Oliver is 18 months!

Last week Oliver officially became a year and a half. It is just amazing how much he learns in one day. I keep thinking "I have to write that down! I can't believe he said that!" and then before I get to writing it down, he says something more impressive. Here are some of the things that have amazed me lately:

1. When you find a nuk around the house, you bring it to me so that we can put it “back to bed” (where it stays until nap or night time). You are such a big boy!!
2. Talking a blue streak – you repeat EVERYTHING and have so many useful phrases:
a. This week I asked you what happens when the alarm goes off and you said “I don’t know what.”
b. Thank you, Help Please, clean up, down, up, run, walk, race!, here you go, all done, more, play, here, shower, bath, phone, fun!, okay, alright, hi, bye bye, hey buddy, peekaboo, sleep, nuk
d. Yes, doh and no – not used correctly yet
e. Milk, Water – wawa, Eat eat eat!, cheese, Pizza (I think that is anything with bread and cheese), bread, orange, apple, applesauce
f. Show – for if you want to watch TV
g. Play dough, color, cool car, truck, fire (for fire engine)
h. Alarm sound for a fire truck, police car, or ambulance
i. Outside, Hallway
j. Lots of names
k. Lots of animal names and all animal sounds including new ones like the sounds for rooster and butterfly
l. Upside right – how you are supposed to put your milk when you are done with it
3. You are excellent at filling in the ending word in books. It is amazing the words you are able to fill in. You have special names for books that have to do with what you like about them. Perfect Pets is “pup”, Goodnight Moon is “something Moon” or “Hush”, Mr. Brown Can Moo is “whisper, whisper”, The Snowy Day is “crunch”, Moo, Baa, Lalala is “lalala”
4. You are very good at counting. You have the following numbers in order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10. 6 used to be in the mix but lately you skip from 5 to 8.
5. You love singing and you just keep getting better. When you are by yourself playing you are often humming a tune – familiar and new. Your favorite songs lately are Twinkle, Twinkle, the ABC’s, Way Up High in the Apple Tree
6. You have a great imagination. You make your animals and cars talk to one another and you have a couple of different make believe voices you use. One is higher than your regular voice and one is kind-of a growly voice. You also make believe well with your baby dolls. You feed them their bottle and burp them by patting them on their back. You also sometimes cover them up with a blanket.
7. You are doing so great at church stuff. You sit so well during the children's time and try to copy the big kids. You also are staying in the nursery and only cry for a little while when we first leave and at the end when you are waiting for us to pick you up.

Baby Care

We have been playing with Oliver's baby dolls lately in preparation for June. He is getting pretty good at feeding, but doesn't yet understand you don't just drop them when you are done! You might notice that he even makes eating movements and sounds with his mouth. This week we saw a REAL baby and he was just beside himself and kept getting close to the baby and giggling. It was so sweet.

Twinkle Twinkle

Oliver sings this song a lot lately. And yes, he is playing with a box full of exacto knives - it is locked:).