15 1/2 months... and FINALLY talking!!

Yep, you read correctly. We were hesitant to announce the latest milestone, but after 3 days in a row of John Dickson's new words (plural!!), we are convinced. Little man's very first word(s)...

"All done"

We always knew he would go straight from no talking to complete sentences. All done is something we've been working with him on for 8 or 9 months, but we were trying to teach him the signs for it, not the words. While he never really did do the signs, he definitely understood what it meant and if he really was all done, up his arms would go, and if he was just taking a break, he would grab some food really quick and shove it in his mouth. Then out of the blue, those words popped out of his mouth after dinner on Friday, again after lunch on Saturday, and yet again after breakfast this morning. The first time he said it, I just heard this sweet little "all" and I started freaking out and saying "all done" several times, and then he repeated it 2 or 3 times. We figured since he didn't seem interested in "mama" or "dada" being his first words, that his first words would be food related, but I always figured it would be "more" or "nana" (for banana), or even "milk" or "juice"... but no... "all done." Go figure.

The other word we suspect John Dickson is saying is "shoes." THIS is not surprising. That boy has a shoe fettish. And he will bring you his shoes and turn around and scoot back to sit in your lap for you to put them on. He has also been saying "shoes" since about Friday, but we aren't 100% about that one, as "shoes" is a sound he makes a lot but has recently starting saying it particularly with shoes. "All done" is completely new.

Also in his vocabulary is "uh oh," but we really aren't ready to give him credit for that one yet, as he doesn't really say it at the appropriate times. Kind of like "mama" and "dada"... comes out of his mouth, but for no real reason. Hopefully those are coming soon though! I'm just glad he never cried "mama" when we had to start letting him cry himself to sleep, because I never would have survived that. And we would still be rocking him to sleep for an hour every night. Which brings me to my next topic...

We are so incredibly beyond lucky to have the sleeper we do! John Dickson starting sleeping through the night pretty early, and even when he was a newborn, he would frequently sleep 2 1/2 hours or so at a time. That doesn't sound like much, but when a newborn has to eat every 2 to 3 hours, and ours was almost always 3 hours, that extra hour makes a world of difference. Imagine the first 4 weeks with never getting more than 1 1/2 hours of consecutive sleep - that would be tough! Makes 2 1/2 sound pretty good... but I digress.

We always hate having to put John Dickson back in daycare, for obvious reasons, but one of the minor ones is his sleep patterns. When he doesn't have to get up in the morning, he frequently sleeps until 8:30. When he has to go to daycare, he has to get up between 7 and 7:30. So on the weekends, he gets up at the time he is use to. However, this time around, that little man sleeps in later than we do! Despite waking up at 7 all week, yesterday and today John Dickson slept in until 9:00. And we LOVE IT!!! Now if we could just get Ellie to sleep in...

John Dickson has started doing something else that is pretty cute... he is (sort of) blowing kisses. He puts his hands over his mouth and blows (without moving his hands away from his mouth). It's so sweet! He also does this clicking thing with his tongue, and if you do it to try to get him to mimic you, he smiles and closes his eyes like he really has to think about it, and then he gets to clicking.

Let's talk about my dear husband. When John Dickson was little little, I would always kiss him on the mouth, while Adam would refuse. At one point I think he even said "but he's a dude!" Well, well, well... now that John Dickson is actively giving kisses, Adam has changed his tune drastically. We love to kiss John Dickson goodnight, and when it is my turn to put him to bed, Adam lingers around just so he can make sure he gets that goodnight kiss. You may not know this, but Adam is tall. He has the unfair benefit of being able to lean over the crib and kiss John Dickson who is all tucked in and laying down. I, on the other hand, cannot. So the other day, I lowered the railing just to sneak in a kiss, and this is what Adam says to me... dead serious... "Hey, that's our thing! You can't steal it!" There are no words.

We have a lot more fun stories, but it's naptime, and the only time I have to clean the floors... so until next time, remember to watch The Bachelorette finale tomorrow night!!!!