Porter at Fourteen Months

The months, they just keep on coming, don't they? This is going to be short and sweet which means it will bug the HECK out of me when I remember a million other little things about my Porter boy after I hit 'publish'. But I'm in a bit of a blogging lull and surprisingly don't seem to mind it one bit, so I'm afraid if I put this off much longer it's never happening. And then all (over) documentation of our lives will cease, and I will be annoyed/panicked about it, and I just can't let it go yet.

So. Porter. He's fourteen months old and seriously a freaking riot, with loads of personality and a lot of perplexing qualities that make us think he's going to be even more feisty than Cecelia. Hold me.


P's favorite naughty habit is to throw drinking cups consistently and without hesitation. You should see Truman when he hands Porter the sippy of whole milk (totally done with formula AND bottles here, hallelujah!). Truman will hand him the goods, then cautiously block all angles of the high chair tray with his arms so that WHEN Porter tosses the cup to the ground, Truman has a chance at rescuing it. I do the same thing without even batting an eye anymore. I'll take a bite of dinner, stare right at Cecelia and carry on a conversation, then with my free hand I'll lunge at the falling sippy cup with razor sharp peripheral vision. I only catch the thing about 10% of the time and Truman averages 50%, but either way there is something Porter loves about chucking his cups after every sip. It's maddening and so very Porter.





But yes, we weaned off all formula and also finally got rid of the much beloved bottle. This is huge for my Porter boy! He now drinks cold whole milk from sippy cups and prefers this new one I bought that sort of looks like a bottle nipple/soft spout. Sometimes I will warm up the milk a tiny bit first if I really want him to chug it but mostly our days of intricate milk feedings are over. It's so refreshing to simply provide a cup to drink at meals and for snacks and be done with the rest of the hoopla!



Porter eats solid foods when he feels like it and is one chunky monkey, being described as 'solid' most of the time that anyone picks him up for me. He loves chicken nuggets, Greek yogurt, corn and black beans, feta cheese, cheese pizza, watermelon, and all desserts the best. Also: any starchy carb will be his best friend should you offer. He's not into veggies but does seem to tolerate new foods a little better than Truman did, but it's not as great as Cecelia's love for new foods.





He's probably 23-24 pounds and wears 18-24 month clothes, so not a giant but not a twig either. He will for sure pass Cecelia up in his size shortly and his leg girth is already twice as large as hers;) These are actually 2T Gap pajamas and Cecelia can also wear 2T Gap pajamas, so yeah.


This kid is ridiculously verbal, I cannot even list the words he will repeat to us or initiate saying. Granted he's just over one year old so a lot of the words are things only Nate and I can understand. Nearly every animal is a 'Gaga' and the last time we went to the zoo Porter was literally shaking with excitement over the flamingos. He was screaming 'GAGAAAAAA' and pointing at them and saying 'Oooooooh' and squealing. It was the cutest thing imaginable and his excitement did not decrease over the visit, either. He can say 'cracker' sort of, lots of 'mama' and 'more' and 'mil' for milk. Lots of 'uh-ohs' and 'bye-byes', and 'shhhhhh'ing sounds. He will jam his index finger up to his mouth and tell us to shush. I mean, what? He'll say 'deeeees' when I ask him to smile for my camera.



Porter is starting to understand what we are saying and is getting better at communicating but he still gets supremely frustrated when we aren't able to read his mind. Because he certainly has opinions and knows what he wants, so watch out if you deny him that 'thing' (i.e. if he spots M&Ms, if you don't let him hold alllll of the helium balloons at a birthday party, etc). I love that he will now say 'go' and then crawls to get his shoes for me to put on his feet, when he knows we are packing up to leave the house.



Not only is he verbal but this was a big month for Porter's motor status. He can now go from sit to standing without pulling up on anything, just pushing up from the ground. He can stand without any support for at least 30 seconds and I don't know how this is even possible, since he was not crawling, not pulling to stand, and was barely even ROLLING over two months ago. He'll cruise along furniture and I swear he is getting close to taking a few steps on his own, Nate is placing his bets that P will be walking within the month. But Porter does seem like a cautious dude who will perfect his skill before actually launching it....and then I think we are in big trouble because he is already sneaking into places he should not be in this house. Case in point: I've caught him splashing in the toilet, climbing up the stairs, he did fall down about six of our hardwood stairs this month, fell off the couch, likes to get stuck under the dining room table, etc. The stairs thing is super annoying because we've never had to put baby gates up in our house, preferring to just shut the doors to the hallway to keep him out of trouble instead. But Porter will wail and scream if we close the doors and will sneak into any cracked door if we aren't paying attention to the little guy. He totally doesn't know how to climb down stairs yet but he sort of tries to sit there and swing his legs over the side like he's problem solving the task. He's just all over the place and it's SO.MUCH.HARDER to keep him out of trouble now, OMG. Exhausting really, but I'm glad he's mobile, too (I guess).


We had to re-sleep train Porter this month because I was going certifiably insane with the frequent night wakings, and he was addicted to getting a bottle in the middle of the night. Eventually I hit a sleep deprivation low (for the millionth time in my parenting career) and decided enough was enough. So I made sure Porter had a sippy cup of water in his crib and when he woke up I'd let him cry for about ten minutes. Then I'd go in there, place him back down in his crib (because he was nearly climbing out), and tell him it was time to go to sleep. I'd hand him his 'wa-wa' and walk out. This did NOT go over well at first, the blood curdling screams told our neighbors we were sleep training again, I guess. But then he only cried for maybe 3 minutes after that and then passed out. I did this for maybe two nights and then he figured out that I was not giving him a bottle, so now he sleeps all night again. Sometimes he likes to wake for the day around 5:30 am which seems too early but it's actually not awful since he does go to bed at 7pm most nights.



We are working on dropping his morning nap, but I really think he is a happier guy with two. It's just so inconvenient to ME and our schedule to make him nap twice and he usually puts up a valiant fight when attempting the morning nap, so it's easier to just skip it and deal with the fussiness in the evenings instead. Usually he naps for about three hours total a day, and I try to time that with Cecelia's 1:00 nap, obviously. Kindergarten pick up at 3:00 means I will bump the naps to noon to allow P and C both sleep for a solid 2-3 hours, but many times I've had to wake both of them in the name of getting big brother from school. I really hate waking Porter from his naps and lately he's been waking on his own in a pissed off mood regardless. Very serious, this one.



The other day I was tickling him and saw this white thing in the very back of his mouth, thinking it was food. But upon closer inspection, I see that he freaking cut a MOLAR somehow even though he hasn't cut a regular tooth in months and month. He still just has the same six teeth and now this upper left molar, which is random, right? I do claim he is 'teething' though with the upped fussiness and anger at sleeping, and maybe he will cut another four simultaneously like last time. Molars have to hurt real bad, too, and I will blame that bad boy on his fussiness in the past month for sure.

(see it way back there, poking through?)


Ha, ha, ha, mom, why are you taking so many pictures of my mouth?


I saw this face a lot this month. I am sure he was mad that I took away his milk after he threw it down a hundred times.


Porter is obsessed with all balls and will go to great lengths to play catch with us. He loves to dance and dance and dance and dance with a slinky/hilarious patented move. He loves to climb on top of the dishwasher no matter how many times I have to physically remove him, he loves to be held when he's in a cuddly mood, he lays his head on my chest and gives me open mouth kisses on command, and he lights up when he sees his siblings. He's the sweetest baby, but he's the most opinionated, and he's at a challenging age for playgrounds since he wants to be with the big kids but can't hang just yet.



Cecelia helps when we are at playgrounds by doing this:


We love this munchkin more than words, he's becoming such a little man and it's the greatest being his people. Really could not be any more smitten with our Porter-P!







Love you, boo.
xoxo Mommy