The Life of Rob & Jess Plus Two: Andrew's 18-Month Update!

Oh, Andrew. You’re a pistol. You keep us on our toes! It’s hard to believe you’re on the downhill to two. How can it be?! You have really grown these past six months—really turned into a toddler with a capital T. Your personality is really starting to come out and you’re becoming a lot more vocal. Watching and doing whatever Parker is doing is your jam. You follow him around most everywhere. If he’s on a scooter, you want to be on a scooter. If he’s jumping on the trampoline, you want to be on a trampoline. If he’s playing trucks, you’re right there with them.

You definitely seem to be more fearless—we play pretty rough and do lots of tackling and you’re not afraid to just dive off the furniture and tackle someone. You trust that someone is always going to catch you. That being said, you crash A LOT. You are always tripping on something because our house is never clean and when you run, your head gets in front of you and you end up going down. You’ve had a full on black eye and too many bruises and scrapes to count. Most of them on your head and/or face it seems. You go down hard.

Also, your temper. We have to talk about that. When you don’t get your way, you just will flat-line yourself out on the ground and slam your head down over and over. It doesn’t matter if it’s concrete, wood floors, carpet, tile, etc. You just slam yourself down and go to town with your head. Mom’s a bit frightful of you becoming concussed, but we try to ignore it because I think you do it b/c we immediately pick you up and cuddle you. So, basically, it works. But, it looks like it hurts! You also aren’t afraid to hit your brother back or take a swipe at him if he gets in your space (you go kid!). That being said, throwing things is a problem for you. You think its hilarious to throw anything and you’ll sit in the car and just throw goldfish around with a giant smile on your face. I’ve had a few hit me while driving, no lie. Future baseball player perhaps??

You give the best hugs—you run and launch yourself into the person. I love this stage of the hugs. You mean every bit of it. You can also make kissing sounds with your lips, but don’t understand to kiss someone. You also say mama, dada, vroom vroom (truck), woof woof (dog), wa wa (drink), and yeah. So far, “no,” hasn’t entered into your vocabulary and it’s so cute because you nod your head yes and say “yeah” like everything is so exciting! However, if you don’t like something, you’ll push it away, spit it out or flat out flail your arms around. We get it.

You can wave “bye bye,” too. Every night, we play in Parker’s room for a while after bath. I will say, “Andrew, it’s time to go read and go night, night.” And you’ll nod your head, say “yeah,” and then wave bye bye. I’ll say, “give hugs Andrew” and you launch yourself into my arms for the best hug. Then you grab hold of your dad’s hand and walk with him to your room where he reads you one to two books before dropping you off in your crib. You cuddle up with about 6 animals like brother does and sleep soundly until about 8:30 on weekends (have I mentioned how lucky I am?!).

Brother keeps asking when you can sleep with him, so I know he’s excited to sleep with you one day. Overall, you and brother have really started developing a relationship these past few months. He loves you so much and you two can get into lots of trouble together. But, I can tell the way he looks at you and says, “Come on, Andrew” that he loves you something fierce. You guys coexist a lot better and play together more these days. Pushing trucks around and playing chase are some of your favorites. You have figured out how to do ready, set, go and you and brother will line up and race. You also love the playground at the park and you guys race down the slide. Fearless you are.

January and February were rough months around here—you were sick ALL THE TIME. And you are a GRUMP when you are sick. We have gotten you well and you’ve been such a joy these fast few months. Your nose isn’t as runny and you’re a lot happier. I’m hoping this summer season will be a healthy one! January/February almost killed me!

You also love to read books. The “My First 100 Words” is probably your favorite. You like to point to each picture and have one of us tell you what it is. You also make animal sounds at the animals. You will just grab a book and come plop yourself down in our lap for us to read to you. It’s super cute. You are also super into mom right now. You want me to hold you a lot and I think some of it stems from that this is my busy season at work right now and sometimes I have to work late. That seems to really bother you and make you cling to me more when I’m at home. We try to make our weekends super fun and all about spending quality time together to help with this.

We did a beach trip to Galveston a few weeks ago in March and it was just what we needed. It really was the best weekend. At first, you weren’t so impressed with the beach—wouldn’t take off your shoes and just wanted to be held. But, you eventually got the hang of it and slowly started inching your way towards the waves. And then, once you realized the water was a fun place to be, we couldn’t keep you out of it. You and brother would run up and down the beach hopping in and out of the waves. You also loved to push trucks around the sand. Parker taught you to fill up a bucket with water and then climb into it which you thought was hilarious. So, we did that a lot at the beach. It was a great weekend, I hope I can remember it for a long, long time. There was a lot of yes time and both you kids really, really enjoyed it.

Easter also came and went and you did so great! You were old enough to understand how to hunt Easter eggs and put them in your basket. It was a great story of slow and steady win the race. You also realized the yumminess of jelly beans. You were obsessed with tracking down the jelly beans. You also almost choked on a jelly bean. You loved the cascarones (confetti eggs) and enjoyed smashing them with your feet (monkey see, monkey do with brother)

So, let’s see… At 18 months you:

You weigh just over 26lbs
Almost have all of your teeth—your four incisors have all broken the gums, but are not full size just yet. They are taking their sweet time. Then we have the two year molars which will come later.
Wear a size 6.5 to 7 shoe (W)
Wearing 12-18 month clothes, with 12-18 month pants becoming high waters on you.
Wear size 4 diapers (P.S. You also think it’s hilarious to watch brother pee on trees outside.)
Love riding in your toy car from Christmas (thanks DD Nana!) and you press the button for the “radio” which cycles through 3 different tunes and you move side to side as though you’re dancing.
Sleep 8-8:30 on the weekends (6:45 on the weekdays) with a 2 to 2.5 hour nap in the afternoon.
Drink 2-3 cups of milk a day with water in between.
Favorite foods are definitely rice and beans, but you also really like oranges, spaghetti, chick-fil-a (who doesn’t?!) and yogurt.
Have the best smile, but absolutely hate taking your picture. If I put the camera in your face, you will not look at it. There is very little bribery that will convince you otherwise.
Very good at pushing trucks around and saying “vroom, vroom.”
Are very sweet to cousin Beckett and are itching for him to be bigger so you can be a “big brother” to him.
Have blonde, curly-ish hair. It’s very curly in the humidity and pretty crazy. I’m not sure how to ‘style’ it honestly. You also were not good at the last haircutting session—cried the whole time. Eek!
Still suck your thumb--- no idea how to kill this habit.