Austin Scott: 14-15 Months

15 months is such a super super fun age. I think it ties with that 8-9 month range as my very favorite baby age. Austin is so incredibly fun to be around. He's exploring, adventuring, and can do something new every single day. He's just wonderful.

Stats: 12 month clothes and some 18 month things although they are pretty big. (Pajamas are really the only 18 month things that he fits in, and it's because those are fine kind of baggy.) 12 month pants are even still pretty big. Still squeezing into size 3 shoes, but it's tight. Size 3 diapers. Four teeth (two on top and two on bottom) and it makes him look like a lumberjack. (That's an awful comparison and super stereotypical. I don't even know that lumberjack is the right person. Maybe super poor-49er-gold-digger? Anyway. It's so funny.) Still very little hair, but he did get his first hair cut because it was getting kind of mullety in the back. 

Some other things to remember about this month: 

--Starting to climb all over things. Onto chairs, then onto tables. Onto stools. From couch, to sidetable, to craft table in the corner, to looking out the window, and then back. He's little, so this involves a lot of body surfing over large obstacles (like the arm of the couch). I think he sees Lydia jumping from couch to couch and he's learning from her how to be a climber. 

--He learned that he can pull the curtain back when he's sitting in the highchair and he likes to look out the window, especially when he hears a train go by. There's a huge food/mess area on the place that he grabs the curtain. I need to wash it, but I know he'll just do it again, but I can't make myself stop him from doing it because he likes it so much.  

--We got to go visit Grandpa-Great for his 80th birthday party and Austin loved seeing him. We haven't been up there as frequently lately and I think we are all missing seeing Grandma- and Grandpa- Great.

--We bought a big slide from a neighbor that they've had out in their yard for the last couple of years. We let it dry out and set it in our family room. It took up a big portion of our room, but it was worth it because the kids loved it. It's pretty tall, and it took Austin a bit to learn how to go up by himself, but he figured it out and once he did he wanted to do it over and over and over all day every day. We moved it down when we pulled up the Christmas stuff, but I'm thinking about moving the coffee table in the living room downstairs and putting the slide in it's place. (Hows that for good living-room- feng-shui?)

--My little brother, Matthew, got married and Austin looked so dashing and was so well behaved for the whole day. It was wonderful.

--Also, if I haven't mentioned. He's really started liking pacifiers all the time. I used to only stick them in his mouth, basically after he was asleep/almost falling asleep to transition from nursing and to help him fall asleep. But lately he's wanted to suck on them all day. I know this is like the time that some people start taking pacifiers away - I don't want him to just start becoming so dependent on them. I wonder if it's because he's teething, or doesn't feel well (he's been kind of sick this month), but he really loves them. 

--He developed a love of the vacuum cleaner. I'm not exactly sure how this happened. I think it had something to do with the Great Popcorn Disaster incident. But now he'll go to the closet where the vacuum is stored and point and whine until you open the door, then he'll excitedly wave his arms and point until you plug it in and turn it on. You'd think this would make me vacuum my floor much more regularly, but he doesn't want me to vacuum with it. He wants me to turn it on and let him touch it on the ground. It's bordering on ridiculous! Funny boy. 

--He stopped saying "ya" and instead just nods his head when you do something or say something that he wants. You might think that he just does it as a reflex, but if you do something or say something that he doesn't want he shakes his head no. Both the nod and the shake are over-exaggerated and he uses his whole body and I absolutely love it. It might be the thing he does right now that I will miss very most when he stops doing it.

--He hasn't felt his best this month. Add that to a hundred things that we've carted him around to (parties, Christmas shopping, events, grocery stores, etc...) and I can't believe what a trooper he's been. A little whiny sometimes, but overall such a good sport.

Confession: Austin has needed a haircut for a really long time. And I really wanted it to happen before he turned 15 months, if only because I wanted to keep a lock of his hair and tape it into our blog book like I did for Lydia - but I wanted it to go into the 2015 Blog Book so I only had to hold onto it for a couple of months instead of waiting a whole year for it to go into the 2016 book, but with so much going on - it just didn't happen. We finally made it happen in the first few days of 2016 during his 15-16 month time span - but because I'm the boss of this here blog - I'm posting it here and it will just have to be okay that I'm fudging the timing a little bit. 

Like I said, Austin's really needed a haircut for a while now. It's kind of funny because he has almost no hair still, but there was a patch of hair right on top that was getting really long, and there were some baby curls in the back that were getting a little mullet-ish (and would often stick out at crazy angles where ever we went). I just wanted to even everything out. Finally one evening before bathtime, we made it happen and it turned out really great- if I do say so myself. He did awesome and other than some mild curiosity at what I was doing, he was pretty disinterested and just wanted down. For a while I actually stuck him in the bathtub while I trimmed some of the longer hairs and then pulled him out to make sure everything was even. 

 

Now everything looks so cleancut and even! 

We love you Austin-boy. You are everything a 15 month old boy should be. We're getting to the point that we should probably stop calling you baby-Austin, because you aren't a baby any longer. You are getting bigger and smarter and stronger and happier every single day. You are so kind, and loving, and empathetic even now - I can already tell that you are going to be the sweetest, kindest boy and man as you grow up. I'm so proud to be your mama.