Chichi Cupcakery: The life of a 14-month old

Wow, time flies! Nicholas is 14 months old as of yesterday, and these past two months have zipped by. We have been so busy that I skipped his 13-month blog post altogether ( started drafting it, but never had time to finish and post it), and am now trying to figure out how to sum up the past two months of his life, which seems like an insurmountable task given how much he has changed since then. Here is my best attempt:

Dear Nicholas,

You turned 14 months old yesterday, and spent the morning getting tubes in your ears. What a way to spend the day! But you did great, recovered within an hour of the surgery, and were toddling around the mall in your PJs as happy as a clam soon after that.

On your first birthday, you weren’t walking yet. You had taken a few steps one week prior, but that was it. Now, you are walking everywhere! You walked for the first time exactly one week after your first birthday. Parents always said that everything changes when kids start walking, and I didn’t quite understand how that was possible. When you were crawling, you could get almost anywhere, and then pull up on things. Now that you’re walking, it’s not that you get into things more than you used to, it’s that you are always on the move. You are always on the move, and get so excited when you see us or the dog and you start flapping your arms as you walk towards us. Here is a video of your first steps:

The best is when you come up to us and hug us. You love giving hugs, which entail you turning your head, resting it on us, and wrapping your arms around us. The best part is that when you started hugging, I would say “Awww, nice hug.” You heard me say it so much that now when you give hugs, you say “awww” as you do it! You also blow kisses now and it’s the cutest thing ever. You bring both hands up to your mouth and say “muah” as you throw your hands out to the side.

You are definitely expressing yourself more. You say “no” now when you don’t want something, and you’re not shy about telling us. When you’re thirsty, you ask for “agua,” when you’re hungry, you walk up to your high chair and pat your hands on it and we know it’s time to eat. When you’re done eating, you wave both hands to sign that you’re all done. You are also very curious, and love pointing to things and saying “Wuh dat?” (“what’s that?”). You’re signing really well now, too, and we’re loving that you use your manners in sign language by signing for please and thank you.

On your first birthday, you were barely eating solid foods, and were still spitting everything out when you would drink from a cup of any kind (sippy, straw, regular cup, didn’t matter). Then, all of a sudden, you did a complete 180 and started drinking from cups. Within a week you were off the bottle, and the transition was much easier than we expected. And you are eating so well these days. You love hummus, and will stick your hand in it and bring handfuls up to your mouth and lick it off of all of your fingers. You definitely do better with real adult food instead of simple foods, and you polished off some tandoori chicken and couscous the other night. We are so proud of you!

And you are talking more than ever. My favorite thing is to watch you pick up a book, sit down, and read it to yourself. You sit there babbling and flipping pages and it’s so amazing and adorable to watch. You have discovered bubbles, and love saying it every time we pull out the bubbles. The cutest part is that you accentuate the second syllable, and it comes out as “buh-BOOLS.” Your Abu taught you how to say “Abu,” and you’ll repeat it over and over for minutes on end. You know several animal sounds now (dog says “arf arf,” cat says “meow,” monkey says “ooh ooh aah aah,” and lion says “raaarrr”).

My favorite thing ever is that you sing now. In the car on the way home one day, I started singing “la la la,” and asked you to sing. And all of a sudden you piped up with “la la la.” At first you just said it, but then you started singing notes, and then you actually mimicked the notes that I sang – in tune no less! Today I was singing “Doe a Deer” to you as I was changing you, and you started saying “doe, doe, doe” and then started babbling along as I was singing. It was so cute!

I’ve been looking at old pictures of you lately, and can’t believe how much you’ve grown and changed over the past 14 months. The one thing that hasn’t changed is your ability to amaze us with everything that you do, and the fact that our love for you grows with every passing day. We love you, Nicholas!!

Here is a video of you when you were 13 months old. It captures 5 minutes in your life, and shows how busy life is when you’re chasing after a 13-month old…busy and wonderful!

Here is a compilation video of you from this past month. My favorite part is at the end…after reading you “Snuggle Puppy” for a few nights, you caught on to the fact that I give you kisses after the end of the chorus when I sing “Oooh, I love you” (please pardon my singing). So you started to insert the “muah” all on your own. You are precious, and you’re my little snuggle puppy:

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of you from the past two months:

Here you are as Daddy's boy - loving everything Jeep!!