17 months old

Last Friday Zackary turned 17 months old. He continues to grow physically and mentally. He learns new things everyday that amazes us. By chance I tried the above mittens on him thinking, "ya right he'll have those off in a minute." No...they are apart of our morning walk now. He loves them! It's too cute. He is jibber jabbing more trying to figure it out...and I think he's trying to say doggie. He is running and not as upset if he falls as he used to be. There is another tooth coming in (bottom right) which makes it a grand total of 7 teeth now! He gives hugs and kisses all day long and if we are playing hide and seek or chase (his two favorite things right now) he ends the game by running into mommies arms for a hug.

Sometimes it seems like he forgets his toys are there for him to play with. He walks around trying to find new things of ours to get his hands onto. When I remind him that Zackary has toys lets go play with them...a light bulb comes on and he runs to his toys and starts playing. He really understands a lot of what I am saying, except if it's time to clean up. Then he conveniently has absolutely no idea what I am saying. He helps make the bed by bringing me the pillows and then demands to get on the bed to roll around! Music...he loves music. He waits for me to play his morning tunes and evening tunes and he'll stop playing with his toys to turn music on and then start playing again.

He loves to stack this one dinosaur puzzle that he has. If he can't do it right he gets mad and starts throwing everything behind him...which is his new de-stressor. Anytime he gets frustrated he does this. We talked to his pediatrician and she said as long as he's not throwing it at someone on purpose then don't worry. Just don't laugh at it, she said. You just have to make sure you are not sitting behind him. I know he's just getting frustrated and can't verbally talk about it.

Our second visitor of the month was Ben's mom. She stayed with us for 2 weeks and helped us babysit while we were at work. Her and Zackary bonded and they had a good time together. It was really nice having her here with us. We really appreciated all of her help.

Zackary's Eczema is a bit better. I stopped giving him acidic foods for now and withheld wheat from his diet for a week. I think it helped. I am slowly incorporating it again and we will see what happens. He isn't itching at all and really is patient with all the creams we lube him up with several times a day.

Ben and I took Zackary down to the beach yesterday and because it was hot and beautiful out there were kids everywhere. He had fun walking up to them all playing in the sun and watching what they were doing. A 3 year old boy named Lucas befriended us all. He was a very social and interested boy. When his mom came down to check on him she knew all about Zackary because he had went and told her...7 teeth, a year and a half old and his name is Zackary...it was funny.
Zackary has this one yellow shovel that he loves. He just walks all around trying to dig with it but really is just hitting the sand. And the ocean doesn't scare him...he just walks right into it. There were an abnormal amount of shells at our beach which I have never seen before. I enjoyed looking through them to see what I could find. A intact baby sand dollar...and more. It reminded me of our days when Ben and I lived in Monterey.

Persistant Little Bumps...

Well after leaving the doctors office the other day and letting Zackary have his first lolly pop his rash on his nose got way worse spreading to his cheeks and legs. The following day Ben took him to a dermatologist who diagnosed him not only with Eczema but Impetigo. I don't think he has impetigo I don't see it...but the rash definitely isn't normal. We had our carpets cleaned not long ago and cleaned up some mold in the living room that has been there for a very long time so I am concerned the carpet cleaning made it worse. I have been really upset about it. I know it could be worse, I know that it will be ok, but I have tried protecting him, feeding him organically, breastfeeding, and so forth so it's frustrating to have this happen. We are going to hopefully be seeing a better doctor this week...to find out more. I might take out wheat for a week or two and see what happens.
So our first hiccup with many more to come I am sure.

First Lolly Pop

We took Zackary to the doctors today for a rash on his nose and cheeks. She thought it was clogged pores but wants us to take him to a dermatologist. Oh great my 16 month old already has clogged pores..he's going to take after my clogged pores that I've been battling since puberty!

Because he always cries when his ears are looked at and heart and lungs are listened to and he is weighed and well you catch my drift, I decided we needed a positive distraction, something to make going to the doctors not such a bad thing. And there it was in front of my nose...suckers! "They are sugar free," says the nurse as she noticed me eying them. He loved it! He was gentle at first with it, and by the time we got to the car he was trying to bite it. We finally had to take it away due to his lack of teeth. Then 10 minutes later he noticed that his fingers were way sticky and didn't like that. He held his fingers up, spread apart and whined. It was all so cute. His first lolly pop, silly, simple and fun moments!

To the Ocean

We are fortunate to have several wonderful guests visiting us for over a month and mommy is lucky to have an adult to have some good social time with. Right now Ben's mother is in town for two weeks. Zackary was having so much fun with her last night before bed...showing her all his toys and laughing at any weird sound out of her mouth. Today we walked down to the beach, which I need to do more of. The weather, waves and sun were all perfect. Off came Zackary's shoes and straight to the water he ran. There were a lot of small puddles that he played in along the way but he would have kept walking straight into the ocean to the pelicans out in the distance if it wasn't for me stopping him. He was soaked and in turn I was soaked. We had a great time. Grandma was watching in the background with amusement.

Our Comedian

Denmark

Sadly our good friend from Denmark just left us yesterday. She unfortunately showed up the week of the worst rain I have seen in a long time. But it brought a lot of excitement down at the beach and memories we won't ever forget. On the first day of the intense rain we were lucky that the sun came out late afternoon. We decided to go show Zackary the crazy surf below. He loved it. It was like a wild horse being let out to gallop after crazy winds...it was so fun to watch him! We had a great week with MS and only wish we could still have her here with us. Zackary blew her kisses at the end of her stay-precious!

There were tons of surfers inside the jetty-quite a sight to see. I have only seen that many once or twice before here.

Zackary has become a real character this past month. He is blowing kisses, throwing EVERYTHING behind him, copying what I do, FINALLY sleeping better, eating all his veges including lima beans, kale, and basically anything I give him. He was introduced to Tilapia and loved it and decided that turkey bolognase and lentil soup are some of his favorites. He will lay on my belly and give me a hug, and if I say one more hug..he gives me another, and this continues for about 5 hugs! I love it!
His sleep routine is so much better...he wakes up at 6 now-ya! I put him down to rest from 9-10 but he usually doesn't fall asleep. At 12 is his real nap, and he sleeps between 1-2 hours. Then he is in bed at 6 and he's ready. But with this new schedule finally settling in a bit he's become happier especially in the evening. He gets real silly...laughs at everything and has a great time.
I hope the routine lasts for a week or two before it gets all twisted in circles again!!

No Sleep

Zackary's decided that it would be okay to wake up at 2:30-3AM most mornings and not cry but make moaning noises every once in awhile. Every moan wakes me up. We check to make sure he is dry (our other problem...he's sometimes wet in the middle of the night) which only reinforces him being awake. Then we close the door so we can attempt to continue our middle of the night sleeping while he remains awake until 6AM!
He is also in the process of giving up his two naps a day (hard on mama) and going down to one middle of the day nap. Now why didn't anyone tell me about this whole nap thing...oh wait actually maybe I was warned by a good friend OI but I didn't believe her. His one nap a day is only lasting about 1-2 hours and by 5-6PM he's tired and ready for bed.
He used to sleep great...6PM-6AM and 2 naps...not anymore.
The pros weren't kidding when they said you'll get one routine down and then they switch it up on you...yep that's happening.