Fourteen Month Update

Dear Gabe,

I thought it was time I did a little summary update for you. You change so quickly and I like to keep track of what you're like at different stages!


* You sleep about 11-11.5 hours at night, going to bed at 7:30 and waking up sometime around 7:00. We don't get you out of bed until 7:00 even if you wake up before that as long as you're not upset.


* You take one nap - around 2-2.5 hours - at noon. I usually nurse you to sleep.


* You put yourself to sleep at night AND you stay asleep ALL NIGHT LONG!! That started just after Christmas when we turned up the night heat. I think you might have been waking up so much because you got cold! We felt very badly once we figured that out!


* You're between sizes - some of your clothes are 12-18 months and some of them are 18-24 months. You wear size 4 diapers.


* You love yogurt, cheese, Nutrigrain bars, and Life cereal. When you see butter on the table you think it's cheese and "yell" so we let you have it. You haven't yet figured out that butter looks similar to cheese.


* In the last week you've just started liking some of our table foods, especially foods with ground beef and tomatoes in them!


* You love to drink water. You hate to drink milk. We never give you juice, so I'm not sure about that!


* You absolutely love to read books. Some of your favorites are Baby Sign books, Goodnight Moon, Polar Bear Polar Bear, Listen Peter Rabbit, 10 Little Ladybugs... I can't think of others right now. You can entertain yourself for a long time with books, and you even pretend to read them to yourself.


* You like playing with forks and spoons.


* You can walk. In the last two weeks you've started walking more than you crawl.


* You're starting to learn how to feed yourself. Sometimes you will feed yourself foods but you'll refuse the same foods if we try to feed them to you.


* You just learned how to drink through a straw.


* We're not really sure if you say words yet. You make lots of sounds and you imitate us sometimes. You might say mama and dada, you've copied the word "gracious," you say "tick tock" when we change your diaper, and you've said "two" when we count. But we're not sure how many of your words are real and how many are just copies of sounds we're making. I am pretty sure you do know the word "bye," though. You say it when people leave, even if they just leave the room to go upstairs.


* You like to take baths in the "big boy" tub and you have figured out how to get out of your bath ring and stand up.


* You don't really know how to color or draw. You are more interested in tasting the crayons and markers.


* You know how to give hugs and kisses but you don't do it very much.


* You know some of your body parts. You know your head, teeth, and belly. We're trying to teach you chest and nose. You know where other people's noses are.