19 Months Old

This dude is now 19 months old and growing more and more personality every day. He's been pretty fun to be around lately as he's always in the mood to play and converse.

Some of his favorite games are playing "pee-ball" (tee-ball), throwing all the balls in the house and any shoes he can find over the gate at the top of the stairs, pushing his tractor around and pointing out "Papa!" when he sees red tractors in books,  playing golf outside, playing his "pah-no"(piano),  and begging for horsie rides by saying "Giddy-yap, Giddy-yap, Neee-hee-hee-heee!"  I even caught him tipping over our round laundry basket, climbing aboard, and telling it to "giddy-yap".  He's become an expert on pointing out and saying parts of the body as well as adding new animal sounds.

Ryan loves reading books. Sometimes he pulls adult chapter books without pictures off the shelves and happily pages through them. We hit a garage sale with 10/$1 books so he picked out all the books with "puppy dogs" or farm animals on them. It's nice to add a few fresh ones to the rotation. One of his favorites right now is "Belly Book" which came in a pack of Dr. Seuss books but wasn't actually written by him. He also finally got his very own "ELMO!" book courtesy of daycare's Easter gift. Our favorite is how he pronounces "Erh-nie" and "Coo-kie Mon-ser".

He will answer questions with "yaaaah" or "no" and has opinions on what he wants to eat, drink, read, and do. At least he's not too picky about clothes yet!  Some of his new favorite foods are "strawbees" (strawberries), "pay-toes" (mashed potatoes), and anything with "ketchup" on it. We're also closer on the pronounciation of one of his favorites...we're down to moe-gurt instead of "mee-koo". After eating, he sometimes declares his tray to be "messy" and he is not often wrong.


Ryan continues to repeat many words and now will try to mimic your expression, inflection, tone, or speed as well. I started doing "do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do" up the scale and he repeats each syllable and sometimes matches pitch. He'll also imitate us if we say "Nika" real low or real high or fast or slow. He especially likes to add some pizazz to words like "Pizzaaaahh", "Pastaaaaah" or tonight: "Bratsaaaaah."


He's also learning to recognize when it's appropriate to use certain phrases, like "Nika, get down!" The other day I sneezed and he said "bless you". Tonight at supper he wanted more grapes and said "Geeps pees!" (grapes, please). He'll also say "bye bye" or "nigh nigh, Daddy" without one of us saying it first.


I'm also amazed at his associative memory. We went to the library on Saturday and he pointed to the counter and said "cookie" since the last time we were here several weeks ago we got a cookie for National Library week. I may have mentioned this before, but at his 18 month appointment we went into a new exam room and he pointed to the wall and said "Duck." There was nothing on that wall but 3 months ago at his 15 month appointment we had been in a different room that did have a duck on the wall. At least he didn't seem to remember the health services office where he always gets his shots! I also think it's funny to hear his though-progression. He saw a tractor and said "Tractor...Papa...tats!" because last week my dad brought him out to see the new cats.

As you can see, we are amazed each day at the miracle of everyday child development! It's so much fun to watch him learn and grow and he surprises us almost every day! We love our little dude!