16 down, 1200 to go

Ian is 16 months old today. I am torn about referring to his age this way. I know that in some ways it is important at this developmental stage to still use the “months” unit of time. A 16 month old is more advanced than a child who has just turned a year old, but not quite at the stage of an 18 month old, or “one and a half year old”. However, there are times when I feel like Ian should just be referred to as “a very small, non-walking, teenager.”

He still has very definite ideas of what passes for edible. Like many teenagers his diet consists mostly of processed snacks and protein. Specifically, he likes “vegetable crunchers”, which are cheese curl looking snacks with very little vegetable content at all, and chicken nuggets. He will occasionally tolerate tri-color rotini or fish sticks. On rare occasions he will swallow small bits of apples or peaches. Forget getting any sort of vegetable, cooked or raw, down his throat. Since we are still banned from all milk or peanut based products, I can’t try any of the usual toddler staples of cheese, yogurt, bread and butter, peanut butter crackers, etc.

Emotionally he is very much a teenager. He’s full of giggles and smiles one minute and the next he’s flying into violent, self-injuring, rages. His favorite tactic is to start whimpering, push his lower lip out, then fling himself face first on the floor and sob piteously. If he is particularly pissed he’ll scream and smack his forehead on the hardwood floor while kicking his feet. It would be funny if it wasn’t so damn annoying, and constant. He pitched just such a tantrum today because I refused to let him play with the electrical cords on my computer. The horror! SO unfair!

Ian still doesn’t walk. He will take a few steps if you hold his fingers, but then he gets tired or bored and tries to sit down. He can stand on his own without pulling himself up on furniture, but, contrary little bugger that he is, he only does this while standing on the middle of the table while trying to reach the chandelier. Ethan didn’t walk until he was 14 months, and Ian definitely has the leg strength and coordination to climb and walk, so I’m trying not to fret too much over his lack of upright mobility. It is getting to be a pain when I take him to the playground, though.

Verbally, Ian now very clearly says “Mamma, Da-da, dog (sounds like dawg because he is a Virginian!), and Buba. I know some people have worries over our letting Ian call Ethan “Buba”. Frankly, I don’t care. He called Mark “de-da” for 3 months. He’ll outgrow this. It is less certain, however, that I’ll outgrow calling Ian a “sniggett”. That silly made up word, conjured from sleep-deprived frustration, has permanently attached itself to my tongue. Mark points out that “sniggett” is much more palatable than his toddler nickname of “Damn-it Mark”.

Happy 16 months Sniggett. Please stop chewing on the router cables now.