18 month Updates

Wow, it's been a long time since I've been on here...

I want to write about what Gabriel's been doing- I have been really bad about recording all the funny (and aggravating) things he does.

 He is 18 months now! He's growing like a weed! I just went through his 18 month fall/autumn clothes and got them put away. Next I'll be putting away his 12 month summer clothes...it's always so sad to put his out-grown clothes away :(

So far he's got a handful of words he uses. I'm not too worried about him not having a big vocabulary because he shows amazing comprehension of what we say. He says "Hi" (his newest word and current favorite), "yes", "this", and of course "kitty" (his other favorite).  When he wants a bite of something he'll go "ahhhh" with his mouth open (mimicking what we do when we're offering him a bite of something). When he wants a drink he'll mimic the "aaahh" sound people make when they take a sip of something yummy.

Naked shopping

He is a BIG mimic! He stretches, talks on the phone, and even will pull my laptop onto his lap and sit there with his hand on the mouse (exactly how I sit with my computer a lot). When we're getting him something to eat, like a cup of yogurt, he'll follow me to the fridge, then after I pull it out he'll run over to where the spoons are kept.  When we tell him it's time to change his diaper he likes to run over to where we keep the diapers and sometimes he'll pull one out when we ask (other times he'll ignore us and other times he'll grab twenty diapers and just keep bringing them to us).

When it's bathtime I'll say "Let's go take a bath!" and he'll run over to where we hang his towel, watch me grab it, then run to the bathtub. Every time we're done I wrap him in his towel and then I sing him "Furball" (something my mom sang to us after bathtime too!) He'll then sing along as best he can, which usually is him going "Dah-Da Dah-Da.." over and over (the first few notes of the song)  Then I put his lotions on him and his diaper and when we're done he'll grab the lotions and go run and put them away, then he'll push the little basket back into it's place. It's so cute! When we're going somewhere (either to the store or just outside to play for a few minutes) I'll say "Wanna go outside?" and he'll drop whatever he's doing and runs to his basket of shoes and grab some. At first he'd just grab any two shoes, but now he's even got it to where while Mike and Alyx were visiting.  We soon discovered that Gabriel could easily climb out of their much-shorter playpen. He basically wouldn't sleep while we were there! So it was kind of a miserable night without sleep, but hanging out with the family was fun. Gabe got to ride on the ATV with me and play a lot outdoors on the farm. Any animal he sees he points to and says "kitty".  Everything is kitty: birds, dogs, deer, etc.  We'll try and tell him the right name but he'll still call it "kitty".

Yesterday we took him to the playground at the elementary school right behind our house. I was able to take a lot of good photos of him playing around. He threw a temper tantrum when we started to leave, so Josh had to carry him most of the way home or else he'd try to run back to the playground or just go "boneless" (collapse onto the ground when we're trying to lead him by the hand).  He goes boneless a lot if we're trying to get him to do something we don't want him to do.

Swinging all by himself!

I don't WANNA LEAVE!!!!

He's testing his boundaries all the time, too. He'll do things he knows we'll say NO to and do it over and over, just watching our reactions.  He's started time-outs in the last few months. Usually what gets him in time-out is when he climbs up on the TV stand and pushes the buttons on the Blu-ray player. Or he'll turn the TV off/on/off/on from the buttons on the side.  He gets a warning, and then he gets time-out.  He's still getting the concept.  We still can't leave any drinks out because the second they're left unattended he makes a beeline for them to try and take a sip. He's also fond of being very annoying by hitting the laptop keys while it's out (both while I'm on it and when it's just sitting there) and he LOVES to steal my mouse! He'll grab it and run away! Sometimes he's particularly stinky and will throw it if I come after him to retrieve it. He'll occasionally do the same thing with the remote control. He's always grabbing it and pressing buttons.

That's why his nickname is Stinkerpants. He also will lose his temper when he's trying to feed himself something, and we try to help him. He automatically thinks we're going to take it from him so he'll sometimes throw it (like a yogurt cup) and throw himself on the ground whining.  Fortunately it's not all the time so I still can get him to let me help him feed himself spoonfuls often enough. Either way, it's always a very messy undertaking.


Oh, and he's figuring out doorknobs. He can't quite turn ours yet, but the lever-handle types at my parent's and at the church he can do no problem.  He also loves to discover a door left open to an area he's not supposed to go (like the bathroom or the laundry/storage room) and he'll run out there and shut the door behind him! We have to be really careful with the bathroom door because he's figured out how to push the lock on it. The lock on the storage room, which is accessible from the kitchen-side of the door is a different style of lock but he's figured that out once and ended up locking Josh out in the storage area for a few minutes till I came in the room and realized what was going on and rescued Josh.

I can't wait until Gabriel learns/listens to "No".  He KNOWS what it means, but that sure doesn't ever stop him! In fact, the funniest thing is he'll be doing whatever naughty thing he's up to, we'll say "No", and he'll just look over at us, shake his head and repeat "No no no no" and will just continue doing whatever he's doing.  It's hard not to laugh when he does that, it's soooo cute!

He's very strong-willed, which makes it hard to "teach" him things- he'd rather try and figure something out for himself.  Sometimes when he's in the mood I can get him to point to body parts (I'm trying to teach him that and some other things when I can) but a lot of the time he'll just ignore me, presumably because he doesn't feel like doing it (I guess, at least, since I know he knows it and does it often). He'll point to his nose, his belly, his ears, and we're teaching him eyes and mouth and feet and hands.  He gets the feet and hands about half the time (or else he'll just ignore us, so its hard to say if he knows it or not)

He loves getting into the cupboards. It's not every day anymore (thank goodness) but he still does it often enough that I feel like I'm always putting pots and tupperware back in their places.  He's even figured out how to get the cupboard baby-lock off one of the cupboards!

Wow, that's a lot of writing about Gabriel...well I want to record it mostly for myself, but this way at least if anyone is interested (or bored enough) they can read about him here :)

As for me, I have been on Metformin (Glucophage) since end of July, when I was diagnosed with PCOS with Insulin Resistance. Apparently I've had this my whole life and just recently was diagnosed.  The insulin resistance is suspected to be a combination of genetic and environmental, no one really knows why. But the insulin-resistance problem causes the endocrine/hormonal disruption that leads to the symptoms of PCOS. As soon as I started the Metformin (which is called an insulin-sensitizing medication) the stubborn weight I'd put on AFTER I gave birth started coming back off! Woo hoo! As of now I've lost 22 pounds and will keep going until I get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm really glad to have this weight coming off, because I just felt SO uncomfortable being that big! I'm still not happy with my weight but am excited at the weight loss and motivated to keep going. I know I was eating extra during the first 6 or so months after Gabe's birth, but I couldn't fathom it being enough to GAIN 20 lbs! But now, with the PCOS/IR diagnosis it makes sense, because it makes your body hold onto it's fat stores for dear life, and work really hard to increase them.  So the medicine is telling my body to stop doing that and as a result it's getting itself back to normal-ish. I've been watching what I eat for quite a while, but now it's nice to have my efforts pay off. I suppose soon I'll have to start exercising to help, but I'm so out of shape it's embarrassing.  Especially since I've always been so strong and athletic. It's kind of pathetic how weak I've gotten :0

Josh is still looking for work. He earned his Bachelors Degree in August and is already working towards his Masters Degree. He expects to get that in a little over a year (I think). His major is Business, but he's also looking into doing Human Resources, and possibly minors in Psychology, Finance, Accounting. Basically he's wanting to really expand his areas of expertise so that he's a more desireable candidate in this crap economy.

Ok, that is all. For now. Stay tuned :)