will save the day and replace his formal photo shoot for the month. 18 months is gonna be good, I will make sure of that!

I wish I'd done more monthly recaps like this. It's crazy how you think you will always remember everything, but they replace themselves so fast with new memories you just can't remember it all.
Lincoln loves to spin in circles. He can only spin counterclockwise. I call it his Zoolander problem. And he loves to do it until he's so dizzy he trips. At story time there is a song that sings, "Spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning all around..." so if I start that song, he'll start spinning.

He loves to get tickled and asks for "more" endlessly. He also likes his ears and neck nibbled. I love his laugh. It's the most precious sound in the world.

He is not really talking, but he's very interested in it. He started babbling a lot recently which he's never really done before. He was not a big baby babbler - not like Conner or Reese. I don't know if consistant basic sign lanuage counts as a second language to be facilitating a spoken language delay, but he's very appropriate with his sign language and his receptive language, so I just keep going and I'm trying not to worry. It's hard. I worry. I feel he's close and that's he just going to say whole words. He did try to say "alligator", "helicopter", and "peanut butter" yesterday. He made completely legible sounds and an appropriate number of syllables for the words, repeating after me when he saw each thing. Even Joe could tell what the word 'alligator' was from the kitchen. He also says "bu bu" while waving, he says "Ka" for cracker, "cou" for cookie, "ba" for ball, bath, or any word that's got b-a in it. "boo" for blue, "beaboo" for Bella Boo, "sh" for fish, "che" for cheese (both the food and smiling at a camera). and "wee" for when his animal friends are going down a slide. He makes all his animal sounds or makes one up if he doesn't know it. They are all different and consistent to the animal it comes from.

He still signs milk, more, please, thank you, mama, water, no, hungry, food (and says "foo" for it), book, pancake. He's tried to do grapes before but we haven't had grapes in awhile. I tried to teach him 'help', but it's a two-hand sign and when the left and right hand are not making the same gesture, he doesn't get it, so he just claps his hands together.

He knows where his hair, head (& noggin), ears, eyes, nose, tongue, teeth, hand, belly button, his baby and mommy's baby, penis, bottom, knee, foot, and toes are. 

He will show you his smile if you ask and he scrunches his whole face up and shows his teeth. I love it. He laughs because he knows it's cute.

Since we were sick for a week and he had a runny nose, I got him to start blowing the snot out by saying, "EWWW, GROSS!!" whenever he'd mimic me blowing my nose. He'd LAUGH and keep doing it as long as it got a reaction. That really really helped. He still does it now with a dry nose just to get a laugh. But without sucking the snot out myself or washing his sinuses, it was a pretty awesome way to get him to blow his nose. He loved it. 

He's a technology junkie. He loves the iPad. He even knows how to scroll the pages to find his game folder and the game he wants and the ONE book that's on a different page not in the folder. He will wake up in the morning and ask for it first thing if he sees it on my nighstand. He points and starts signing emphatically or he'll just grab and flop it on me and start pushing the button. If he can't make the button work he grabs my pointer finger and pushes the button with my finger to get it to work. :D He learned that after I turned on the guided access function so he couldn't close his aps all the time.

He's also become a movie monster. Being sick for so long and being tired with Baby 2 has probably been the most execerbating factor to this situation. Baby Einstein has made a comeback in our DVD library. He really really likes Baby Noah because it's all about the animals. He still loves Lion King, but he really LOVES The Water Horse. NO IDEA WHY. My best guess is it's the inner Scottsman in him. But really, NO idea why. It's a family film, but it's not a cartoon, the charachters have Scottish accents... what is it?! He will find that movie ANYWHERE on the shelf, pull it out, climb in his blue chair, and desperately sign 'more, please' for it. He will easily watch the first 20 minutes without moving. So my brillant logic thought that if he liked Water Horse, surely he would like Dinotopia! Not the same. He does like the Dinosaurs, but it's just not as captivating. Sure the acting is of a different style (American made-for-tv acting vs European movie acting), but is he really that astute? I doubt it. It's just one of those mysteries...

My favorite thing that he does (well, pretty much everything he does is my favorite), but the one thing he does that makes me feel so assured is he has started pulling me to things he wants. He will come and grab my hand or my finger and drag me to something he's playing with or to help him in some way. Outside he'll grab my hand to get off the curb or he'll grab my hand to lead him down to the lake so he can throw woodchips and sea shells in. He'll grab me to get him a snack on a higher shelf or a toy that's burried in the box.

OMG. I almost forgot the CUTEST thing he does!! This is my most favorite ever. He has a vet kit with a stethoscope and a stuff dog. Not only does he put the stethoscope in his ears and hold it to the dogs heart, he says "bump bump" too!! I about cried when I first heard him make a heart beat sound for his dog like I do! I LOVE LINCOLN! .period. the end.