16.5 Months

Wow! Time sure is flying by! Today marks one whole year since we brought Nate home from the hospital. Those 5 months still seem longer than the entire last year. What a difference a year makes!

Eating
Eating has improved a whole lot this month! We decided to keep going with our plan to hold of on the PediaSure and I really think it was the right decision for us. He's now drinking regular whole milk and eating quite a bit. He's still gagging some but it's not nearly as much and it's not followed by throwing up hardly at all anymore. Our efforts now are focused on switching to a sippy cup and getting rid of the bottles. So far, it's not going well... :)

Favorite Foods
The favorites this month are toast with peanut butter, grilled cheese sandwiches, and BBQ chicken. We've come a long way from our months and months of nothing but Cheerios!

Favorite Things
Now that Nate is mobile, he isn't super interested in sitting down to play toys. He is getting into plenty of trouble around the house though. He's discovered all kinds of new and exciting things.

His first favorite is the vacuum. He's loved the vacuum forever. He finds it every day and tries to take it apart and lick it...it's kinda weird :) I've started to get fed up with the vacuum obsession so I thought that if I turned it on with him around, it would scare him enough that we wouldn't like it anymore. Unfortunately, just the opposite happened! He now loves it even more! Crazy kid!

Nate's other favorite this month is eating grass. I actually don't mind if he eats grass but the problem is, he gags on it and throws up. I don't want him throwing up all of our hard work with eating so I've been trying to get him to stop. He's not the best listener... Recently, I tried a different approach. I let him see me put a piece of grass in my mouth and then spit it out and said "yuck!" You can see how well that worked out...

Talking
Nate has finally said his first word! I've been trying so hard to get Nate to say Mommy for months now and now every time I ask him to say it, he closes his eyes and gives me this little giggle like he's teasing me. It's like he knows how to say it but he just won't do it. Little stinker! Of course, his first word was Daddy. The other day, Todd came home from work and Nate ran around the house screaming Da Da Da Da. He now does it every time he sees Todd and he also screams it every time. It's certainly going to make things a little more interesting around here!

Crawling/Walking
We officially have a crawler AND a walker!!!! About 2 weeks ago he finally figured out the whole crawling thing and a week after that, he just took off. Now he's everywhere and it's wonderful! I'd much rather be chasing him around than listening to him cry all the time out of frustration.

Boise
We were able to go to Boise last week for the annual NICU reunion. We had a great time! Every summer, the hospital puts on a huge BBQ at a park and invites every family that has spent time in the NICU. The doctors and nurses and other staff go to see how much their babies have grown. We were able to see some of our favorite nurses and families that we got to know during our stay. Everyone was very excited to see how big and healthy Nate is. Unfortunately, I didn't get a single picture from the picnic :( I did get a picture of Nate's first successful restaurant experience though. We stopped at Olive Garden before we headed out of town and Nate did great! Who doesn't love an Olive Garden breadstick?

Nate got an awesome shirt from the NICU picnic. The smallest size they had was a Youth 6-8 so it is more like a dress than a shirt :) You can't see it in the picture because Nate never holds still, but it has a picture of a caterpillar and says "Cute As A Bug" on it. It's perfect for our little Nate Bug!

Twin Falls
On the way home from Boise, we decided to stop in Twin Falls. We finally got the girls' marker set and we've been so excited to see it. It turned out perfect! We love it!

New Church Clothes
My mom bought Nate a suit for his birthday but it's been too big and too hot to wear it to church. It's still too big and too hot but we couldn't wait to try it on him last Sunday. He looked so handsome!

Swimming
We have been doing a lot of swimming this summer and Nate is loving it! The pool here in Pocatello has a little kid pool with fountains and slide. It's Nate's favorite place to be. He loves splashing and standing under the sprayers. We've had a great time.

Misc
I've been wanting to share this picture for a while now but I keep forgetting. I got the little sign a few months ago and thought it was so great for Nate's room. It fits perfectly with all of his other stuff.