Coghills in Florida : 14 months

Every month it's my intention to blog more often, but then a month passes and it's time to do an update about Leo!

My baby boy is 14 months old as of Saturday!

This biggest change this month would be the amount of sign language he's picked up. I was reading my last post that at 13 months he was signing milk, more, all done, and food. Now we sign please and thank you all day long. He sometimes will sign mommy and daddy, and tries his hardest to sign outside, diaper, and lizard. Last night (which technically he was 14 months and a day...) he signed bird!
He is obsessed with birds and lizards so we started doing those signs and he picked it right up.
He also signs milk when he wants a drink of water, despite me signing the proper sign for drink all the time.
Other signs we do that he hasn't picked up yet are - help, inside, love, sleep, book, baby, and poop.
I really, really recommend teaching your baby sign language, It's so easy - all I do is google what a sign is when I think of it and then try to remember to do it each time I say the word to Leo.
He is like a sponge picking up all these words and is so insanely adorable doing sign language. AND communicating with him is the best!! He is able to tell me pretty much exactly what he wants now, whether it's through the actual sign or by signing please and pointing to what he wants.

I had a really proud moment the other day when the cashier at the thrift store handed him a book we had just bough and he signed thank you all on his own with no prompting!

I need to get a new video of him doing some of his new signs, but this was a few weeks ago -

He still isn't speaking many words, but that's pretty typical when a baby is learning a lot of sign language. He says mama, dada, and uh-oh. By 15 months a baby should be able to say 3 words in addition to mama and dada.... I'm thinking by the end of this month he'll definitely be saying a couple more words. He tries his hardest, it just doesn't make sense.
From what I've read babies who learn sign language have larger vocabularies by the age of 2 even if they speak words later... so we'll see.
He does make animal noises! He says moo, baa, and does a thing with his tongue to say lizard!

Leo is down to one nap a day. Usually after lunch and for at least 1-2 hours. It's been a pretty easy transition and if we're in the car a lot he'll still take 2 shorter naps.
He's going to bed between 7-7:30 and sleeping until about 6am these day. I'm really hoping that once we cut out the morning nursing session he will sleep in a bit longer, but so far no dice.
Regardless of when he goes to be he still wakes up at 6. We've tried putting him to bed anywhere from 6:30-9 and it's the same. Eh, it's encouraging me to be an early riser. We've been getting an early morning walk or run in every morning before breakfast and before it gets too hot to be running outside in the sun!

April has been a very hot month, definitely more summer than spring here! But I love it! We've been spending time at the splash pad, in the pool, and have found the best parks and play grounds for shade in the middle of the day ;)

A couple weeks ago Lee had a week vacation and we took a trip down to the Florida Keys for 3 days and it was such a beautiful drive and we had a great time! I'm definitely going to do a post about our trip. For real. As well as other fun things to do around here. We are loving life in southwest Florida!

Ok back to Leo...
He had his first real illness this month. He woke up and threw up in his crib. It was awful and smelled the worst ever. Unfortunately we had had breakfast for dinner the night before and Leo LOVED the turkey sausage... ugh. He was sick for a little over 24 hours. He was so cuddly and nursed every couple of hours and I think took 4 long naps that day. Poor baby.
Then Lee and I both got it and were REALLY sick. If that's what my poor baby felt like then I feel so so bad for him.

He recovered quickly, but his appetite didn't come back for a few days. He pretty much survived those days on breastmilk, yogurt, peanut butter crackers, apple sauce, and grapes. I was fearful that he was going to start being a more picky eater but thankfully not.
This month his favorite foods are still pretty much the same. Yogurt is his very favorite, followed by grapes. If he even gets a glimpse of them in the fridge he freaks out and asks for them. We saw a family with grapes at the zoo and Leo was pointing at them and signing please. haha. It was so sweet.
This month he had his first taco! Haha he ate an entire taco with ground turkey, cheese, tomato, and avocado. And yesterday at lunch Lee and I didn't order him his own meal we were just going to share with him and he ended up eating a TON of Lee's pasta! We pretty much need to order him a kids meal everywhere we go now.

I'm trying to get as much calcium and vitamin D into his diet as I can because he still will not drink any type of milk and we're down to nursing 2x a day and yesterday he only nursed once, so I'm preparing for him to wean in the next couple months.
I put chia seeds into a lot of his foods - yogurt, peanut butter, smoothies, oatmeal, and if I bake muffins or something. Beans, green leafy vegetables, and eggs are also healthy sources too. And he still eats a lot of yogurt and cheese, so I think he'll be ok.

Oh and I haven't mentioned climbing yet. This baby loves to climb. It's hard to have the balance between allowing him to climb on certain things and then telling him no he can't climb on other things - like the kitchen table (ah!).
He climbs on and off the couch and bed now. He loves to sit on park benches. He even learned how to climb into his stroller to let us know that he wants to go on a walk. haha.

(insert video of climbing here later, it's on Lee's phone)

He's such a smart baby. I say lets go bye bye and he goes to the door. I say time to eat and he goes to his high chair. I hand him the keys to the mail box and he walks there. He can get me any toy I ask for - book, ball, dog, etc. He just picks up on everything. It's so fun.

He's really starting to play with other kids well. At baby story time he shares with the other kids and even when he got knocked down the other day :( he just got back up and walked away, haha. He's tough. At MOPs last week they told me he and 2 other little boys and him were chasing each other around the room laughing. I wish I had been there to see it! At the park he says hi to other kids and LOVES to watch the older kids play.

Having a little baby/toddler is so fun. Seriously. I didn't expect it to be this fun.