Ben at 18 months!

Ben is 18 months old today!!  A whole year and a half!  So hard to believe.  Mark and I tell each other every day how we can’t believe how big he is already.  And following in his dad’s and sister’s footsteps, this boy is tall and thin.  And he still has eyelashes to die for.  He starting to “flirt” with people (look on the right, above) and it’s hilarious to watch.  He’ll look at them and smile and then turn away and then slowly turn back and look at them out of the corner of his eyes and smile at them.  They love it and so does he.

Ben is starting to talk a little more.  He says “Here you go, da” all the time when he’s handing Mark stuff.  Sometimes he’ll put “ma” at the end if he’s handing things to me, but usually it’s “da” for me too.  He says “Bye da!” and “Bye ma!”.  He’s just starting to say “more”, which is more like “muh”.  His list so far is:  mama, dada, bye bye, Abbie, night night, uh oh, no, more, here you go, puh puh (puppy), bah (bird)and a few other random words.  It’s still weird for me since Abbie was talking so much more than Ben at this point.  I know he’s right on track for boys and he’s starting to put words together, so that’s good.  I’m sure one day he’ll just take off talking.  He knows exactly what I’m saying most of the time and will follow commands like “Go get your sippy cup and give it to daddy.”  He still uses some signs for all done, down, drink, and eat.  And he gives kisses now.  You can ask him for a kiss and he’ll give you a big open-mouthed, sloppy kiss.  So cute!

Ben is such a BOY!  I can’t get over how different he is from Abbie.  She was very careful and loved to look at books.  He gets in to EVERYTHING and if he can pick it up and throw it, he does.  He gets in to cabinets and kitchen drawers and even though he can’t see in the drawers, he reaches in, grabs what he can, and whips it behind him.  He pulls books off of shelves and throws them everywhere.  He couldn’t care less about looking at them, he just wants to throwing them everywhere.  He loves to run around and be chased and he LOVES to rough house.  The more you rough house with him, the better.  He’s fallen off the couch on to his head I don’t know how many times because he loves to stand up and throw himself down on it.

He’s wearing size 6 shoes now and I’m starting to switch him over to the 18-24 month clothes.  They’re all still too big around the waist, but he needs the extra length on them.  He doesn’t use bottles at all any more, but still uses a paci at night.  He can feed himself with a spoon, although it’s not a pretty sight.  I think he gets more food on him than in him, but he’s getting there.  I’ve only been letting him nap for 3 hours (1-4pm) lately because when Abbie starts school in August, I have to drop her off at noon and pick her up at 3pm, so that will be his nap time.  Sometimes he gets up at 7:30am and sometimes he sleeps in until 9:15am, and he’s usually in bed between 8 and 8:30pm.  If he wakes up early, Mark can go in and give him his paci and he’ll go back to sleep.  If I go in, he wants to get up and screams when I leave.

He’s such a fun little boy!  He LOVES to copy anything Abbie does and gets so concerned if she gets hurt or is upset about something.  She just hurt herself with a toy and he was sympathy crying/whining for her.  They’re fun to watch together.  Makes me want another one… in a little while anyway.

Below: Ben at 18 months (left) and Abbie at 18 months (right)