Carson Anthony: 17 Months

Carson is 17 months...that's a month away from a year and a half!  How is this happening so fast?!  

  

What Carson Loves Right Now: 

-Carson loves putting things in containers (and taking them out again).  We saved some old Powerade caps and he LOVES putting them into an old wipes box and then dumping it and starting again.
-Carson loves building towers.  He has been practicing building towers with his favorite blocks for a while, but now he's started to make towers with other things too.  One of his favorite things to do while I'm in the kitchen is make a tower with our can koozies.  {What do you call those things?  My husband and I had a long discussion and ended up googling and it turns out there are so many different names....one being "coldy holdy"!}
-Carson still loves reading books.  During play time he will run over and get a pile of books and then run back and plop himself in my lap.  I love it!  He also has quite a few favorite books.  He has some of his favorite stories memorized.  He has become very interactive too!  For example, if we turn to a page with cows (even the tiniest cows in the background), he will moo and point.  So cute!  He does this without me even prompting!  He also does other adorable things.  There is one book with a "peekaboo" baby hiding behind a hat and Carson always covers his own face with his hands and says "gone!"  I just love his interaction with the stories!
-Carson loves animals.  Chip and Dixie are really good with Carson, but they're small so it's not like he can climb on them or anything.  A few days ago when we were at my aunt's house, he was in LOVE with their black lab.  He would just sit next to him on the floor and crack up the whole time while petting him.  :)
-Carson still loves balls.  If we go somewhere and there is an unattended ball, he will immediately grab it and usually hold on to it for the whole time.  He even will try to collect multiple balls!  So far, he hasn't taken balls from other kids which makes me happy but I'm sure that's in our future!  He is still obsessed with basketball hoops and continues to point every one out during our walks around the block!

ball collector!

first blanket fort!

-Carson's favorite foods would be bananas, peanut butter sandwiches, cheese, and oatmeal cream pies.  Yes, oatmeal cream pies.  I know they aren't the healthiest.  I got them for myself for a snack and made the mistake of giving him a tiny taste once.  Now whenever he hears that crinkly plastic wrapper he RUNS over signing more!  How can you resist?!  :)

What I Love Right Now: I'm loving Carson's personality (still)!  He is really starting to express himself (even if it isn't through words).  His latest thing is grabbing our hand and pulling us to where he wants to go.  I love that he has favorite toys/books and gets so excited when we get them out.  He has started to be a little more snuggly at times too.  He will sit still for multiple books and HAS to be on my lap (which I love).  The other night he woke up crying in the middle of the night (which, thankfully, almost never happens).  Since it never happens we were worried and went right in to check on him.  HUGE crocodile tears.  :'(  We brought him in our room and he was so cuddly!  Normally he immediately tries to hop off the bed but this time, he insisted on sitting ON me the whole time.  When he finally decided to move I was sure he was going to try to escape but he curled right up next to me with his head on my shoulder.  Seriously my favorite thing ever!  He slept with us the whole night and he looked like the top middle picture here:

Front and center at story time!  He loves it!

being silly :)

Carson helping feed the dogs (aka pouring food on the ground!)

Some of our Biggest Struggles: I would say one of our biggest struggles is Carson's lack of communication skills.  He knows exactly what he wants but doesn't have the words to tell us yet and it REALLY frustrates him.  He has resorted to pulling us wherever he wants to go (high chair, outside, upstairs, etc.) but if we don't go where he wants us to go he gets SO upset.  I'm trying to use words with him in hopes that he'll be able to verbalize his wants and needs soon!

Someone got into Mommy's coupons!

Exciting Milestones & Physical Changes: Carson has added a few new words (yay!): "truck" & "trash".  He doesn't always use all of his vocabulary all the time, but when he does it's adorable!  It seems like he adds words to his vocabulary but then doesn't use some of his old words.  The words he uses most often are definitely "wawa" (water), "daw" (dog), "up", "gone", and "Da" (Dada).  His complete word list is below.

Carson also 2 more molars (bottom one years) so he now has 4 molars!  All together he has 10 teeth now!  I don't see any others coming through yet but he constantly is drooling and has his hands in his mouth.  Maybe it's still the molars.

17 Month Word List:

• "all gone"/"all done"
• "gone" (always with upturned hands and a shrug)
• "done"
• "up" (sometimes sounds like "uhhhh")
• "Mama" (not very often still)
• "Dada"
• "daw" (dog)
• "bird"
• "book"
• "ball"
• "vroom vroom"
• "duck"
• "wawa" (water)
• "shoes"
• "truck"
• "trash"

Animal Sounds: Cow, Elephant, Pig, Fish, Duck (although it doesn't sound like a quack...more like "duck! duck! duck!")

Body Parts He Can Identify: Head, Hair, Ears, Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Tongue, Fingers, Feet, Toes, Tummy, Belly Button, Knees.  

Things We're Looking Forward To: I'm excited to get Carson into his adorable Halloween costume!  We're hoping to do a few different activities so we can get some good use of the costume.  Some of our ideas are Boo at the Zoo, Library Costume Ball, and Trick or Treat (haven't decided if we're actually going out or not yet)!

I'm also excited for Carson to add more words to his vocabulary.  Watching him learn is so much fun and it's really exciting to see him be able to express himself!

Costume shopping!