Kaden 18 months

Kaden is a big 18 months old!  Yay!  We’ve been kind of dipping our feet in Nursery for a few weeks now.  He loves it while I’m there, as long as I’m not holding another child.  But when I have left, he notices.  And he’s not happy about it.  It might be a little rough transition.  Honestly though, I’m kind of not ready.  I’m not really ready to let someone else comfort him while he’s sad in there wanting me.  I want to comfort him and love on him when he wants me.  I’m not really ready to cut that attachment string.

I don’t have his official 18-month pictures yet because I have plans to update all the kids pictures along with Dylan’s baptism pictures but it’s hard to find an evening that isn’t crazy busy or raining/windy.  Soon!

Kaden is the best kid.  He is happy 95% of the time and only sad if he’s sick, or if it’s way past naptime or bedtime.  Or if you eat candy in front of him and don’t share.  Or if you try to take candy/soda away from him.  Otherwise he is happy as can be just hanging out around the rest of the family.  He will happily find something to play wherever the party is.  If I’m cooking in the kitchen, he will pull stuff out of the cupboards and carry pots around and put things in them, like he’s cooking too.  He loves to sit in the big chairs and do things at the table, like play dough.  Sometimes I will be in the kitchen with him and I will walk back to my bathroom.  After a minute when he realizes he’s alone, he will call out.  “Uh?”  He does that while looking around trying to find us.  So funny.  Then when we call back to him, he comes running with a smile.  He does that in his crib in the morning too.  He will often wake up and hang out in his crib for a long time.  Maybe he goes back to sleep, it’s hard to tell.  But when he decides he’s ready to come join the party, he calls to us with “uh?” 

He loves his crib and sometimes tries to jump from my arms into his crib when I’m not quite ready.  It’s funny because he will play happily past 9:00, on nights when I’m busy and exhausted (which have been more often lately) and just can’t get myself up to change him and brush his teeth (he HATES having his teeth brushed, and will scream during it.  But he is still smiling when I come at him with the toothbrush, and he smiles immediately afterwards, but acts like we’re torturing him during the actual brushing.)  So I let him stay up too late, and he’s happy just playing.  Then he hops into bed and goes down just fine.  And sometimes we need him in bed at 8, and he’s just fine then too.  He really is amazing at sleeping.  He naps an average of 3 hours every day.  And sleeps probably 12 at night.

He loves his blanket and pacifier.  But he doesn’t usually want his pacifier unless he has his blanket too.  I love the way he hold the edge of his blanket in his hands and twists it.  He loves to drag his blanket around.

He doesn’t do this anymore, but it’s worth noting because it was so cute.  It was probably around the time when he had a couple bouts of illness.  He was more cuddly then.  He would walk around with his blanket and hand it to you.  And once you took it, the expectation was that you would pick him up.  Sometimes Ryan would be holding him with his blanket, and he would be close to me so Kaden would hand the blanket over to me.  Then, of course, he would lunge toward me.  If you didn’t pick him up after accepting his blanket, he would get really sad.  Ryan and I started narrating for him. “Here, I have something for you…!”  In the it’s your turn to hold the cuddly baby kind of tone.  As tired as you may be at the end of the day, when a sweet little boy tries to hand you his blanket, you just accept it.  And the cuddles that come with it.

He LOVES water!  He will chug so much.  And he is constantly trying to steal any water bottles that he finds.  Not a big deal at home, other than when he pulls cups off the table and dumps them.  But at soccer games he will often pick up random bottles and try to drink from them.  We have to be on our toes.  We always have a water bottle when we are out and he drinks it often.  He plays with the kids Thermos water bottles with the button to pop the lid up.  He opens it and drinks it and closes it and totes it around.  He would probably like milk if we gave him cow’s milk.  But since we give him cashew milk (or sometimes almond, but he hasn’t liked coconut at all) he doesn’t go crazy for it.  He likes it okay, but often chooses water instead.

He loves bubbles!

He loves books.  Especially books about dogs.  He loves dogs.  He points outside saying, “da!”  Mostly when he hears a dog, but there was a period of time where he would say “da” while pointing out any window he saw.  The kids started saying “Kaden, where’s the dog?”  To which he would point to the window and say “da?”  He was so obsessed with dogs for a little while, that Ryan was excited when a lady came to the park with two dogs while he was there with Kaden and Sadie.  The dogs were young and rambunctious and jumpy.  Which made Kaden nervous.  So as excited as he was about the dogs, he ended up being all talk.  He’s moved on to say “ditty” for kitty.  And “woo” for what the dog says.  He loves animals.

He does not love it when Dylan tries to pick him up.  He squawks every time.  It’s kind of funny.  Dylan says, “it’s like an alarm”.  He lifts him slightly and he squawks loudly, but as soon as he releases him, he stops.  He lifts again, more squawking, again and again until we yell loud enough to get Dylan to stop.  Dylan loves playing with Kaden and it’s too bad Kaden doesn’t feel more secure in his arms because he really is trying to help.  But he doesn’t feel secure.

He loves balls and cars like most kids do.  He also enjoys playdoh.  They let him play with it in Nursery one Sunday and now he is always finding jars at home and begging me to open them.  He doesn’t eat it and doesn’t make too much of a mess either so it’s okay.  He loves finding cups and putting things in them.  Food is best, but he’ll settle for any little toy.  He pulled out a little tubberware the other day and put the last bit of his string cheese in it and carried it around.  He will find play spoons and bowls and pretend to stir things.

Recently I let him feed himself and he is now obsessed.  He wants to feed himself everything and he wants to use a spoon or fork for everything.  Let’s just say my kitchen floor is always sticky with lots of crumbs. 

I took him to the Dr for his check-up.  He’s a big boy, I think 85-90% for weight and 85% for height.  And his head is still 99%.  The nurse wrote the numbers down wrong I think, because his head was off the charts when the Dr showed me the graph.  So I think she got the weight % wrong too.  He might be above 90 in that.  He likes to eat!  But the good news is he eats healthy foods most of the time!  He will eat a lot of what we are eating.  Casseroles, tacos, chicken dishes, sausage dishes…  The other day he must’ve been starving because he was yelling at me when I set the dinner on the table.  The main chicken dish was too hot for him to eat yet but he was pointing at the tray of mixed veggies and slamming his plate.  So I put a variety of veggies on his plate.  He ate all of them, but the green bean was a bit too hard for him to bite so he tossed that aside.  Then he begged for more.  I put a few more on and he only ate the broccoli, tossed the rest after feeling them for a minute, and begged for more broccoli.  He ate quite a bit of it.  Funny kid.  He doesn’t seem to mind spice at all.  He dips his chips in salsa at Café Sabor.  He loves dipping.  I was eating steak with a chimichurri sauce and I had cut him a small piece.  He reached for the dip so I let him dip it in more sauce and he ate it and begged for more.  Sometimes I wonder if he even has taste buds…  I gave him chicken nuggets for lunch with a little ketchup.  He ate those so I gave him some raspberries.  He dipped the raspberries in the remaining ketchup.  Yuck.  But he just likes to dip.  He will beg for celery or carrots, dip them in ranch, lick the ranch off basically, and try to dip again.  He does attempt to chew the celery sometimes, but it’s hard to chew so he gives up and leaves a gnawed on piece on the table or floor.  Good times.

Funny enough, he doesn’t love the kinds of snack food most children do.  He has gone through phases where he likes crackers, but mostly just carries them around and nibbles now.  And sometimes he will eat dry cereal in his snack cup, but more often than not he will eat a little, then throw the rest.  He prefers dried fruit to grains.  Or granola bars, that are quite sweet of course, but only if he can have the whole thing to gnaw on and wander around.

Anyway, he hates the Dr.  I didn’t even allow them to give him any shots.  The Dr did nothing to hurt him.  But Kaden obviously has some clear memories of his stitches because he was mad!  After the Dr touched him for his exam, he wouldn’t stop crying and pointing to the door.  So I didn’t really get to talk to the Dr much other than telling him why I wasn’t going to do any vaccinations this time.  I will eventually give more shots.  But probably not for a good long time.  His body and mind need time to develop more and get better at detoxing. 

Ironically, the Dr had us fill out a screening for autism.  He had no signs of it whatsoever.  I am not claiming that he ever showed signs of autism.  What he showed is signs that his body doesn’t handle the onslaught of toxins and viruses and everything else on his immune system.  And that he possibly has a genetic factor that will cause him to have developmental/behavioral problems if he is continually exposed to bad things.

Kylee has heard Ryan and I talk about it. Ryan can’t seem to remember that Kaden isn’t supposed to have gluten.  He doesn’t drink cow’s milk, we limit his sugar.  And I’m trying to keep him off dairy.  Because those things cause inflammation, which keeps your immune system working constantly and unable to refresh and prepare for real threats.  Plus, kids with problems like ADHD or aspergers or autism tend to see major improvements when on the GAPS diet, which excludes those big three- gluten, dairy, sugar.  So as long as he’s small and at risk and until I feel better about his health in general, I think it’s a good idea.  Anyway, Ryan keeps forgetting.  And then he will remark, “he is so not autistic.”  He’s said it more than once.  Kylee has heard.  She’s also heard us talking about his language.  For the record, he’s on track as far as the Dr is concerned.  Their sheet says 18-month-olds should be able to say 5-15 words.  Kaden definitely says that many.  So he’s on track now, even if he took a step back at 13 months.  But I was showing Kylee the home videos of her at 18-months.  And her verbal skills are phenomenal.  She’s basically speaking sentences.  At least fragmented sentences.  So one night when Kylee was helping me put lunches together and everyone else was making their way to bed, she asked “is Kaden autistic?”  I said, “no, not at all.”  She says, “then why is he not talking more?”  It’s interesting how Kylee observes and processes more than I give her credit for.  I hope I don’t cause her any unnecessary stress.  I explained that he is normal, she was just exceptional.

I wish he were better at saying the kids’ names.  That would make them so happy.  He tries to say Sadie – Daydee, or Deedee.  He tries to say Dylan – Dida.  But he won’t even attempt Kylee.  He’s decided it’s too hard.  He thinks about it but doesn’t really try.  He even attempts Kaden sometimes.

I still stress that learning will not come as easy for Kaden as it has for my other kids.  I hope that’s not the case.  He’s got an easy-going personality so I don’t foresee him having focus issues.  But I guess we will see.  I’m sure he’ll be headed to Kindergarten before we know it!