20 Months is a fun age - Most of the time

Thought I would do an update on my Little Guy. He's totally indoctrinated into Toddler-hood these days. What's fun about all of this is, this is the first time I've had a Toddler from the beginning! So, most of these things are new to both of us. It's so fun watching him grow up. It still feels surreal to know that I'm adopting him and I will get to watch him grow up to become a young man! He's such a blessing and he's so much fun! His little personality just shines.

Favorite Activities: 

• Lots of talking I don't understand, but I pretend to, and he acts so serious while he's talking to me about whatever he's talking about. 
• Toddler whining - trying to get him to "use his words". It's drama up in here sometimes. 
• How fast he can run away from me. He's there, then he's not! Maybe when he's older he should get into track. 
• He loves making fishy faces when eating Gold Fish or playing in the bath. 
• He likes crawling on the floor pretending to be a dog. 
• Hitting his head on anything and saying "ouch" - then laughing. I don't like this one very much... 
• Randomly falling and hitting his face, not on purpose and getting real "ouchie" moments.  
• Making his stuffed animals dance and talk. 
• Randomly licking stuff - like anything and everything. Yuck! 
• Jumping - or trying to. On the bed, on the couch, on a chair - on anything. 
• Trying to go up and down the stairs like a "big boy" - even if his legs are too short to reach up the steps. 
• Playing peek-a-boo & yelling "boo" when he pokes his head out. 
• Dancing like a sumo wrestler. 
• Blowing raspberries on Mommy. 
• Working on the "shock" face for everything & looking at me to make sure I have my "shocked" face on too.
• Chewing food and spitting it out - just because it's funny and makes the food look interesting.
• Saying "Cheese!" when taking pictures. 
• Going up the stairs when he should be going down. Going down the stairs when he should be going up. Laughing his head off when I'm chasing after him! 
• Being really good at the store and walking by mommy nicely. Then, out of no where -- runs down an aisle screaming at the top of his lungs. Leaving mommy to chase him, which he thinks is hilarious as he laughs and laughs and laughs until I finally get him. Then he looks confused when he's confined to the cart and not free to roam around. 

Chores/responsibilities: 

I didn't realize I was giving Little Guy "Chore" type responsibilities. But I guess I have! It's been working well thus far, he is at the age where he likes helping and doing things for himself. Hopefully it'll build good habits.

• Put clothes in the hamper 
• Put toys away while singing the "Clean Up" song 
• Put shoes away in basket 
• Get shoes when time to put them on 
• Putting diaper in the trash 
• New: Cup stays on cup holder on table - responsible for getting cup when thirsty and putting it back. 
• New: putting plate and cups in dishwasher (with help) - opening dishwasher, pulling trays out, placing items inside, then closing dishwasher. 

Choices:

I've also been giving Little Guy "Choices" when I can. He really enjoys looking at his options and then pointing one out that he wants. This has surprisingly been going really well.  

• Gets to choose "story time" book. Usually give the option between two. 
• Gets to choose PJ's and clothes. Option between two. 
• Chooses carnation packets to make.
• Chooses snack items. 

Parent Fails: 

We all learn as we go with this parenting thing. Here are a few things I learned recently with having a full fledged Toddler. 

• I was working on transitioning Little Guy to a booster chair and training on forks/spoons - at the same time. I thought it would be nice to have him sit at the table with me instead of sitting a little away with the tray table on his booster seat. Well, the first thing he does is STAB the table with his fork! My table now has some nice scratches on it. Needless to say, I'm now training him on utensils and we'll work on the "getting to eat at the table" thing later. 
• Usually, when Little Guy is ready to get up - he gets out of bed on his own. One morning I hear him whining, but not very loud. I look at the monitor and he's still in bed. So, I don't worry about it. 30 minutes goes by and he's still whining and in bed. I think, "that's weird and not like him." So, I finally go in the room and it turns out his foot was stuck in the crib portion of his toddler bed! He was stuck and couldn't get it out. That's why he was in bed. I felt bad, maybe should've checked on him sooner! 
• We had our "First poop incident". He was napping in his diaper and had a big poop. He was sitting there playing with it, taking it out of his diaper. I heard him on the baby monitor, but I couldn't see what he was doing as he had his back to the monitor. When I walked in, he held up his hand to me and they were covered by his poop. I was shocked and said, "Oh s***!" Bad move, he then started repeating the phrase over and over again. First Parent Fail: putting him in only his diaper for nap time. Second Fail: Word choices. 
• BUG BITES! Bugs just LOVE him! Ugh. I've been researching bug sprays for kids. He has a bad reaction to them and they end up swelling pretty big. Poor guy. Need to find a solution! 

Little Guy is growing up so quick!