17 months

Sweet Wyatt Nathanial is seventeen months today.

Nearly a year and a half.

He has fully mastered walking at this point.

And has moved on to talking.
Here he is saying "baby".

Other words he knows:

Daddy

Mommy

Logan

Jack

Taggie

Bye bye

Hi

Book

Read

Cracker

Cookie

More

All Done

Water

Milk

Chips

Play

Down

Up

Stuck

Yucky

Dog
Puppy
"bark"
"meow"

Whee

Papa

Nanny

Uh oh

Bath

No!!! (complete with hand motions!)

He knows how to kiss and blow kisses.

His favorite activities are dancing;

being read to;

and watching his Old McDonald Baby Einstein.

He recently got his first pair of shoes.  He mostly always wore Robeez before.  He had all of Jack & Logan's old ones. I just adore Robeez!

These are Stride Rite size 6 xw (extra wide!) and he is so proud walking around in them. He stomp!stomp!stomps! all over the house.  Then when he wants them off, he will sit on the floor by me saying, "Stuck. stuck, stuck," until I get the hint and help him take them off.

He adores being sung to, which I happily oblige.  His love of singing is what has gotten us through weaning.  He was still asking to eat at every nap time until yesterday morning. It was the first time he didn't ask.  And  it's been a week of no feeding.  After I would tell him no eating, then I would sing a song, and that would almost always work to calm him down.

When I am yelling at his brothers he will stop what he's doing and say, "hi" to me in the sweetest voice. I think he doesn't like when I'm upset.  It's so tender.  

And when he just wants to be silly or make us laugh, he will say, "Ollo?" like Megamind does. It always cracks us up. (On the movie Megamind answers the phone "Ollo?" and his minion has to teach him, "It's "hello", sir."  The twins say it all the time, and Wyatt picked it up.)

He has recently mastered nodding, and it kills me every time.  I will ask him, "Are you ready for a snack?" And he will nearly touch his chin to his chest going down, and then nearly fall over backwards as he nods it back up again. It is so earnest. I have GOT to video tape it share with you all!

When I compare him with the twins at this age, he still seems like such a baby (aside from the talking) and they seemed like such big boys. I wonder if this is because of their birth order, or if they really are that different.  He is still really snuggly and sweet. The twins seemed more independent at this age.  I love the differences and find them fascinating. 

Like his brothers before him, Wyatt has learned "Touchdown!" from daddy.

Unfortunately I only managed to catch it from the back!

I don't have a picture of him with it for this post, but the boy does LOVE his taggie, (a tiny square of a blanket with ribbons sewn along its edges) much like Logan & Jack loved their bubbas.  I am so happy that they have each had a comfort item.  It's nice when they are sick or injured or sad to be able to offer it to them.

When he has his taggie, if he doesn't have a pacifier available, he will wrap the ribbon around his right pointer finger, shaping it like a hook, and putting it in his mouth to suck on.  He has sores on his finger, on both sides, from doing this in the night when he has lost or misplaced his binky.

He loves to play with the wipes, which is naughty.  

And he likes to get out all the pots and pans, also naughty. 

But I must admit I have not been much for childproofing with him at all. 

The things he finds to get into are so minimal, and I am always here, 

generally in the same room as him, so I have gotten lazy in that department.

 I see now why my mom would say childproofing for the twins was so ridiculous. For some babies you can get away with almost no childproofing.  I had no idea the twins were such freaks of nature. 

No, seriously. Those kids came up with the craziest adventures!  Oil in the pantry, Windex in the face, sugar on mom's kitchen floor... I seriously had my hands full.

With Wyatt, just my heart is full!

We have a couple of nicknames for Wyatt right now.  I mostly call him Wy-nut.  The boys call him bubba.  Josh calls him Wyatt Gerschefski.  It sounds like a Canadian ice hockey name. I have no idea where it came from, but it stuck.  Even the twins call him that sometimes.

The nickname I am working to shake is "baby".  I don't call him baby to his face, but I refer to him (constantly) as the baby.  "I'm changing the baby," or "Give that book to the baby," or "The baby needs a snack."

Since weaning him, I have decided to stop calling him the baby. So if you catch it on here, please tell me! And in "real life" at home, I am trying to catch myself.  So far, so good.

One of the cutest things the baby Wyatt does is when I lay him down for naps. I put him in the crib, cover him with his cozy quilt from Nanny and tell him I love him.  Then he pulls his hand up out of the blanket, waves at me and says, "Bye bye!"

It is so cute!  He is just a bundle of joy.  So happy and funny and full of character all his own.

He loves his brothers, and his momma and Daddy.  

But if he had to choose, he'd choose his daddy every time!

"A babe in the house is a well spring of pleasure, a messenger of peace and love, a resting place for innocence on the earth, a link between angels and man."

-Martin Fraquhar Tupper

PS: Thank you, Logan, for taking these pictures of mommy & the baby Wyatt
PPS: For those interested in a comparison of Wyatt at this age with the twins at this age:

Logan & Jack at 17 months

PPPS: The insane amount of pictures here is for my mom, who needed a Wyatt fix!