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Height: 50th percentile
Weight: 25th percentile
Head: 70th percentile
Favorite food: cheese, cereal bars, yogurt
Favorite treat: yogurt covered raisins ("Ree! Ree! Reeeee!!!")
Favorite book: Baby Beluga
Favorite sport: running really fast
Favorite toy: stacking robots
Favorite hobby: coloring, running, singing, hiding and popping while yelling "surprise!"
Milestones: two nights spent in his big boy bed
Newest word: "rawbries" (strawberries)

He knows a ton of words now. Some of them are easy to understand (ie: "no", "mommy", "daddy", "down", "apple") and others need a little translation. I'd say probably 80% of the time he's babbling and the rest he's using intelligible words. If you're talking with him directly the babble percentage is much lower.

He knows most of his body parts. If you ask him where his mouth is, for example, he'll point to it and repeat the word.

If you say, "One..." he'll say, "Two, three!!"

He still wakes up at six every morning, and he thoroughly enjoys using drumsticks on Cael's head, so he's not entirely perfect - but he's close :)

This is what he has to say about being 1.5 years old (Okay, that's a lie. This is what he has to say about yogurt covered raisins):


password: Allie

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Cael spent about two and a half days steadfastly refusing to poop. The result was a lot of screaming, a lot of crying, a lot of discomfort and a lot of mess.

During this standoff, I may have made a number of promises.

"If you poop now, you can have ice cream for dinner!"

"If you poop now, we can go to the store and buy you a dinosaur!"

"If you poop now, you can go have corn dogs with Grandma T and Grandpa Paul!"

"If you poop now, you can eat my giant chocolate chip cookie that I've been saving! You can have the whole thing!"

None of these bribes worked. They didn't even give him a moment's pause. In the end, it was the pain and suffering that broke him.

He totally should have opted for the dinosaur instead.

Now, a few days later, these promises are coming back to him. Somehow he's convinced himself that they applied to all poops at all times. He hops on the toilet, does his business, hops off and proclaims, "Now it's time for corn dogs!" Or he sees my cookie on the counter and grabs it, informing me, "I get to eat this now because I pooped last morning."

I can't tell if he really doesn't get it or if he's just hoping I really don't get it.

Probably the latter.

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It turns out that the solution to Cael's sleeping troubles is Finn.

Cael, for the last... I don't know, forever, has had trouble sleeping. He would wake up at least twice a night crying hysterically and need comforting, or would make his way to our room and want to sleep with us in our bed. Some nights it would be six or seven times in an evening, and calming him down always took at least ten minutes.

After story time a few days ago Finn didn't want to get out of Cael's bed. Ryan suggested that he stay there for the night. Cael was not keen on that idea, but thought that Finn could bring his bed in Cael's room and that would be okay.

So we moved the crib in and it's been there ever since.

Cael hasn't woken up crying yet.

All this time we've been trying to keep them from bugging each other with their nightly fussing when really they just needed some company.

Now if only Cael could cure Finn of his need to wake up for the day before six in the morning - then we'd be in business!

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And his Lovely Assistant.

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