Nakita Grinie

Nineteen Months

My boy just keeps on growing up and these monthly posts seem to happen all.the.time now. The month of September was full of both highs and lows. And lots of kissing temporary tattoos on forearms.

Yes, one of Truman's newest obsessions are tats. Especially tats of trucks, of course, and we have to place them on BOTH arms at the same time or the entire world falls apart. Now that it's gotten colder outside we've moved them from his forearms down to his hands for easy access for kisses. And yes, he really does kiss his own tattoos without being asked to do so. Freaking adorable! Maybe he will have a full sleeve of ink by the time he's 20, and if so hopefully one will say 'I love Mom'. :)

This is how he shows us his muscle pose---flashing the 'ceps for all the ladies out there.


Aside from temporary tattoos, other obsessions of the month include doing puzzles (which he can actually place the right pieces into the correct slots now, blowing my mind), hunting for working trucks in the neighborhood/You Tube, and anything Sesame Street. Although Elmo still holds a soft spot in Truman's heart as his main squeeze, we've noticed that Grover, Cookie Monster, and even Bert are climbing the ranks of obsession with our boy. He's still not really watching TV at all, since he is quite incapable of sitting still for longer than 2 minutes, so online clips of videos are our go-to thing right now. I really don't mind having a babe that prefers to be on the move instead of sitting in front of the tube, but I know there's a lot more time for that in the future perhaps. For now, though, playing with mommy and daddy is still number one. And we aren't complaining!




Truman got his first set of golf clubs this month from his daddy, after Nate went to four different stores around town finding just the right set. Pretty sure they were a major hit and we are in awe of how great Truman can hit those little balls around. His hand-eye coordination is pretty insane at this point and I'll go ahead and sound like a crazy soccer mom here but Truman might be sort of athletic in the future. If not he will surely be number one at throwing tennis balls towards the garage door/dog/glass windows.







Also, Truman is really REALLY into killing imaginary bugs. Sometimes it's a little creepy, like--um, do you see something I don't? But mostly it's hilarious and animated. Here he is winding up for the kill. Or maybe getting ready to do a backhandspring. And note his favorite 'RAWR' pajamas that he demands to wear during the day sometimes, too.


His language just keeps exploding and he's definitely putting two words together now. He will say, 'More wa-wa' or 'Mama down' along with lots of hand gestures to get his point across to us. I think his favorite new word has to be 'purple' and it just so happens to be the only color he really knows now, too. In our big bucket of sidewalk chalk, he will dig through until he finds the two purple sticks and clearly say 'purple' while he draws with it. No idea where he learned that word, or why purple is his fave, but I dig it. But one word I could do without for awhile longer is his new-found love of 'NO'. Can't believe we made it to 19 months without this vocabulary word but he was always a 'yes' man until recently. Truman definitely has his opinions on everything and it's a good thing he has such a killer smile to flash, right?





This month Memaw came to visit us and we had a total blast with her. Truman warmed right up to his great-grandma and the two of them had some secret little games they'd play in the backseat of my car that were only for them. We went apple picking one day and I couldn't help but think to myself, 'How did my baby get so big?' as I watched him strut his stuff up and down the aisles.






One really cool and somewhat shocking thing from this month is that Truman is starting to show interest in potty training. Well, maybe not full-blown 'interest' but he's starting to notice when he pees or poops in his diaper. I've noticed that in the past 2 weeks every single time that he pees or poops he will tell me by gesturing to his crotch, patting it, and grunting a bit. I ask him if he went potty and he'll say 'YEAH' and then point to his nursery, where he walks and asks to be changed. I wasn't planning on even thinking about potty training until 2 years but maybe it's time we think about it a little sooner? I think it has a lot to do with how icky it must feel to have a dirty cloth diaper---since I haven't noticed him pointing it out to us in disposables. We'll see if I have the energy to tackle potty training any time soon.

One of the downer events of this month was Truman's first (and hopefully last) experience with croup. Poor baby had a fever for almost a whole week, congestion, coughing and general misery for us all right during Memaw's visit. It could have been a lot worse but it was still awful and I'm so glad he's finally feeling well again. Nothing like a sick child to make work and everything else in the entire world seem totally insignificant. And once again I'm reminded that my flexible job is perfect for this time in my life, when I might have to miss days of work to stay home with my boy.

But one of the 'ah-ha' HIGH moments of this month has to do with sleep. You see, Truman was getting into a really tiring habit of waking every single day at 5 am. Then that started creeping into the 4 o'clock hour and I had to draw the line there---it's never okay to start your day at 4:30 if you can avoid it, right? He was getting so tired by the time I took him to daycare at 8 he'd fall asleep on the car ride over there and then be totally off all day. I knew something had to change but I could not figure out why he was waking SO darn early every day! I mean, the child was seriously ready to rip for the day at that time and didn't even seem tired when I stumbled into the nursery in the middle of the night. I decided he might be hungry because he's been pulling the stunt of not eating much dinner at night, choosing to run around and play instead. So one night, after dinner but before his bath, Nate made Truman a yummy smoothie full of frozen fruit, yogurt, juice, and protein powder for a little extra 'stick to your ribs' kick. Truman downed that bad boy and slept until 6:30 the next day, and thus I announced the smoothie experiment a total success. We make him a protein smoothie almost every night now, and most of the time he'll drink it and most mornings he'll sleep until about 6. But of course, we still have our 5:30 mornings and our challenges with keeping him still long enough to eat a real dinner. Baby steps, people. Waking any time after 4:30 is a gift gladly accepted by the bags under my eyes as I'm sure many of you can understand.

So that's Truman at 19 months---an Elmo lover, in all of his glory.


And one to find heavy machinery anywhere, including an apple orchard.


I love you little big man. Bring on month 20!