Jace- 17 months

I can't believe my baby is only a month away from being one and a half!  It's insane how quickly the second year of his life has been flying past.  The other day I glanced back at pictures of him when we first moved to South Carolina in January.  I had expected to look back and see that he hadn't changed much, but boy was I wrong!  I guess seeing him everyday makes his changes less obvious... but he is much taller than he was and his hair is WAY too long longer.  I guess those are pretty obvious changes that occur with time, but for some reason I was surprised.  Makes me wonder what he'll be like in another three months!

17 months has definitely brought some fun new changes.  Jace has started mimicking almost everything we say.  He still doesn't speak clearly... but he actually is making an effort to repeat the words that we say.  Sometimes he'll surprise us and say something extremely clearly, but typically he doesn't repeat it much after saying it once... so I think it's mostly just by chance that he stumbles across certain words.  He loves to say "Hi" and "Bye" while waving excitedly to every single person we see when we're out in public... even the ones I wish he wouldn't talk to!  One thing is for sure, he can usually bring a smile out of everyone he meets.

Now that this mimicking stage has hit, I think it will only be another two months or so before his vocabulary starts taking off.  I used to think he'd never start using real words, but now I can see that he's really making an effort to learn not only what things are, but also how to pronounce them.  Other than the mimicking, not much else is new with him developmentally.  I think he's starting to get a slightly longer attention span, which shows when he sits and plays with a toy for longer than 30 seconds before moving on to the next one.  It's still pretty short though!

He continues to eat well one day, and refuse to eat anything the next.  I try not to let it bother me and instead I've become more creative with tricking him into getting his veggies and protein.  I've been making him breakfast "milk shakes" on certain days that contain anything from spinach to bran flakes to leftovers... all disguised with fruit.  He loves them!  He does surprise me from time to time though and becomes obsessed with a random food like asparagus... or this week it was cottage cheese, which he used to gag on.

Everyday I feel so lucky to have such an amazing little man... but there are definitely moments during some of those days where I get extremely frustrated with my spirited little man.  I can no longer bring him into a store for more than two minutes.  Once those two minutes have passed he will scream at the top of his lungs... I'm talking ear-piercingly loud screams.  They're not necessarily angry screams, sometimes they almost sound like he's excited.  But, none the less, they are full on screaming fits.  I've tried everything in my power to make him stop.  I've tried always making sure to have snacks to distract him during the entire grocery trip, speeding up the cart and playing "games" with him, asking him questions and quizzing him on animal noises, ignoring him, asking him nicely to stop, yelling at him to stop, letting him out of the cart (not recommended!), putting him in time out in the corner of the store, threatening him with an early bedtime (haha, as if he really understands that... but I get desperate!)... the list goes on.  You name it, I've tried it.

I can say that the most frustrating part for me, is that it never fails that I forget at least 3 things I went to the store for because I'm rushing and distracted by screams.  Which then means I have to go BACK later that week with him again... which only means more frustration.  I do get alot of dirty looks from people when he is misbehaving... it doesn't matter if I'm scolding him or ignoring him, whatever I'm doing "they" think it's wrong.  I try not to let it get to me, but you can only take so many eye-rolls and mutterings under people's breath before you start to get upset.  Unfortunately with Tate's work schedule, I don't really have many options for shopping with out Jace tagging along.  So, I guess I will just have to keep trying to find a solution.

The other day I finally got a chance to run to the fabric store to pick out fabric for our living room curtains.  I've been wanting to go and get this done for almost two months now.  I thought that if I played with Jace before we left, gave him milk in the car, and brought along THREE different snacks I could quickly drop in the store.  The store is about twenty minutes from our house, so Jace relaxed and drank his milk on the way there, which I thought was a promising sign.  Once we got in the store he immediately started screaming, and this was a very small and quiet store with several people browsing the aisles.  I pulled out his snacks one by one and gave them to him.  He ate all three snacks within the first five minutes and then started screaming.  I tried everything from distractions ("Do you see any fabrics with Elmo?"... "Oh, look, so soft, feel how soft!") to covering his mouth to mute the sound.  Finally I gave in and let him out of the cart hoping he'd like to look at the fabrics at his level and give me 10 full minutes to pick one out for the curtains. 

He immediately went running for the sliding glass door but I caught him before he went out.  Then he ran down an aisle so I went the next aisle over and was looking for about 10 seconds when I realized I couldn't hear his feet running around anymore.  I started calling his name and searching all over... I kept calling his name knowing he couldn't have gone far in ten seconds.  Then a lady a few feet down told me he was hiding behind some fabric bolts.  I went over and pushed them out of the way and he burst out laughing.  He'd been purposely hiding from me and ignoring my frantic calls for him.  Who's 17 month old hides from them behind bolts of fabric?!  Do I sound like I have no control over my kid yet?  Because I don't.  I felt like the worst mother ever and left the store close to tears, and empty handed.

I will say as bad as I'm making it sound, I don't always feel like a bad mom.  The other day a lady actually stopped me in the store and simply said "You're a great Mom, I just wanted to let you know that."  I said thank you, because that's something that means alot coming from a strangers mouth.  She went on to say that she overheard me calmly talking Jace out of a fit, and was impressed that I didn't resort to yelling at him and that it had worked.  Maybe she could just tell I was going to lose it at any moment and remembered needing reassurance when she was raising young kids too.  Either way, it meant alot coming from a complete stranger.

Ok, now that I've completely complained about Jace for the last three paragraphs I feel guilty.  He's not a bad kid, I promise!  There are certain times lately where my heart literally melts when I'm out running errands with him.  We had to stop for milk and garbage bags the other night after dinner and as we were walking back to the car he kept leaning in for a kiss smack dab on the lips.  Then he'd smile at me and point up at the moon and say "boon! boon" and make sure I was looking too.  I don't know what it was about that moment, it was just an everyday average moment, but I will always remember how just a simple walk through a parking lot under the night sky can bring you that much happiness.  I can't really explain it.

**I have numerous cutie pie pics of the little man to upload, and will add them as soon as I can.  :)