Hello! Jack's 18 month check up went very well. His pediatrician is happy with Jack's growth and development...one task we must work on is weaning Jack from his bottle! It seemed like it would be impossible because Jack refuses to drink much of anything from a sippy cup -- but we've made progress this week. My goal is to have him off the bottle in two weeks so when his occupational therapist comes back from vacation we have a HUGE surprise for her! Wish us luck, and please if anyone has any tips send them our way! Jack had his hearing tested last week -- he passed with a perfect score! He was such a good boy and cooperated very well for the test. We finally started speech therapy 3 weeks ago and so far Jack likes it. We have a lot of excellent therapists and we're very grateful for their help. As part of speech therapy we are starting to teach Jack simple sign language for babies. It's not clicking yet and Jack just thinks we're silly but eventually when he catches on it will help ease his frustration when it comes to communication. The theory is it will allow him to ask for things and communicate with us and by easing the frustration and boost his pride and words will come sooner. So far we've been working on: eat, hungry, drink, more, want, all done, daddy, mommy, puppy, kitty. I will let you know how it's going and of course when Jack makes his first sign! We had a great time at the beach -- I will post some pictures today! Unfortunately -- Jack had a cold for our trip -- it started a few days before we left. We spent a lot of time relaxing and going for walks on the beach -- we all loved it! He's feeling much better now.

He can belly crawl much faster but still tires out very quickly...and he needs constant enticement, begging, pleading, and PRAISE! He can hold the following positions if I physically place him there: hand and knee position, sitting (very well now), Standing while holding on to the couch, kneeling at the couch. He just has to work on moving on his own!!! He can't yet transition to any of these positions or get himself in these positions. We can get him to pull up from kneeling to standing but it doesn't come automatically...we are working VERY hard!

He can feed himself cheese curls, crackers and cookies as well as diced table foods. He used to be a big stuffer/shover but now he takes his time and takes perfect little bites.

He's teething like mad -- has some huge bumps towards the back of his mouth (molars?? eye teeth??) and he's not sleeping as well. We are approaching RSV and FLU season again and will need to be careful not to expose Jack to anyone that's sick. We aren't under 'house arrest' this year, we can go out but we'll have to pick less busy/crowded times to do our shopping or dining out. So we ask if you are sick or if anyone in your household is sick to please let us know before visiting with Jack. I think that's about it! As always he's my perfect little man -- playful and silly and quite cute (although I am a little biased!)