Caleb James

How Caleb is 18 months old today, I have no idea.  Wow, time has been flying by and my little baby is growing up.  I was warned this would happen!  :) 

Here are a few facts and photos of our precious 18 month old. 

Factoids
Caleb is 11.8kg (26lbs) and is 80cm (31.5in) tall.  From looking online he seems to be in the 25th  percentile for length and around 50th percentile for weight!  :)  

He has 16 teeth right now, the newest 4 on either side of his middle four teeth, so the gap is filling in.

Play
He loves to play, and we love to watch him play.  He can play alone, but he loves playing with others, or at least being in the same room as us.  He's a pro at the puzzles we have out for him, in fact, I need to find more difficult ones for him.  He does a great job stacking his blocks as well, although he usually can't stack past five without them tipping.  He is also very fast with his shape sorter, although the cross continues to trick him everytime, but then he remembers... "Oh, this is that tricky one" and gets it.  :)  I'm finally convinced he can identify the triangle, and even says it.  I've been working on circle and square as well, but so far, no luck. He's just recently started to color (vs. only eating the crayons).  It's fun watching his fine motor skills develop!

Caleb continues to love animals.  Stuffed animals are some of his favorites, but really he loves anything with animals - magnets, puzzles, books, you name it.  He hugs his stuffed animals, but especially his dogs.  He loves his "doggy" and cuddles them all the time.  His favorite animals seem to be dog, bear, horse, and cat. 

Caleb is getting old enough to really enjoy playing with other kids, especially his cousins.  He adores Canaan and Max.  In fact, when they aren't around, he wants to see pictures of them or videos of them.  He now plays cars, and I'm sure it's because they play cars.  He copies what they do and does not want to be left out.  So if they have straw cups, he wants a straw cup.  If they're in big chairs, he wants to be in a big chair. 

He continues to love his bath.  If you haven't watched his video in the bath, you should.  You can find it here.  He enjoys splashing and likes putting his ears under water by laying back in the tub.  David pours the water over his head when he rinses out the shampoo, and he seems to enjoy that too... it's one of those "I love this! Or do I?" kind of things I think. :)

He loves playing with his balls in our long, open hallway.  He's even trying to kick them on occasion, which is cute (another trait learned from the cousins!).  He really likes music and dances whenever he hears a tune.  He's just recently started to try to sing along with us, or a part of a song (ex. row, row, row) to get us to sing to him.

He loves buttons and calls them "no."  Yes, it's probably because the first few he was attracted to where off limits.  And it stuck!  He also enjoys talking on our doma phone (when people come to our apartment, they have to call up for us to let them in).  I'm pretty sure all our neighbors think we're crazy when he hear him on the speaker downstairs, but our guests think it's cute!  :)

Caleb continues to grow in his independence, but I really see him learning to obey more and more each day.  There's always room for improvement, but he's a good boy!

Reading
Caleb went through a "I don't want to take time to read" phase and he's finally out of it somwhat.  He sits through books pretty well, but we go pretty quickly and most of the time we don't read the words, we shorten it.  He has his favorites still, especially the interactive books that have movable parts.  And, of course, any animal book can keep his attention for a long time!  We can ask him all sorts of animals or objects and he will find them on the page, even if he hasn't previously found them. 

Talking
Caleb is a walking chatter box.  He jabs and jabs all the time, and occasionally throws in a real word or two.  It's super cute!  He's got quite a few words under his belt, something like 40+ including: bear, dog, mama, daddy, bite, cracker, drink, more, up, ball, duck, help, up, turtle, button, bye-bye, paka (Russian for bye), thank you, spaciba (thank you in Russian), Max, Katie, Polina, GranNan, Bible, pat, Einstein, bunny, deer, penguin, ut-oh, hot, M&M, egg, peas, this, and bottle.  There are more, those are just what I can think of off the top of my head!

He continues to learn new animal sounds all the time, around 25.  He even made up a sound for a giraffe!  He says most words, but does sign "please," "all done," "drink," "ball," and "more."  Although most of those words he says as well.  The other day he randomly started signing "table" and "book" from his Baby Einstein and was so proud of himself! 

He also has started putting two words together, like "Daddy up." 

Eating
Caleb is a drinker.  He still gets (although it's about to come to an end) a 4-5 oz bottle in morning after he wakes up and right before he goes to sleep at night.  The rest of the day he chugs juice and water in his straw cup. 

He continues to love vegetables and usually prefers them over anything else.  He eats basically everything we eat, which is great and super easy.  No food allergies that I know of yet!  He's also getting better at using a utensil, although he still doesn't have it down yet.    

On the Go
Caleb no longer walks, he runs throughout the house... as fast as his little legs can go!  He's fast, which can be dangerous.  He's also started carrying or pushing stools around the house to use for climbing and reaching whatever used to be beyond his reach (yikes!).  He's clever, that's for sure.  He can also walk backwards down the hallway and tries to skip with his dad, but doesn't quite get his feet off the ground.  He loves playing on our beds, rolling, sitting in between our pillows, hiding under the covers... the bed is fun.  He also enjoys his slide, he can climb up the back or up the slide, and slides down on his side, tummy, bottom, head first, you name it.

He's also pretty good at going to get things that stay in the same spot.  I'd love it if he could find his own sippy cup, but is never in the same place!  He also puts things back when he gets something he's not supposed to (even if he has to take it back into another room).  He is also great at cleaning up his toys.  We usually work together, but he sticks to it and is a great helper!  In fact, he enjoys helping me clean.  One day he spit up a little, went and got a wipe from his drawer and was smearing it around before I even noticed!  He enjoys running the vacuum with me, dusting, etc.  However, he's best at making messes.  :) 

Even though he's on the go all the time, he still makes time for cuddles and kisses.  I don't think he could make David or I feel any more special when we walk in the door after being gone.  When we ask for a kiss, he always smiles and runs to give it.  He's even good at kissing his friends or blowing kisses goodbye.  I'm so thankful to have an affectionate boy!

Sleep
Caleb is a great sleeper!  He usually goes down between 8:30-9:00pm and wakes up around 6:30am.  In the last couple weeks, he's made the transition to one nap in the daytime  It's usually between 2-3 hours, more often 3.  He needs all 3 hours. 

Potty Time
And lastly, Caleb is currently on day 7 of potty training.  He is not one of those kids that just "gets it" right away.  It has been a chore, and honestly, I feel like I'm more potty trained that he is right now.  But, he goes when we stick him on the potty, it's just a matter of getting him there before he has an accident.  He says "potty" really well, but we're still working on teaching him to say it when he needs to go.  He still sleeps in diapers since he hasn't been waking up dry, but I'm not concerned about that. There is definite improvement, and he's doing really well.  And so are we.  Potty training is not for the faint-hearted!!!

Well, thats our little eighteen month old in a short blog post.  Of course, he's much cuter in person,so you just need to come over (or jump on a plane) to come see us!  :)

Since Caleb was little, David has been the main parent to bathe him.  They have heaps of fun in the bath, much more fun than he would have had with just me.  You see, David lets him stand in the bath, splash to his heart's content... all things I probably would have said "no" to.  I'd say David even encourages the splashing since before Caleb's bath David changes into his own board shorts and take his socks off!!  :)

As you'll see on this short video, we have a huge bathtub. It's actually a little large for our bathroom, but it is super fun for a toddler.  It's almost like his own little swimming pool.  And it's deep (which helps with the wild splashing!). 

A couple nights ago, when I was bathing him, Caleb started putting half of his head (mainly one of his ears) under water.  The next bath, he got more adventurous with his daddy and leaned his head back to completely submerge his two ears.  We think he liked the sound, because he kept doing it over and over again! 

So, here's a short clip of our little fish in the bathtub:

(download)

Click here to download:

IMG_1059[1].qt (59.21 MB)

It's been cooollllldddd here in Kharkov... finally.  We really had some mild winter months in November and December, then half-way through January winter decided to show it's face and brrr! it's cold!  Thankfully, we got some good snow right about that time that has stuck.  In my opinion, snow makes cold weather OK. 

But it has been cold.  We're talking around -2F (-18C) with a wind chill of -21F (-29C).  So if we go out, it's for very small trips and we are bundled up.  Ukrainians insist on taking your children outside every day, but not in this weather.  Schools are even closing because of the cold.  So, we've been playing inside and are thankful for our car when we do need to get out.   

Caleb has been experiencing snow "for the first time."  Of course, it's not really his first time, but the first time he can actually experience it.  He loved seeing the big flakes come down and now he asks several times during the day to be put up on our window sills so he can see the "no" (snow).  We went out last week and played in it which was fun. Here is a video of his deep snow adventures:

(download)

Click here to download:

IMG_1031.MOV (64.65 MB)

We also met up with Lucy, Canaan, and Max to try out sledding. It was so cold, I don't think we were even out there for 30 minutes.  Max is not a snow lover, so he and I ended up huddling together while Canaan and Caleb played. You can see how red their cheeks are in the pictures. Here are some pictures of Caleb enjoying the snow over the last couple weeks:

(download)

Click here to download:

snow-days-avdHizkczFvddAaIppGa.zip (29.56 MB)

And here is a video of Caleb's first sled ride with his cousin Canaan:

(download)

Click here to download:

IMG_1003.MOV (26.68 MB)

Caleb was given many stuffed animals when he was born (plus we already had some).  Well, he adores them.  His favorite are a stuffed bear (he says "bey-ah" really well) and a small puppy dog (that is sometimes "dau" but more often just "oof oof").  We even let him sleep with one or the other on occassion.  Without fail, a stuffed animal will put a smile on his face and he loves cuddling with them.  His cuddling isn't just limited to stuffed animals (although those are his favorite), he loves playing and cuddling in our bed with the pillows, or with his own pillows, or in his little cabinet filled with his baby blankets.  He even has a quilt Ernestine Maynard made him that has bears sewn on it which is just double-fun! 

Here Caleb is playing with his bear nearby:

(download)

Click here to download:

IMG_0847[1].qt (74.66 MB)

I'm three weeks late posting an update about Caleb... but, I still wanted to send out an update about what he's doing nowadays!  Really, he has been growing up so fast.  He's picking up on things so quickly, adding a new word to his vocabulary almost every day.  It's so much fun to watch him grow!

Factoids
Caleb is 9.84kg (21.7lbs) and is 77cm (30.3in) tall.  From looking online he seems to be in the 50th percentile, so I guess he's about average in weight and height!  It seems like he's put on a lot of that weight just in the last few weeks.

For the most part, he's wearing his size clothing (12 month or 12-18 month - although that's a really big gap, so some are just huge and he'll have to grow a bit more for them).  We really flew through 9-12 months clothes because he fit in his 6-9 months ones for so long, but that ended up being ok because he didn't have a lot of that size. 

He has seven teeth right now, four along the top, and three on the bottom (two in the middle, one on the right).  His smiles are super cute with those teeth too! 

Play
It's so cool to see how independent he's become in his play.  He's all over the house getting into everything, but most often he's in the same room with us because he likes our company.  He's beginning to like puzzles more. It's neat to see him take all the pieces out and he's even starting to attempt to put them back on the puzzle.  He likes moving things from one spot to another (usually from in front of him to behind him, but sometimes he walks along the couch moving whatever it is). He also does pretty well throwing a ball forward.

He loves balls, empty bottles, crawling around his pop-up-tent car, making music and dancing to the music, playing and kissing his stuffed animals, knocking over his rubber blocks, etc..  He's still not really into cars, but occassionally he'll grab one and zoom it around.  His favorite thing to do with toys is still... eat them.  :)

He enjoys playing with Dad, they have various rituals between them, but he especially loves being chased by Dad.  He's recently been more of a momma's boy, which I'm enjoying. I know I'll be replaced soon by dad, so I'm loving the extra cuddles and kisses!

One of Calebs favourite times of the day is bath time.  As soon as his dad asks him if he wants to take a bath, he rushes to the bathroom or reaches up for you to take him, and starts repeating bah, bah, bah... (for bath).  We have a dozen or so bath toys for him to play with (some we had for our nephews, others we bought, and some that were given to Caleb as gifts), but Caleb usually prefers to just play with the empty shampoo bottles.  He has some pretty cool bath toys, but niothing beats a plastic bottle.  He loves the water and his dad really encourages it.  They turn on the faucet and splash each other, and just generally splash around in the water. 

Caleb is really a well behaved boy.  For the most part he obeys us, especially when we tell him not to touch something.  Still, he's curious and learning and we still have to discipline him.  He does have that stubborn streak in him!

Reading
Caleb is into the "I'd rather read by myself" phase.  That's ok with me because he still enjoys books a lot.  He will still sit down and read with me, but not for as long as he did before.  We now speed-read through books.  He's liking interactive books more as well, which he thinks is especially fun if he can rip off the flaps.  So, those books are now stored out of his reach and we only read them together (and he still is too quick for me sometimes!). 

Talking
Caleb is becoming quite the talker.  He is understanding more and more every day which makes conversation more fun and it makes it easier when we're training him on what he's allowed to do and what is off limits.  Oftentimes (although not everytime, sadly), he alerts us to the fact that he's near and thinking about touching something he's not allowed to touch by breaking out in "no-no-no-no" while shaking his head.  The light switches here are lower and he's now tall enough to turn them off.  We don't allow him to, but one day while his GranMary was here she jokingly turned the light out on David's dad while he was in the bathroom.  Caleb saw her do it and immediately broke out in "No-no-no-no!" 

Here's Caleb's newest list of words:
Bye-bye        Ma-ma        Da-da        Dog (dow)        Bear (Ber)        Bath (Ba)        Book (boo)        Up (Uh)        More (mow)        Boo (as in peek-a-boo)        Hi (sounds like "eye")        Ball (baw)        No (often no-no-no-no)        Don't touch (doe ta)        Ta-da! (ta- da! or da-da or da-ta!)        E-I-E-I-O (i-ya-ya-ya-o)        Uh-oh (Uu-oh)        Drink (nee)        Yumm (numm)        Fish (iss)        Night-night (nye-nye - which he says when he's ready)        Hey (aye)        Bath (bah)

He also signs "more,"  "all-done," "drink," and he learned "ball" all by himself from his Baby Einstein movie!  He also enjoys clapping when he's done something or with everyone.  He's also giving kisses (even saying maaa sometimes with the open-mouth kiss) to us and his stuffed animals.  He also enjoys blowing rasperries on us from time to time!      

I've mentioned this before, but Caleb loves animals.  Real and stuffed.  He has a pretty nice collection of stuffed ones, plus he was given several farm things with animals for his birthday.  He now says the sounds for dog (woof), sheep (baa), elephant (he's only done it once, but I know he knows it - he lifts his arm and says oooo!), cow (moo), duck (ah-ah-ah) and monkey (ah-ah-ah-ah - seems similar to duck in writing, but they do sound different!).

He's recently started singing with us, E-i-e-i-o is one of his favorites as well as The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Pat-a-Cake, and Pat, Pat, Pat Your Little Bible.  He does about half the hand motions with us when we sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider and pat-a-cake, which is really fun. 

Eating
Our little eating machine has slowed down since he turned a year old.  He still eats quite a bit, but a tiny bit less than he was eating a month ago.  I stopped breastfeeding the week after he turned a year old, but we now give him a 4oz bottle of formula in the morning and in the evening (this might have made the difference in his eating).  The rest of the day he drinks water or juice. 

Caleb's a great eater.  He's started to be a little more picky in what he wants, but mainly because he doesn't like eating the same thing day after day.  So, we're trying to give him more variety and he does well with that.  I'm so thankful he loves veggies and fruits as much as he does.  And, of course, bread is always a winner.  It's been nice to be able to add things like Honey Nut Cheerios and a few other things with honey to his diet, especially for snacks.   

The day after his birthday party he broke out in a pretty bad diaper rash and the only things I can think of that might have caused it was the chocolate cake or milk.  The rash is just about gone, so I'll re-introduce milk soon, and we might try chocolate again at some point, but just in a smaller amount.  This was really his first reaction to any food.  I'm so thankful he hasn't had bad rashes before, they aren't fun, especially because he tends to poo 4-6 times every day. 

On the Go
No, he's still not walking on his own. But, he's closer!  He will take one or two steps between us and the furniture, but it hasn't progressed into full walking.  He is a super fast crawler, so really I guess it shouldn't surprise me.  He is starting to prefer walking along things if he can, though, so that's great.   He also enjoys his walker.  We encourage his walking, but haven't pushed him to walk more.  I figure he'll walk when he's ready, and until then, I know I need to count my blessings!  :) 

He loves to climb on things - stairs, step stools, etc.  And he taught himself how to get down off of things (like a stair or even the couch) by turning around and going backward. We still keep an eye on him or a hold of his arm just in case, but he really is careful for the most part and does well on his own. This morning he climbed into his walker all by himself - completely inside and sitting properly.  He's a smart one! 

Sleep
Caleb is a great sleeper!  He usually goes down between 8:30-9:00pm and wakes up between 6:30-8:00am (the sun is coming up later, so now he is sleeping later!).  He takes two naps a day for usually 1.5-2 hours.  He goes down great everytime, we sing a short song and lay him down with his blanket and he rolls right over and goes to sleep.  He usually wakes up in a great mood, ready to play!

A week before Caleb turned one, our teammate Brandon took us out for a One Year photo shoot.  Here are some of my favorites from that day.  We are very blessed to have such a talented teammate and a cute little boy!

(download)

Click here to download:

one-year-and-3-weeks-BofzkeyIveoGypspaCyD.zip (16.56 MB)