Carsten is 15 months!

Happy 15 months Carsten!

I used to wonder why parents would quote their kids ages in months until they turned two; I now know why: they still change so much that the distinction is still merited. Carsten has changed quite a bit since his first birthday, and every day keeps getting more and more fun. Here's an update on what Carsten is like now:

Physical Prowess: He's been walking for almost 5 months now, and is even quite proficient at running around the house. His most recent skill is climbing onto the couches, which he discovered he could do yesterday. Carsten is thrilled with this new-found ability, and I think climbing other things like kitchen chairs and probably out of his pack n play will follow soon. He's a very active boy, and we're often told by nursery attendants that he's very 'busy'. This is very true as he will not sit in one place for very long. It's often difficult to read an entire book unless he's quite tired. I'm sure he'll want to read books with us again soon, but for now he's having too much fun exploring and running around.


Eating: Carsten is a good eater, and he pretty much likes most things. Luckily, he's not allergic to anything, and since he's not too picky, this makes cooking pretty easy for me. He's proficient at eating finger foods, and we're working on trying to teach him how to eat with a spoon, which he's very excited about. He drinks a lot of water and milk during the day from his sippy cup, which is a pretty nice change from even 3 months ago. He does not care for too many sweets except chocolate :).

Teeth: We've seen quite a few teeth come in the last three months, and I'd have to say that teeth seem to bother Carsten's sleep, especially at night. So, he gets tylenol before bed, and this seems to help a lot. Carsten is up to 10 teeth (4 in front on bottom, 4 in front on top, and 2 molars on the bottom). I'm pretty sure his 3rd molar on top (tooth #11!) is coming in because he has a blue gum, which I have been assured is normal and basically amounts to a bruise caused by the tooth coming in. I will say that I will be glad when the molar phase is done because honestly, they seem to bother him quite a bit at night.

Sleeping: Sleeping has been a bit hit or miss with Carsten, but probably part of that is due to experiencing jet-lag from our trip in October to the US. And more will probably follow in our upcoming trip back for the Holidays to the US. We struggled quite a bit with sleep in the month of November until we realized that he needed to drop his morning nap. Once we dropped the morning nap, sleep at night has improved significantly with him almost always sleeping through the night and taking a 2 hour nap during the day around 12:15 pm. We are all loving only having 1 nap a day since it frees us up quite a bit for errands, playtime, and we are all getting much better sleep. I should also mention that he's typically very happy to go to sleep, and even smiles and waves 'bye bye' as I put him down for a nap.

Weaning: We're down to a morning and an evening feeding, and since nursing was really helpful with jet-lag in October, we're just going to keep it up until we get back in January.

Communication: We started trying to do baby sign language around 8 months with Carsten, but he really hasn't started signing until the last month or two. He now will sign 'more', 'please', 'eat', and 'all done'. Having just these basic signs has been very helpful, and goes a long way towards helping us understand what he wants. Carsten understands English, or at least, he understands me pretty well :). He's very good at following commands and usually good at listening. Here are some of the activities that he will do 'on command':

Snuggle: snuggles blankets, pillows, or stuffed animals (we're working on getting him to snuggle us :) )
Kiss the baby: he kisses the mirror Carsten
Where's the ____: he will find items for you
Bring me ____: he will bring you an item
Drink block soup: he sips pretend soup that contains a wooden block (it's cute, trust me)
Find baby Carsten: he'll find pictures of himself around the house
No chewing: a frequent phrase to prevent chewing on books
Peekaboo: he'll hide behind a blanket
Itsy bitsy spider: he'll make the spider motion
Patty cake: he'll clap and roll it
So big!: he'll make the motion for so big
Wave bye bye: he'll wave bye bye; when Andy leaves he wants to wave from the window as Andy
             leaves the building, which is very cute :)
Wave hi: he'll wave hi
Kick the ball: just as it sounds :)
Throw the ball: again, just as it sounds
Bouncing bean: he bounces on the ball
Jumping bean: jumps with us on the exercise ball
Whoompa: he jumps on your tummy
Go flying: he goes flying with our assistance
Dance dance: he dances to music solo or with us
Happy dance: he stomps his feet repeatedly and gets very excited

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of for now. There's a few things we're working on to add to this list such as giving us hugs and kisses :).

Travel: We've done quite a bit of traveling in the last few months. We've been to Michigan, Iowa, South Dakota, and France. And this month we're headed back to Iowa and Michigan where we'll see a lot of family and friends and hopefully will see some snow :). I'm thankful that he's such a great traveler as this reduces a lot of the stress when we're traveling.

Here's a few random photos of Carsten, please note the baby face, which often makes an appearance these days :).