18 months old!

ah, the final post. it had been 1.5 months since i last blogged. life has been busy. lots of outings, skiing, easter, throwing showers, hair appointments, shopping for greatly needed clothes... no rest for the wicked. i've had to work every weekend in april, with no end in sight until the studio recital on may 2. piano rehearsals are this weekend. z is 18 months now. he had his 18 month doctor's appointment on tuesday. he's been sick ever since spring break week. at the appt, they told us to give him emergen-c daily to try to boost his immune system to hopefully kill the cold. we've also started him on daily multivitamins & fish oil. we're cutting down on how frequently we let him eat, and we now make him walk everywhere, especially up & down the stairs. there has been lots of whining this week, but he's getting faster at getting around. on wednesday i took z to the zoo, and he walked almost everywhere, wanting to push his little stroller all by himself. he took much more interest in the animals this time, compared to the last time we went. we have a membership to both the zoo & the children's museum, so it makes it easy to just spend an hour at a time at either place. a couple weeks ago z & i began two classes together - an art class, and a music together class. he isn't too interested in the art projects yet, and the teacher isn't so good at picking age appropriate tasks. she was under the impression that finger painting was just for babies, that it was too boring for 18-24 month olds. WHAAAT??? z is just getting started with that stuff. it's still good for him to be around the other kids. he gets a lot more out of the music together classes. we have a cd we have to listen to daily for the class, so that the music is familiar, so we have one for the car & one for the home. i have most of them memorized already. just in the past few days z has started talking more. he's much more willing to try to say words, to match the sounds. he can now say byebye, and i swear he tried saying spider & carrot today. we're trying to give him healthier foods - i thought we were already doing a great job with that, but evidently cheerios & granola bars are junk food according to our doctor. i now slice apples to take along for snacks, and he eats a lot of carrots with nut butters. tofu & bbq sauce has been a big hit this week. i researched some "toddler" recipes online, so i'll try them out on him later this weekend. j & i were worried about his lack of talking, but the dr says he's doing just fine, as long as he doesn't start going backwards (not saying words he's already learned). he still loves to read books, loves terrorizing vinny & pulling his tail, loves bubbles. he's making it farther, walking up the big hill in our neighborhood, and has fun drawing with chalk outside. we hope to go hiking this weekend. z has his very first dentist's appointment on tuesday. he will not let us brush his teeth much, and it's worrying me, so our doctor recommended seeing a pediatric dentist. i hope his teeth aren't too far gone, and hope she has some tips on brushing his teeth!