20 month updates on Lil J

So Lil J is now 20 months old.  It feels like he is getting so close to being 2 now.  He now weighs 28.4 lbs (50-75%), he is  34" tall (50-75%), & has a head circumference of  20" (>95%).  He still weighs the same as last month, & he's been looking thin to me, a tad too thin.  But in the last couple of weeks he has become a bit of a bottomless pit, which I am happy about & I just let him eat & eat until he is full.  In the past I have seen others with toddlers & they say how much their toddler can eat & I've always wondered why Lil J wasn't like that, he barely ate anything at all.  I guess it's just timing & now his time has arrived, LOL. 

As soon as he turned 19 months he went through a phase of throwing outrageous tantrums & major separation anxiety (separation anxiety had first started right after he turned a year old, but it passed quickly).  But these have mostly passed.  He does still throw tantrums & he does still struggle with separation on occasion, but it's not as severe as it was as soon as he turned 19 months.  In the 18th month I saw a lot of thinking going on, he was doing a lot of thinking & making decisions & figuring things out.  It was a problem solving month.

He also [finally] became "slightly" more adventurous with food once he turned 19 months old.  He started accepting some bbq chicken breast & he now LOOOVES turkey bacon.  He also has been willing to taste a few more things that he usually won't.  He is still definitely picky & mostly refuses without even knowing what it is or what it even looks like or smells like, but he is slightly improving in this department.  He has been willing to eat clementines (has always rejected fresh fruits & veggies in the past), pasta (he previously HATED pasta), potatoes, ground turkey, hummus (he LOVES hummus!), & lots of other stuff.  His appetite has also inreased TREMENDOUSLY.

And another big change is that he doesn't want to drink as much milk & kefir as he used to.  (this is probably why he's eating so much now)  He usually drinks 8-16 oz of goat milk with breakfast (before he was drinking over a quart a day between kefir & milk) & that's all the milk he has for the whole day.  I had believed that he would let me know when he didn't need quite so much milk & kefir & apparently I was right.  There's a lot of people who insist that you have to force them to decrease the amount of milk to make them eat food, etc.  I was sticking firmly to the belief that he would do it on his own when he was ready & I do believe I was right. He drinks 20-30 oz of VERY diluted juice daily & a veggie juice that is half juice & half water, usually 8-16 oz of that one & the rest of his drinking is water.

I took him to the doctor for a check up & we did a lot of testing for food allergies & lead & H/H.  But we are still waiting on results.  I had a lot of blood work done myself too, so between the two of us I am anxious to see our results.

At church he now brings home artwork each week.  There is always a page of coloring & yesterday he brought home a Christmas ornament that he made (with help I am sure).  I am so excited each week to see what he did.  It's funny because right before he moved to this group at church I had been thinking that I should start working with him on writing & artwork maybe.  That is one area I've never even touched on with him, yet most of my friends with toddlers do art stuff with their kids on a regular basis.  When my stepdaughter asked what he needed for Christmas I had told her pants, something to write or draw with (I know I once saw one where the marker only marks on the special page, so he can't make a mess), & nerf balls (he's getting too strong & dangerous now to play with his balls in the house, so we need to replace them with nerf type ones).  That was all I could think of.......that & more stuff for him to think & problem solve with. 

I think that's all the updates I have for now.