Single Canadian Mom By Choice: Totally horrible blogger! 18-month update

Yes, I'm dropping in after weeks of agonizing whether I should own up to my shame of not posting in a very long time ... many months. October, I think? Sheesh.

Anyway, I went back to work in January and Henry went off to day care. We both adjusted well. Henry has adjusted well to my travel schedule and is a fantastic traveler. He does very well on the flights even though he is now in the "I must scale and crawl on any upright object" phase. The 2-hour time zone change we have during summer months isn't the best but Henry adjusts fine. He loves getting to see grandma, grandpa (H calls him papa and made that up on his own) and his cousins regularly. And they love spending time with him too.

Henry is tall (85.4 cm) and heavy (13.5 kg) for an 18-month old so I'm convinced he's going to be a big kid and eat me out of house and home when he's a teenager. That or he'll have to get a job to pay for the groceries. He's been quite healthy since his last cold in January and no more bouts of wheezing, thankfully. My fingers are crossed that he'll outgrow that issue.

He's finally started speaking and repeating things I say to him including 'moo' which he finally said tonight after a long time trying to get him to do it. For the longest time he would only say about five words and no animal sounds and at his 15-month appointment the nurse practitioner told me they could intervene by 2. Now he offers a variety of words spontaneously in varying levels of quality depending on the day. Some days he's clear and others I just get a first consonant out of him. He loves to answer various versions of 'good' when I ask him how he is.

He's a very physically active kid which will be a good thing down the road. But he also loves music and books. He's now started taking a book to bed with him and I don't care since it seems to keep him calm and busy until he finally falls asleep. Tonight he started repeating 'moo' when I put him in his crib and was still going at it when I walked out of his room. I heard this thunderous noise not that long after and went in to check afraid he was banging his book on the wall. No need to worry about the neighbour going nuts from the noise. Nope. He was just banging his feet on the end of the crib to check out the sound. Another thing he loves to do these days especially if it is something that can cause damage. Oh yes, he's a little go.dzilla, this one. lol

I'm busy with work, traveling, keeping the yard in order (I did a ton of landscaping in the front this spring) and generally just keeping up with things. My house is always in a state of mess but I do my best to at least keep the main floor organized lest anyone think I'm a hoarder. lol Nah, more like someone who doesn't get the floor vacuumed nearly often enough. I've gotten into genealogical research and am trying to get back into travel writing as well so that will also be taking up free time. I've also got to figure out how to fit some sort of exercise in there somewhere too. I weigh less than when I got pregnant but my shape is a little different and I'm in need of some muscle toning. A little cardio wouldn't hurt either. I'd love to go for walks in the evening (and that was the plan before the ridiculously hot weather moved in) but that will have to wait until cooler weather appears.

I'm hoping I can do a better job of posting even if it will be a bit sporadic. Because of my travel schedule I am unable to set a time such as Sunday mornings to post an update because we're often getting ready to catch a flight on Sundays ... well, at least every 2nd week until the end of September. Until then here's a couple of new photos of the little guy from the day he turned 18 months.