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Raffi’s 14 & 15 month update
It’s incredible to remember Raffi as a newborn and realize that his personality hasn’t changed one bit – we just didn’t know him well enough when he was that little to understand what was going on. He makes the same faces, he needs a lot of the same things, and he definitely needs to be handled in the same way.
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The only difference is it’s now a lot harder to take his monthly photos! He either wants to take the camera or knock over the blocks. He’s still a cutie.
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Here are 15 things about 14 and 15 months:
1. It’s Christmastime, and our tree has been up since 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. I had one afternoon of feeling good during that nauseous pregnant phase so Trig and I put it up. Raffi’s absolute favorite thing in the house is the tree. When he wakes up in the morning and we go downstairs he points out the Christmas tree right away “Dis?” and waves furiously. Before he goes upstairs for his bath and bed he MUST say goodnight to the tree. He refuses to go up until he waves to it multiple times. When we drive to run errands or occasionally pick Trig up from work Raffi points out every single Christmas tree. Christmas trees in his world = any item outside that is lit up by beautiful Christmas lights. He often points out the tree and then says WOWWWWWWW in a long, drawn out way. He is in love.
2. Raffi knows how to open presents. Trig and I aren’t really doing gifts this year since we got rid of our cars and bought 1 shiny new one, but I bought him a couple of small things. Raffi couldn’t help himself one day and started opening one of Trig’s gifts. I didn’t mind and let him go wild. He ripped off all the wrapping paper, and when he was done he tried to put it all back (but obviously couldn’t). After playing for the paper for a few minutes he opened the box and was in awe at the beautiful gift inside – a shoe tree. Seriously, he was so excited at the surprise inside that he carried the shoe tree all around the house.
3. My dad came to visit one weekend and they had a ball. Raffi went on his first toy store trip, an activity I used to share with my dad and remember him also sharing with my little cousins. Anything that Raffi touched my dad bought for him. When we got home and Raffi took his nap we removed all of his old toys and replaced them with the new ones. He woke up and didn’t know where to begin. Raffi thought he owned the toy store and didn’t understand why he couldn’t play with every single toy. His favorite toy that his Geddo bought him is the Chuggington train. He rides it all the time, pushes the buttons, opens and closes the compartment, and pushes it around.
4. We are still going strong with the sign language. It is such a relief to understand why Raffi is behaving a certain way and to be able to fix it. His current signs include more, yes, hungry, water, all done, and pick me up. Hungry, yes and pick me up are his own special signs he created himself but we understand and that’s what matters.
5. When he first wakes up in the morning we laugh at his conversations on the monitor. Raffi chats with himself, throws his giraffe loveys around, and eventually calls for us by screeching in a most annoying voice. I’ve been trying to go in before he gets to the screeching part. Anyway, the first thing Raffi does when one of us walks in is signs for food. He does it over and over again until we finally make it downstairs and give him his breakfast.
6. Raffi LOVES diapers. He loves talking about them, carrying them around, and going to get one when it’s time for a diaper change. He calls them “dup dup” and laughs when I put one on my head. He lets me know when he’s done something interesting and it’s time to change his diaper, which means he is much more aware of his body signals. I put him on the potty every night before his bath, but most of the time he just says “pssst” and then jumps up and claps for himself. I use that sound to try and teach him what he’s supposed to do there but now he thinks he’s supposed to say the sound. He’s gone on purpose 2 times so far, but we are in no rush for toilet training. My goal is to keep him exposed to it and if he’s ready before the summer start training then. We will see how it goes.
7. Raffi and I went to Nordstrom one day to pick something up and decided to have lunch together in the cafe. It was the first time we had a really nice meal together. He sat for 45 minutes eating his raisins, strawberries, and grilled cheese. As we were walking out he was pointing and screaming for a cookie, so I ended up buying him his first oatmeal raisin cookie. He ate 1/2 of it, and it was giant. This was during his big growth spurt stage….
8. The growth spurt. Woah. Out of nowhere Raffi was eating every hour on the hour. He would eat anything put in front of him except meat, and would get whiny about an hour after every meal. He ate like a machine for 2 weeks as his belly grew and grew, and then overnight – literally overnight – his belly thinned out and he shot up in height. Overnight he finally grew out of all of his 6-12 month pants and graduated to his 12-18 month ones. He’s over the growth spurt now and back to eating 3 meals and 1-2 snacks a day.
9. Sleep is still going well. Raffi sleeps from 7:30 PM to around 7 AM or so and takes one nap for about 1.5 hours, just the same as what he did at 13 months old. Before bed I tell him to lay his head on my and we watch this YouTube video of Elmo with Andrea Bocelli. I know we could be starting a bad habit, but the song is both relaxing and charming and reminds me of my mom. It is an Elmo-ified rendition of “Con te partiro” and my mom used to play it on Saturday mornings while cleaning the house.
10. After dinner, if Trig isn’t home (and many nights during this busy season he unfortunately isn’t), Raffi runs over to the gate by our entrance stairs and shakes it while calling out “baba? baba?” He knows when his baba isn’t there and he misses him on those days. It is heartbreaking to watch, but luckily Trig usually gets to spend some time with Raffi in the morning. And our weekends are 100% family time now, which I love.
11. Raffi has become very social. He waves to any kids he sees and many adults too. When he’s playing with friends he likes to run up to them and wave or show them his toys. He does not like sharing, however. We’re working on it but I think it will take a really long time before he becomes a good sharer. Hopefully he will like sharing with his little sister!
12. You know Raffi is the child of someone who loves to cook just by watching him play. Raffi’s favorite toys are his fake foods and mini pots. One day I gave him my big colander and he had a ball filling it with fake fruits and vegetables and carrying it around. He can recognize almost all of his fake fruits and veggies except the onion and broccoli rabe. He also mixes up the apple and red pepper all the time.
13. I’m finally actually teaching things to Raffi. Before we would play without purpose, but now I try to teach him as much as possible. We did a good job with our animal sounds and he now knows a bunch of them, so now I’m working on colors. I point out the colors of everything. He doesn’t know any of them yet, but just like with animal sounds I think it will take a few weeks of exposure before it all clicks. He loves learning and especially knowing what different items are called, so I try to talk to him about everything around us all the time.
14. Raffi is happiest when he is climbing something, opening/closing something, stacking/unstacking, running, or learning about names of items. He sometimes repeats words and sometimes doesn’t. On certain occasions you can actually see him trying to understand what is going on. He furrows his brow and uses all of his energy to focus on the task at hand. It’s one of my favorite expressions.
15. “No” is still Raffi’s favorite word. He knows his boundaries but still tests them all the time just to be sure he understood correctly. He points to the tree and tells himself “no, no, no” since we tell him he can look at the tree but not touch it. He also tells himself “no, no, no” as he is pulling ornaments off. He knows he isn’t supposed to do it but sometimes he can’t help himself. If I ask him not to do something he immediately goes back to do it again while watching me for my reaction. I make sure to react the same way over and over again so that he understands clearly that it’s not ok to take things out of the trash, unplug anything, or touch the tree.
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Bonus: We have a SERIOUS dancer. Raffi will dance all day long if there is music playing, but he has clear musical preferences.
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Random facts about 14 & 15 months:
Weight: unsure – at 12 months he was 19.5 lbs
Wears: size 4 diapers, 12-18 month pants, 12-18 month shirts but sometimes they look short over his belly, size 4 shoes
Teeth: 4 on top and 4 on the bottom!
Loves: opening and closing doors, stacking cups, putting the cap on any type of bottle or cap, dancing to music, pointing out and asking about everything around him “dis? dis?”, playing outside even when it’s really cold, running down the hallway while screaming (he learned that from his friend P), clapping for himself, sitting on my lap when we are out anywhere, being chased, being scared, iPhones, Elmo
Weight: unsure – at 12 months he was 19.5 lbs
Wears: size 4 diapers, 12-18 month pants, 12-18 month shirts but sometimes they look short over his belly, size 4 shoes
Teeth: 4 on top and 4 on the bottom!
Loves: opening and closing doors, stacking cups, putting the cap on any type of bottle or cap, dancing to music, pointing out and asking about everything around him “dis? dis?”, playing outside even when it’s really cold, running down the hallway while screaming (he learned that from his friend P), clapping for himself, sitting on my lap when we are out anywhere, being chased, being scared, iPhones, Elmo
Hates: being hungry or thirsty, not being allowed to climb upstairs himself, sharing
Brags: Raffi can take off his own shirt and sometimes his own pants. He knows the animal sounds for dog (woof woof), duck (quack quack), cow (moof), monkey (ah ah ah), chicken (bop bop bop), tiger (oooooor). He can follow lots of directions.
Foods he loves: whole peeled Persian cucumbers, apple slices, peas, bananas, oatmeal, pasta, spaghetti, oatmeal raisin cookies, American cheese, croissants, homemade and restaurant french fries
Foods he hates: meat, fish, eggplant, broccoli
Favorite toys: his Chuggington ride on train, his fake food, his mini pot and pan set, his shape sorting blocks, stacking cups, books with musical buttons, his doctor’s kit, his new Plan toys alligator pull toy, his old school mini popper
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5 Responses to “Raffi’s 14 & 15 month update”
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aww, he is so adorable!
aww he’s getting so big and I love Andrea Bocelli!
Just read your update after thinking I hadn’t read with Raffi in a while when you commented on my blog. He is such a handsome boy and with such an expressive face. He sounds so similar to Izzy with his likes/dislikes. She is also a groovy mover ..any kind of song or theme tune gets her jigging about. I love that you watch the Elmo video each night it’s lovely for him to have that time with you. We watch In the Night Garden ( don’t know if you have it in America) in Izzys bedtime hour. She loves it and can say some of the characters names – too cute and its very relaxing. I always love to hear more about Raffi and makes me broody to think that we were its pregnant at same time. I want baby number 2! Xx
Read about not with * Bec x
He is so adorable. I hope his love of diapers comes in handy with baby number 2! 🙂