Bennett's 18 Month Update

My beautiful baby toddler boy is 18 months old. When I sat down to write this post I couldn’t believe 4 months had passed since my last update on Bennett. These past 4 months, in keeping with the last year and a half of this little boy’s life, has traveled by so quickly. It’s almost as if my awareness of the passing time is making it go faster. I’m cherishing every millisecond of my time with Bennett at this exceptionally cute age.

This kid has changed so much in the past 4 months it’s hard to find a place to begin. He is running everywhere, and my little lionheart imagines every piece of furniture as an obstacle to climb on, a podium to stand on and a diving board to jump off. If an object can be picked up, it will also be thrown. I’m not sure why he loves to throw everything he can get his hands on, but I can only hope it’s in practice to one day lead UGA to a NCAAF National Title.

I have an enormous sense of pride for this little boy, and there is never a day that goes by that I don’t find myself in awe that I made him.* This post would turn into a book if I started chronicling all the things I love about Bennett, but I want to mention that I am most struck by his amazing heart. It has been fascinating to me to be able to sense this in such a small, young person, but in the last few months he has started to show me unprovoked signs of affection, and let me tell you, I don’t know how my heart’s still beating after exploding. When he wants to leave a room, he always takes my hand in an effort to take me with him. He constantly comes up to me just to give me a hug (a Bennett hug is 2 arms wrapping around my legs then pressing his cheek into my thigh). And, best of all, he has started to give me the sweetest, clumsiest, drool-filled kisses when I hold him. And those “just because” kisses make my world light up.

Bennett’s favorite food is still pizza, and if I let him go, could probably polish off his own pie. And when it comes to eating in general, he throws back breakfast and lunch, but he tends to be a.. ahem.. pain in the donkey when it comes to eating dinner. We eat right after Brian comes home, but he acts so tired and (very vocally) protests everything we try to give him. Chewbacca, on the other hand, is in culinary doggy-heaven since Bennett throws all the food he refuses off the high chair. Have any of you had this issue with your early toddlers and, if so, have you found it helps to move up their dinner time? Bennett currently has dinner at 6:30 and is in bed by 7:30.

We have restarted swim lessons after a few month hiatus, and if it’s possible, he loves it even more now than he did before. Naturally my wild child’s favorite part of the lesson is when he gets to jump into the pool off the side at the count of three. He also expresses the same abundant laughter at the playground when you’re about to let him go from the top of the slide. His laugh is the most amazing sound I have ever heard and could cheer up the grumpiest New Englander after a Tom Brady suspension.

The last matter I wanted to bring up, and I was reluctant to do so because there are such strong, infallible parenting philosophies out there, is that Bennett still isn’t talking. When he was a year old he was babbling da-da-da sounds which we thought was him attempting to say daddy, but it didn’t stick. Currently, he is able to and has uttered every sound possible by the human vocal system, but none of these sounds are articulating into words. I can see that not being able to communicate to me frustrates him, and he throws mini tantrums that even includes purposely hitting his head on the floor. Bennett’s pediatrician had recommended early intervention a few months ago, but I have been reluctant to start (which is so totally unlike me since I have always taken Bennett’s pediatrician’s word as Gospel and wholly trust her medical opinions). I have just been nervous about putting too much pressure on him or stressing him out so early in his life and was scared that bringing in a professional in a therapeutic setting would do just that. Plus, week by week I had begun to notice what I thought were small improvements in new sounds he would form as well as forming longer, almost syllabled extensions to those sounds. But here we are 3 months later and still no words. If any of you have had any experience with early intervention programs for your kiddos, I would love to hear your experiences. My current plan is to set up an evaluation within the next week.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all enjoy the rest of this (short) week!

(*Yes, I understand the biology and know Brian had a hand in it too.)