15 thoughts from my 15th month as a parent

June 23, 2014

This month of parenthood has involved sheep, streamers and shoes…

1. We seem to always forget to bring our son’s bucket and spade with us when we go on an outing to the beach. As if to make a point about this, he has spent a lot of one day recently wandering around our front room with his plastic spade.

2. Our son enjoys helping out in the garden. We have had to teach him that he’s supposed to water the plants and not the chickens.

3, Laundry pile jenga is our son’s new favourite game. It involves walking up to a pile of laundry on a chair, tugging at it and seeing if he can knock it all over before mummy or daddy notice what he’s doing.

4. Another one of his favourite games is playing ‘peek-a-boo’ with daddy’s t-shirts.

5. We were really impressed when our son recently started responding to the question ‘where’s your nose?’ by touching his nose. However, he recently also responded to the question ‘where’s dad?’ by touching his nose.

6. Rather than staying inside and watching the World Cup on television, we have been taking our son out and about to exciting local events. Here is a sheep shearing competition at Sioe Dyffryn Ogwen, a local agricultural show. We didn’t see the conclusion of the event as we needed to change his nappy (what us UK folk call diapers!). The same thing happened in the last few minutes of the World Cup match between Argentina and Brazil, meaning that I missed Lionel Messi’s winning goal.

7. We recently bought our son a box full of blocks with letters on them at a jumble sale. I’m currently wondering if there are enough to spell the name of the famous local village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

8. Here’s the answer…

9. Our son’s still not sleeping through the night on a regular basis yet but he was kind enough not to get up early on either Saturday or Sunday of a recent weekend. He woke up at 9.30am on the Saturday and 10am on the Sunday.

10. I bought some streamers that I was going to use to decorate our house for our son’s birthday a few months back. I forgot to actually put the streamers up but our son demonstrated his dexterity by managing to find one of the packets a few weeks ago before opening it and having lots of fun!

11. Animals and food have been two things that we’ve tried to teach our son about. One weekend, we had to stop our sun trying to eat cat biscuits and then an hour or two later try to prevent our son from having part his flapjack eaten by chickens.

12. Baby led weaning can get messy, especially when a 14 month old insists that he wants to hold the spoon himself while having porridge. Indeed, things can get even messier when he decides to grab a clean baby grow and rubs porridge onto it as well…

13. Our son has recently added the words ‘bath’ and ‘splash’ to his vocabulary. I still have ‘dad’ noted down as his first word though.

14. Our son enjoyed getting his first ever pair of shoes recently, mainly because he was able to pull lots of pairs of the shelves. In fact, he had more fun that the last time he went to a soft play centre.

15. My wife and I have finally got our son’s hint about trying not to forget his bucket and spade when we go to the beach. We got him a new bucket and spade at the beach recently so as he has one set to keep in the car and another to keep in his sandpit in our back garden.

What do you think of this post and what do you remember from your first year and a bit as a parent? Please feel free to share your views in the comments section below or on the ‘Dad’s The Way I Like It’ pages on Facebook or Google+.

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I’ve added this post to the following parent blogger link-ups, check them out to see a range of posts by fellow parent bloggers:

JDaniel4's Mom
Jun 24, 2014 @ 11:56:46

My son still loves to play with the laundry! What a fun post!

Beth Cheng
Jun 24, 2014 @ 13:42:14

Love that age!

Laura @ Lalymom
Jun 24, 2014 @ 19:29:57

Laundry pile jenga! Too funny! From my daughter’s first year I remember most thinking, boy this parenting thing is pretty easy, my baby is so laid back and fun! From my son’s first year I remember thinking holy moly this kid is never going to sit still ever! He is even teaching big sister a thing or two!

rcrown2
Jun 25, 2014 @ 03:47:39

Wow, 15 months already? At this point, reading your monthly “number of things” posts helps to put my own daughter’s aging into perspective. It’s all happening too fast!

I have a feeling your son’s jenga game ties nicely into playing peek-a-boo with your shirt. And seems like you got a winning block set if it can spell the name of that city! I’d say you and your wife are keeping busy; make sure to hold on to that bucket and spade!

DannyUK
Jun 28, 2014 @ 14:38:09

Ahhhh, I remember when one of mine called me dad for the first time. It was touching. Until I realised that the cat, the TV, the carpet and a dummy were all called dad too. Thanks for linking up! #FamilyFriday

Jonathan
Jun 29, 2014 @ 17:39:54

Thanks for sharing that, I also loved hearing the word dad for the first time.

Eleanor (thebristolparent)
Jun 28, 2014 @ 16:41:26

All sounds very familiar, we’re in our 15th month too, and loving it! #PoCoLo

Jonathan
Jun 29, 2014 @ 17:38:52

It’s so much fun seeing all the little changes that seem to happen all the time!

Emma @ P is for Preschooler
Jun 29, 2014 @ 11:59:45

Perfect solution to the bucket and pail issue! Loved the “where’s dad?” answer too! lol!

Jonathan
Jun 29, 2014 @ 17:37:17

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. It’s fun keeping track of these little moments!

Jill
Jun 29, 2014 @ 16:11:38

Watering the chickens? Adorable!

Thank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!

Jonathan
Jun 29, 2014 @ 17:36:31

Thank you, our son seems to like the chickens!

Victoria Welton
Jun 29, 2014 @ 21:11:04

A lovely post. Its great when you do these as they truly are a record of his milestones – it also means the regular readers know where he is at. Love the peek-a-bo photo. Thank you for linking to PoCoLo 🙂

Katie Humphrey (mami2five)
Jul 02, 2014 @ 20:42:26

Watering the chickens and Clothes Jenga, a great way to spend the day! My 11 month old loves a game of peekaboo with whatever item he manages to get his hands on. He’s not saying anything yet, but I guess with four older siblings to fetch and carry he doesn’t really need to! #FamilyFriday

Jonathan
Jul 02, 2014 @ 20:44:15

Thanks for sharing that. Our son wasn’t really saying anything at 11 months either.

Paul Wandason
Jul 03, 2014 @ 10:46:46

Number (8) – wow…how long did it take to do all that?!! Very impressive! 🙂

Jonathan
Jul 03, 2014 @ 16:21:37

Thanks. Think it took at least 15-20 minutes!

tombriggs79
Jul 03, 2014 @ 16:58:00

Great stuff! I can happily report that they don’t grow out of the laundry pile jenga quickly either – my two year old still thinks it’s the funniest thing ever. The beast!

Jonathan
Jul 03, 2014 @ 17:31:01

Thanks. I was hoping that introducing real jenga might result in laundry pile jenga losing its appeal.

ideas4dads
Jul 14, 2014 @ 13:32:02

Wowsers hes really coming on 🙂 Love the touching the nose thing and always good to see a bit of good old honest sheep shearing 😉

Ideas4Dads (and Mums Too!)
Jul 14, 2014 @ 13:34:10

Jonathan
Jul 30, 2014 @ 21:11:51

Thanks for commenting, totally agree about the sheep shearing!

Like father, like son | Dad's the way I like it
Jul 15, 2014 @ 19:43:40

Mahala
Jul 25, 2014 @ 15:54:46

ahh remember lots from that time in toddlerhood – my youngest is 19 months old and we’re still playing laundry jenga. He’s yet to sleep through the night though – even once, though these days, he barely wakes me when he grabs a boob to feed back to sleep!

Jonathan
Jul 30, 2014 @ 21:10:59

Good luck with getting your son to sleep right through the night! Our son thankfully doesn’t regularly wake up crying so I guess we’re lucky in some ways.