14 Months

Our little man celebrated 14 months yesterday with relative uneventfulness.  Nana Pat was here to help me paint the master bath and Ben was a champ for two days as we traded off painting and entertaining him.  I will attempt a quick update of any changes in the last month.

Ben does have two more teeth starting their ascent (in this case) to make the count currently coming in 8, and the total count approaching 18!! He officially has the teeth of a 24 month old, but as I've said before, let's just get em done.

There is still no walking but lots of standing and lots of pushing from Ryan and I to take a step or two.  The Grouchy Ladybug has returned to the top spot on Ben's Billboard Book charts and when attempts are made to read any other book, Ben flails himself out of the rocker in protest and searches until he finds the ladybug.  There have been many two nap days lately and this week it seems he sleeps longer during the day and at night with two naps.  I resolved long ago that the nap mystery is one I may never solve.

The dryer is still Ben's favorite babysitter and Jelly still his best friend.  The excitement and love Ben feels for that little tiger brings tears of joy to my eyes.  Though Jelly almost exclusively lives in the crib, he spent some tome in the family room last night and Ben was rolling and laughing and hugging him like a giddy school girl.

Ben loves to examine every part of every toy and even some household things. He is very much trained that buttons being pushed usually emit noise or lights and on one new toy tries over and over hoping the button that isn't one at all might magically light up.  For this reason I would say his fine motor skills are honed, but that this mama might need to focus a bit on the larger toys and gross motor skills.

Ben has also recently discovered all the joys of the bathroom including "water play" and unrolling ALL the toilet paper.  I made the toilet paper mistake thinking he was safe in the powder room if the toilet lid was closed. Ha!
In other baby-proofing of late, there is now nothing safe on the coffee table.  If it is there, it is fair game to be thrown, chewed, or both.  The high mantel and higher side table are being overwhelmed with stuff and I need to take another group of things to storage in the basement for a year or so.

The physical stats update comes at 15 months.  Until then.......