16 Months. . .

We celebrate our Little Peanut turning 16 months today. I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. It seemed like it was moving relatively slow for awhile or at the very least I felt like I had soooo much more time left with him before I had to go back to work and the inevitable would come. . . daycare. And, now I'm facing the final weeks home with him. It seems like yesterday I was just counting the final six weeks and now all of the sudden BAM! We JUMPED to three in the blink of an eye.

The weather has been very hot these past few days (98-100 degrees) so we stayed in today and took a few photos to commemorate the "Sweet 16 Month."

He looks so old to me here :(
LOVE this smile :)
Excuse the drool - it's been non-stop since we came home in August!!!
Trying to escape the "photo shoot."

Wesley experienced a few "firsts" in this past month (well, firsts with us at least). He's been babbling quite a bit but no English up until now. We haven't spoken or encourage any Korean since we brought him home (for various reasons/recommendations). He now says, "Da-Da" and "Cat" but alas, no "Mommy" so apparently I rank third behind Brian and our two cats. Brian is convinced that he's saying "Yellow" but I beg to differ. Our pediatrician said that he'll probably start slowly and then look out - once the flood gates are opened, he'll be a talking machine.

Then this past Saturday, Wesley attended his first birthday party. My friend from work Teresa and her husband Mike hosted a 1st birthday party for their beautiful daughter Leah. They decided to do a traditional Doljabee ceremony where the child selects a particular object laid out for him/her to predict her fate/path in life. The objects range from money meaning the child will be wealthy to a stethoscope meaning that the child will be a doctor to a microphone meaning the child will go into the broadcasting industry or entertainment. We arrived and right out of the gate, Wesley recognized Teresa's mother-in-law speaking Korean and smiled. We weren't sure how he would react, but he seemed to be comforted. There was so much good food there and friendly people, we had a really nice time. Wesley tried some new foods and had a fun time watching the older kids play. Since we were not able to see or participate in Wesley's Dol, it was special to experience this with Leah. For the record, Wesley chose the microphone and Leah chose the stethoscope.

Now for some other updates:

Food
Tomorrow Wesley goes 100% off formula. He'll still be on the bottle, but no formula. We've been gradually weening him off of it and tomorrow is the day to cut the cord. We've also been working with the sippy cup and he's doing really well with milk and water. He's continuing to try new solids including: shells & cheese, scrambled eggs, whole grain waffles, etc. Tonight we actually tried fish sticks which was interesting but he dug them and worked through the chewing.

Sleep
This continues to be one of our areas of struggle. Just when we think we're onto a "routine" things seem to go off track some how. The good news is that we've bumped up Wesley's bedtime an hour or more. He was going to bed between 9pm-10pm when we arrived home. We've changed that to 8pm. We've also worked to somewhat eliminate his morning naps and bump up his afternoon nap from 2pm to 12noon. This should work better with what the daycare schedule does when he moves to the "big boy" room in a few months. The struggles are the random wake ups in the middle of the night. They just started happening within the past 2+ weeks. He's never done this before so I feel like I shouldn't be complaining when I know that other families have a much harder time, however we're just perplexed at why he's all the sudden doing this. We're thinking that it could be the "change" of Brian going back to work (even with him being in the house) or Wesley going through some toddler growing pains of sorts or he could be suffering some more grieving. The other recent struggle is the shortening of the afternoon nap. This is very recent. They have gone from 2-2 1/2 hours to 1 - 1 1/2 hours, which result in a very cranky little boy come 3-3:30pm and 5-5:30pm.

Walking
Nothing yet. He's so incredibly close. He now gets one of his walking toys, stands up on his own and starts cruising down the hallway in seconds. I mean, you turn your back and he's off! We call his the little daredevil because he'll be standing up and balancing on our legs while we're sitting and he'll just turn around and let go and fall. It's like he doesn't realize that we're not going to support him. Yikes!
Kisses
Ok, Brian would probably say that I'm sharing too much, but I think it's really cute so I don't care. Wesley understands "Kisses" and when I say, "Can you give Mommy kisses?" and I lean in to give him a kiss, he opens his mouth (as opposed to puckering) to give his style of a kiss. Then when you connect with a "kiss" he giggles hysterically. It's really very cute.

To end this very long post, I'll have to share what I was thinking this morning while I was on our usual walk on the nature trail. I was reflecting on the long journey Brian and I have been through (as have others) to get to this point in our lives. After coming off of a somewhat difficult week with Wesley (last week) I vowed moving forward to be more patient, understanding and to keep top of mind what is really important. THIS is what we always wanted. HE is what we always wanted. There are going to be difficult times. There are going to be times when we're tired. There are going to be times when we're not sure what he wants. There are going to be times when other things will have to slip. As long as we love him, we love one another, the rest will fall into place.

Wesley loves the swing at his Grandy & Pops' house (my mom & dad's)