15 months

Braden continues to get more and more active. This boy never sits still for 2 seconds unless he is sleeping or restrained in his high chair or car seat. He is fun, but certainly can wear me out quick! He's now running and almost able to jump two-footed from the floor. He can easily crawl up the whole flight of stairs (supervised of course :) ) and just last weekend learned how to climb down backward.

His vocabulary is beginning to increase as well, adding a new word every few days. His current vocabulary consists of: Mom, Daddy, Papa, Hi, Cracker, Go Go (said to anything with wheels- - - and the bigger the truck the more excited he gets!), Truck, Clock, Flower, Wow, Ewww :o), Yay, and Cookie. And, he can do sign language for Please, More, Drink, All Done and he's almost got Thank You. The amount that he understands is impressive. The other day I asked him to go to the laundry room and bring me his shoes so we could go bye-bye. He abandoned his truck and went in the laundry room and came out with a shoe. I was amazed.

Eating is a challenge with Braden. He seems to be a picky eater and struggles to successfully chew up any kind of meat. Protein comes mostly from milk/yogurt/cheese and occasionally I can get him to eat a hard-boiled egg with shredded cheese or bits of hot dog. And veggies. . . forget it. . . he won't eat "real"veggies. They only way I can get him to eat them is with pureed baby food and kind of trick him by alternating it with bites of something he likes. At his 15 month check up he weighed 20.6 lbs, 30 inches long. So, he is still hanging on around the 5-10% which is where he's always been. Lately he's been dealing with a cold, but my plan is to officially begin the bottle weaning within the next 1-2 weeks once the cold is gone. I know it will be a hard transition and we may go days without drinking milk. . . . but we've got to do it at some point. Wish us luck!

We are looking forward to this summer with Braden with being able to go to the park and zoo etc and just enjoy time as a family. He is such a joy and I am so glad that I get to be home with him part time. At times I think I'm overprotective and baby him compared to other mom's with kids his age. . . but I don't care. He's my first (and maybe only) and we went through a lot to have him. Well, that's the latest from us 'til next time.