Lachlan - 20 months

Lachlan turned 20 months last week and it has been an eventful month to say the least...

Stats

• Some of his summer clothes are getting a little snug, so just wears a hodgepodge of 18 and 24 month sizes.  
• I think all 4 of his incisors have now came in.
• Just got his feet measured and he is a size 7 now.  His old shoes were 6 and I was concerned they were getting small since he had them for a while.

How smart is Lachlan?

• More improvement with using fork/spoon- He can generally eat a container of yogurt, pudding, etc but needs help towards the end to get the last parts.

• He definitely is picking up on counting.  It's not correct, but he is starting to get the hang of it.  I'll hear him pointing to things and saying what sounds like numbers...like five, six, seven.
• He just LOVES the ABCs- he wants us to sing it all the time.  He can recognize in general what letters/words are and will point to a word and say "ABCs."  He likes to do this on his highchair- he points to Evenflo and says ABCs!  He's been stubborn lately and won't repeat the letters after us and only wants us to sing them.  Sometimes he does seem to chime in as we are singing and do a string of a few letters, so I think the song may be starting to sink in.
• He's a little iTot!  He is getting pretty good with mastering the iphone and ipad.  He knows to hit the home button when he is done with an app.  He can scroll through the pictures/videos and uses his pointer finger to hit the "play" triangle for videos.  He watches some things on youtube and knows when the video finishes to select another video on the side if he wants more.

Favorite Things

• OUTSIDE- He can say "outside" so now he has a definite way to tell us when he wants to go out.  We had an exceptionally cool summer in St Louis so he was able to get some outside time at the end of July....but the weather in Texas has been brutally hot.  He still has spent a lot of time outside here, but we just have to try to limit it.  Grandma Betty taught him to say it is "Texas Hot!" outside.  One day he touched the concrete and said it was hot....so then he bent down and starting blowing on it to cool it off (just like he does his food)....funny guy!
• PICTURES- He now knows how to ask for the iPhone-- he just says "pictures."  I can't imagine another kid just loving to look at pictures the way Lachlan does.  Although he is getting pickier and will tell you "NO" if you try to play a video or pause on a picture he has no interest in.  Once the pictures get really old, then I'm not sure he understands they are still pictures of him and he just says "baby."  

Random Other Bits:

• We moved from St Louis, MO to Dallas, TX this month and I couldn't have asked for Lachlan to be any better....I was just shocked at how well he handled everything and how easy he made it for us.  He had to deal with constant change and it didn't phase him in the least.  My parents came to stay with us and help out the last week of August.  Dustin and I had to fly to Dallas for 1.5 days to close on our new house.  Then a few days later, the movers came to pack up everything and load up the truck.  Lachlan really didn't mind too much that everything was in boxes and looked completely different.  We then went to stay with Dustin's mom, but had to leave Lachlan for 2 days while we went to Chicago for my cousin's wedding.  A couple days later we then left for the drive to TX and split it into 2 days.  I couldn't believe how great Lachlan was in the car-- I barely had to reach back and give him toys to entertain him.  We listened to some kids music, he paged through books, played with his laugh n learn puppy, and then the best thing ever......we revealed a new dvd player with a 2 hour Elmo's World video!!!!!!!!!!  You should have seem the smile and amazement on his face when that happened.  So that video really was key and helped kill almost half the car ride.  We got to the new house and he seemed to have fun-- we taught him to just run in circles screaming in the empty rooms (cause wasn't much to do here)!  He had a blast though!  We'd keep telling him this is Lachlan's house, but anytime we'd ask him if it was he'd say NO.  After about 2 weeks of living here, if we ask him if this is Lachlan's house, he'll now say YES!
• He had his last day of daycare in St Louis on Friday 7/26.  They had just been so wonderful and so good to Lachlan, so it was super difficult for me to feel like I was pulling him away from such a good environment.  Every single day he was excited to go to school and very rarely ever cried or was clingy to us when leaving him there.  The teachers all signed a beach ball for him and the kids in the class had their handprints on it, so that was a cute little going away gift.  I was already really having a hard time and sad his last week there and had been dreading the very last day.  It killed me cause I felt like he must have known/sensed something was up the last day cause I asked him to give hugs to everyone when we left and without hesitation he hugged all his friends in his room and they weren't just like quick hugs- it was some of the most real hugs I've seen him ever give to people.  We still hadn't visited any TX daycares yet, so all I could think about is how I'm going to find him a new place he loves so much and new friends....hopefully that all works out!  The day we came to TX for closing, we visited 2 daycares close to our house and both seem excellent, so was hard to pick between them both.  He'll start 8/14, so just after he turns 20 months.
• I'm scared to jinx myself, but after going through a really bad biting phase, he seems to have stopped.  He was not in daycare for several weeks and there were no bites.  So I'm hoping it maybe was just related to him teething...and he is getting better with using his words, so I think that may be helping that he can talk rather than resort to chomping into someone. 
• He still has little mad tantrums every now and then.  I think its cute cause he'll get frustrated and then just starts stomping his feet in place...most of the time they are over nothing- like he doesn't want to come inside or he wants to go outside.
• Still has a bad habit of throwing his food off his tray if he doesn't like something or is done with this meal.  Same with his cup.  Nothing seems to work with stopping this- so lately I try to just ignore him and give no attention or reaction when he does this.  Then I take away his tray and just tell him he must be all done.
• Has started telling us "poo poo" when he either farts, tries to poop, or actually does poop.  We never really worked him on this, he just started doing it.
• If I tell him daddy is sleeping or he sees someone with their eyes shut, he says "Shhhhhhhh" and he puts his finger to his lips, except every single time he also shoves his finger up his nose.  I keep trying to show him that you just put your finger over your lips, but he doesn't get it and continues to pick his nose each time.

Pictures from this month:

Loves taking Puppy for walks.  Every time puppy topples over he says "Uh oh" and sets him back up.

Lachlan really enjoyed the big moving truck....and getting right in the way of the workers

Last family picture at our Eureka house :(

Had a BLAST laying in the packing paper and just running through it

Lachs found mardi gras beads in one of the boxes we unpacked.  He worked all by himself to untangle each strand and then drape it on him.  The funny part was watching him attempt to stand up after all these beads were on.

One of his favorite things to do at the new house is to stand at the bottom of the stairs like this and peek around the spindles just smiling and playing peekaboo.