Campbell is 14 months (almost 14.5 months–I am a little late!). Here’s what she was up to her 14th month!

• Campbell can stand herself up (without the assistance of us or furniture) and she can stay standing all by herself. She can also take a few quick steps (actually, now at 14.5 months, she can walk!! I’ll have to do another post on that!)

• Still loves to say hi! She also says mama, dada, hello (hewow), byebye (bah bah), light (hi), keys (kshh), teeth (teees), thank you (dat doo), uh oh, woof woof (woo woo), neigh (na-aa), and yum

• LOVES my purse. Generally loves to pull things out of other things (bookshelves, drawers, wallets)

• Absolutely adores her big brother! Campbell thinks Sam is so funny. But she’s also capable of biting him when he hops on her van.

• Really likes to eat with silverware. She’ll eat a lot more when she’s using silverware than when just using her hands! Funny girl. We have been letting her feed herself yogurt for snack–it gets messy but she loves it!

• She still eats with her hands too!

• She’s super artistic! I made some edible paints so she could do some artwork. She mostly just sucked on the paintbrush.

• Such a little snuggle bug. I just love how much she loves to snuggle and be held at this age. I know it won’t last!!

•  Loves to play restaurant. Passes out menus, takes your order (sometimes they’re out of what you want), prepares “food”, calls out your number a la District Taco, gives you your food (rarely what you ordered), buses your table afterward. It’s very elaborate.

• Obsessed with construction. Sam has several construction trucks that he plays with at home and loves to point out any construction sites we see on our drive. He is really good at noticing those little orange signs, or even just one orange cone. He gets really mad if he sees a construction site and we don’t drive past it. (Way more interested in the construction toys than the Easter Egg hunt at my friend Theresa’s house!)

• Oscillates between wanting to do things all by himself and refusing to do things (like put on his socks and shoes) because he says he can’t do it
• Mostly a good big brother. He really likes to make Campbell laugh. Since they share a room, we hear them before bed and first thing in the morning “talking” and laughing with each other. It is pretty cute. But he can also be super possessive and hits or pushes Campbell when she comes near any of “his” toys (which include any toy that he is playing with, even if it is actually her toy).

• Can be a real handful. Three and half is a tiring age! Sometimes he will be a perfect little angel and then the next minute turn into a monster. It is hard to predict what will set him off. I just started using a little discipline chart that I saw on my friend Med’s blog and it seems to be helping. Time outs weren’t really working, because most of the time he was doing something naughty, a time-out wasn’t practical (we were running out the door, for example).

• Still a pretty good eater, but getting much pickier. Sam seems to have learned that vegetables aren’t cool, so he will often tell us a vegetable is gross even when it is something he has always loved (roasted broccoli!). It is really frustrating but we are trying to just stick with the rule that he has to try at least one bite of everything, and reminding him that it isn’t nice to say something is yucky. He looooves all fruits, carrots, frozen peas, pasta, bread, pancakes, tacos from District Taco, and seltzer with a spash of cranberry juice (he calls it “special drank”). He doesn’t like cheese, unless it’s on pizza, in a taco, in macaroni and cheese, etc. We’ve gotten him to say now that he likes cheese when it’s mixed in. He also tends to avoid creamy food. I’m working on it!

• Loves painting
• Talks like an adult. Sam really picks up on things he hears and loves to incorporate “grown-up” talk into his vocabulary in a very funny way. The other day Henry bumped into him, and he said, “You have got to be kidding me, Henry!” (that one was from Grandma Judi). Today, when I asked him to put some things away before going downstairs he said, “Yeah. That’s kind of what I was thinking.” Once, as he was getting into the car, I grabbed a paper out of his hands, thinking I was being helpful and freeing his hands up but he looked at me and said, “Mommy, you shouldn’t just *grab* it out of my hands. If you asked nicely I would have been happy to give it to you.”
• Loves to play outside ALL THE TIME, especially if he sees our neighbors Beatrice and Jack outside. Luckily the weather is finally warming up, so I may be able to indulge him a little more.
• Always wants to help out with cooking or fix-it projects
• After being solidly in the Daddy camp for the past year or so, he is finally swinging back to being a mommy’s boy and lately insists that he wants mommy to do certain things. Though he still looooves Daddy and gets really excited when Daddy gets home.
• Finally giving up sucking his fingers at bedtime! Sam has been a finger sucker (left pointer and index) since he was a baby but for the last few weeks we’ve been telling him that at 3.5, he had to give it up. We ordered some of this horrible tasting nail polish and put in on his fingers. He wasn’t happy about it but so far it seems to be working. He slept through his whole nap and all night (we put mittens on so that he didn’t accidentally taste the nail polish and wake himself up). I don’t know how we’ll know when he has dropped the habit and we can stop applying the nail polish, but I am just happy that he seems to be OK with it all now.

Saturday was Sam’s half birthday–he’s three and a half now!! We had a fun day, and even a little half birthday cake! Grandpa Pat was in town so we all went to the mall to ride on the train (plan B after the Duck Tour was all sold out–I think Sam was just as happy!). Then we had lunch and took Grandpa Pat to the real train station to go home. After nap, Sam got to have a slice of his half birthday cake and watch Sesame Street. Daddy made some of Sam’s favorite tacos for dinner and then of course, Sam had another slice of cake for dessert. All in all it was a great day!