Daniel At 16 Months - Climbing Everything!

Boy wonder is now 16 months old! He really is a little boy now, the baby days have truly passed... He understands so much now, follows instructions (like get your shoes, go upstairs, put X in the trash) and he uses his "words" more to communicate - especially, "ma-ma" (for mamae), "pa-pa" (for papai), "bo-bo" (for vovô - grandpa in Portuguese), "ba-ba" (for ball or baby), "au-au" (for doggy) and "na-na" (for trucks and other means of transportation which he's just obsessed about!). He often calls out "ma-ma?" (as a question) when he wakes up or if I'm not in the room which is the most wonderful sound to me! :-) He points at everything and wants us to tell him the word for whatever it is. When reading word books, he now points to several objects on the page and if we ask him to show us something, he gets most of them right!

Daniel can now "run" too - he still loses his balance from time to time but he is quite fast! What has been really special is that he likes to run to us from a distance, with a big smile on his face to be hugged and held. He has become more affectionate recently (i.e. actively seeking cuddles, for example) and is learning to kiss back too! He also continues to love the phone and pretends to have conversations - it's amazing how he imitates us. He often says "oi" ("hi" in Portuguese) and pauses, as if listening, and then makes a few sounds that only he can decipher! :-)

He had his 15 months check-up last week and he weighs just over 27 pounds (80th percentile) and is 33 and 1/2 inches long (90th percentile) - so he continues to be a big boy, wearing 2T clothes already! He had two shots on his arms for the first time and he didn't cry for the first one and just whimpered a little with the second and also had no fever afterwards, which was a relief to us all. (My dad was at the check-up too and he really enjoyed the whole process - photo below!)

Since about the middle of 15 months, he's been climbing chairs/sofas (and pretty much anything that he's able to) and now he is very good at it! It's a bit scary since he can climb up well but cannot climb down so we've got to keep an extra eye on him and we are trying to teach him that chairs are for sitting and not standing! But the concept of danger is very foreign to him! :-)

We were able to take a cute series of photos of Daniel in his pyjamas climbing one of our chairs on a recent morning (with a very full, after a whole night, droopy diaper :-))!