Sixteen Months Old

A few cute pictures from today:







Wow! Hard to believe Harrison is sixteen months old today. It seems like he should still be a baby, but he is definitely all little boy at this point.

On Saturday he flipped himself out of his crib. It's a new crib, we are using his old one as our travel crib now because he just won't sleep in the pack-n-play anymore. This one is just a bit shorter on the mattress-to-rail span, and clearly it made a difference. I left him in his room for a nap and he was pretty mad at me. Normally he will calm down about 30-60 seconds after I leave and just go to sleep. This time, by the time I got downstairs to turn on the monitor I heard a very loud thud and knew immediately what it was. As I was racing upstairs, sure that he had broken his neck, his bedroom door came flying open and he came running out crying.

I have no idea how he did it or how he landed (on his head? Olympic-quality dismount onto his feet? who knows!) but was so happy to see his little face come running at me. We were both upset but thankfully that is all...no visible injuries. I did go out and buy a gate for his door that day, so if he does this again (and he hasn't yet) at least he can't beat me to the stairs!

We got a few new videos for Harrison to watch as his evening wind-down, and he really, really likes them a LOT! They are "Baby Signing Time" and basically are sign language teaching videos for kids. He will take the remote and point it at the TV to try and turn it on, and bring those videos to me and motion that he wants to watch them. He does this quite a bit, which he hasn't ever done before. Here he is trying to turn on the TV today:



Between our reinforcement of some of the basic signs and his time watching these, he has picked up on a few signs. He definitely knows water and uses it quite a bit. I think he knows milk, but since he doesn't really ever ask for milk and really only ever wants water, he doesn't use it. We are working on mastering food, hungry, and a few other key ones so that he doesn't get as frustrated when he can't convey what he wants. Harrison's new thing is more climbing.

He now likes to climb onto one of the living room chairs by scaling the side and flopping over the arm. It looks like it is an impossible task when he starts, but somehow he muscles his way up. The best part is that he will do it like fifteen times in a row (really!!) and laugh the whole time until he wears himself out.

What a nut!

He also likes to do the same thing upstairs in his playroom with the blue couch. There he stands on a coffee table and jumps over the arm of the couch and crashes down to do it all over again. I don't really want him jumping on furniture, but it is almost impossible to stop because he just gets so mad if you pull him away from it. My solution is to move outdoors when he starts, but during our rainy days this week that wasn't really an option, so I just let him go. He will actually work up to a sweaty head and flushed face so at least it is wearing him out!

See for yourself...I had to edit the video or it would show you that he did this over, and over, and over!



Sitting in the kitchen chairs is a favorite of his as well:



Yesterday I took Harrison to Target for a couple of things and he decided to be a clown. He actually made these two teenagers laugh as they walked by, and then he laughed because he knew he had made them laugh. It was pretty funny.



After that we went to Barnes & Noble to play with the trains since it was all wet out from the rain. He had quite a good time as you can see!



Tonight we went to dinner with our friends Ben and Karen and their son Shane. He and Harrison had fun playing outside together. Here are some pictures from this evening: