These Are the Best of Days

Good grief. Worst blogger of the century. Garrison is 15 16 months and with that comes so. much. trouble. I shudder to think of this kid at 15. He is a hot mess going 100 miles per hour from 7:30 a.m. until he crashes at 8:00 p.m. He has become more independent and willing to leave my side over the last few months as long as I appear to be thoroughly engrossed in whatever he is doing. The moment I try to be productive he absolutely looses it. I can sit ten feet away from him as long as I'm not doing anything, but try to fold clothes or work on my laptop and homeboy goes bonkers. I have so much work to do outside of my regular full-time job, but I can't get any of it done until he goes to bed or he literally tries to break my laptop in his efforts to remove the distraction. In light of that, blogging is just slipping further and further down the list of things to do.

With all of that said, fourteen and fifteen months have absolutely been my very favorite months. And that's actually saying a lot as month fourteen was filled to the brim with illness. Bless his poor pitiful heart, but somehow that kid had a pretty massive eczema flare, a yeast infection, a staph infection, and a double ear infection all at once. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? I took him in for some SERIOUS diaper rash after calling the nurses all week and trying every homemade concoction they could come up with. I obviously felt like the WORST mother in the history of the world to hear that he had all of that going on. I was so embarrassed! To add insult to injury, the very next day he came down with Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease which he promptly shared with me five days later. Ughhhhhh. However, despite some serious illnesses all at once, this age is just so dang fun.

Picking strawberries.

Waiting for daddy to come home and fix dinner is hard,
but it gives us time to SWING!

I feel like developmentally, he has exploded within the last few months. He has a BIG personality. Garrison loves trouble. Loves it. If you call out his name (Gar-ris-sonnnn) as he's about to do something he shouldn't (eat dog food, open the trash can, eat dog food, pull on power cords, eat dog foot), he'll typically stop long enough to turn around and look at you, smile a SUPER mischievous grin, and then run ten times faster towards the object of his desire. When we get really firm with a loud "Garrison, NO!" he then instantly falls to the ground, face first, and screams and cries even kicks his legs. It's pretty dramatic. It's a toss up between which is worse...letting him get away with whatever form of trouble he's got his eye on or listening to the temper tantrum. He definitely understands the concept of no, but listening and obeying are just so dang hard right now.

He got his own chair for his birthday.
He loves to climb up by himself and "read."

Llama llama red pajama, do not holler at your mama!

His vocabulary is getting much bigger right now. He's definitely got "no," "dog," "out," "go," and "ball" mastered in English. In sign language he's got "eat," "more," and "all done." Now, the sign for "all done" is his absolute favorite. He uses it for everything. When we're a quarter of the way through getting dressed, he'll tell me he's all done. No, actually bud, you have one arm and a head through your shirt. You are definitely not all done. When I've unsnapped two snaps of his cloth diaper (and, therefore, barely started changing him), he'll tell me he's all done. At daycare, there are simply too many things to see and do to be bothered with breakfast lately. Once I plop his little butt in the chair, he'll immediately tell me he's all done while he eyes a favorite toy. An even better use of the sign is in combination with the sign for more. When he really wants to confuse the crap out of me, he'll sign all done at the dinner table. I'll ask him to confirm, which he will...and then he'll promptly follow it with the sign for more. For the love. WHICH IS IT?!?! And because Garrison is an over achiever, he's working on Spanish at the same time as English and ASL. So far he has agua down. He constantly walks around the house yelling "agua" at me. It took me a while to figure out what he meant, but eventually after he screamed it a good dozen times every time I opened the fridge, I finally put two and two together. It's highly possible that he's shouting a good many other Spanish words at me, but as neither I nor Sam speak a lick of Spanish, his poor, dumb parents are clueless.

BALL!

Garrison completed "swim lessons" a few weeks ago. I put that in quotes because the class was about half getting the babies used to the freezing cold water and half making mama work out...not the point of swim lessons at all! Basically swim lessons have given Garrison zero fear of the water as well as zero knowledge about water safety. It's a super terrifying combination. I go back and forth between loving the fact that we have a pool in our backyard and being so flipping terrified that I want to rip it out. Garrison likes the water, but he has an extremely short attention span. We can keep him in the water a little longer with the presence of pool noodles, but after about 10 minutes he's ready to go explore. We have our first family beach vacation coming up Labor Day weekend...I can already tell that this is going to be quite the adventure!

Water day at daycare

For Father's Day, Garrison got his first hair cut. I was willing to let it go for quite a while, but truth be told, it wasn't turning into the hair style I imagined. The top and front of his hair grows at a fraction of the rate as the back and sides, so he was creating quite the mullet. Sam hated the mullet, so they went together to get their hair cut. It was super sweet and Garrison did a great job. My heart only broke a little and I didn't cry, so I feel pretty great about it.

First hair cut

Picnic in the front yard with mom

In other news, Garrison remains a little peanut. He's significantly smaller than his classmates that are the same age, both in height and weight. He's also significantly smaller than his classmates that are several months younger than him...sadness. He's currently wearing size 12 months, and I foresee that he'll stay in that size throughout the summer and fall. To be honest, he might still be in 12 months through the winter too. Bless him. In an effort to help keep him on/move him up the growth chart, his pediatrician recommended we try Pediasure. Thankfully, after a few tries, he's decided he likes it, and I'm already seeing an improvement. He gained a full pound since his 15 month appointment, so hopefully this trend will continue. He already has 15 teeth and his sixteenth (bottom left cuspid/canine) is slowly working its way in. I have a feeling he'll have all 16 in before he's 17 months. After that, he'll just have the two year molars and we are D.O.N.E!

Post-dinner ball throwing session

We are thoroughly enjoying summer right now, even though it is sooooo hot. We've been in the upper 90s for weeks, but I'll take it since it means lots of sunshine in the evenings when we get home and far less sickness. I know fall will be here before we know it and on its heels will likely come colds, bronchiolitis, ear infections, and more, so we're soaking up the sun and enjoying this beautiful season of life with my little love. These are the best of days.