Baseballs, Butterflies, & Blessings: HPY BRHDY WL!

Blowing out his candles

His half chocolate chip pancake stack & 1 1/2 candles

He actually blew out his candles this time!

Today, we celebrated Will's half birthday! He is now officially 1 1/2 years old!!! For weeks, I've debated when to celebrate it as he doesn't have a real half birthday (sadly.) (His bday is August 30 yet there is no Feb 30! Why didn't someone tell me that when we decided to induce him on August 3oth?!?! ;)) Anyway, I decided to do it March 1... why have my baby turn older any earlier than I have to, right?!?

So- to celebrate this morning:

We sang half of the happy birthday song &

Will was served a half chocolate chip pancake with one a half candles.

My "Ringlet"

Will is 18 months!

So what's new with Will at 18 months???

He is WALKING everywhere independently!!!
He can WALK without zancos for about 10 steps!!!
His vocabulary grows daily! He now has several phrases & short sentences along with a slew of words. I really feel like we can have (brief) conversations now! (Although, his response to my questions is generally a "please" via sign language or a verbal response of "no." So by conversations, I mean short ones!)
He appears this week to possibly know a few colors. He can identify red, yellow, and blue.
He knows some directional words (behind, in front of, beside) & he can follow 2 & 3 step directions (notice I say he "can" rather than "always does"... he is only 18 months you know- still working on obedience!)
He can identify the following animals: dog (big surprise I'm sure to those of you who have spent even 1.5 minutes with him), sheep, horse, turtle, frog, cat, bird, goat, fish, dolphin, lion, cow, monkey, duck, & rabbit
He can make animal noises for the following: dog, cow, sheep, horse, & monkey
He makes really hilarious "fish lips" for fish rather than a noise

With pretty good accuracy, he can identify verbally & visually the letters "O" & "B"
He can count to 2 (although he generally needs prompting) & he is doing lots of "pretend" counting
He can identify the following body parts: tummy, nose, ears, curls, hair, head, eyes, chin, hands, feet, fingers, elbows, belly button (his favorite), legs, mouth, & teeth
He still takes two naps a day (yahoo) of about 5 hours total although he can go without his morning nap. He is sleeping 12-13 hours at night. :)
He loves to read books but asks for his Bible by name & associates another book that talks about God as a Bible as well. He also LOVES any book that contains pictures of animals and/or tools.
He loves to be tickled & enjoys tickling others as well.
He is becoming a climber.
He spends a great deal of time driving his cars all over the house saying, "vroom" & especially enjoys driving them up and down me, his dad, his therapist, any adult he can find- I think he thinks we are highways.
He has NO stranger anxiety whatsoever. He yells "hi" at people who drive by, who walk by in a store or on the street, etc. If they don't acknowledge him, he walks up to them yelling "hi" until he gets a response. He might grow up to be a grocery store or airplane greeter. ;)
He can sing along (partially) to several songs: TJ McCloud's All God's Animals, & Good!Good! Good!, (LOVE these cds- Will loves them & R & I have been known to listen & sing along even when Will is asleep in the car!) & a Sara Groves song from her Station Wagon cd. By the way- both of these artists have songs available on I Tunes. (& you can listen to all of the Station Wagon cd by clicking here. LOVE IT!

He is also making up his own songs which crack us up - he often wakes up singing a song about "Will" and a "doggie" in his crib. We enjoy listening to it on the monitor.

He is rather vain & loves to watch videos of himself on the blog as well as look & point at his pictures of himself & his friends on his bulletin board. He even walks around the house yelling, "WILLLLLL."