16 Months

My VERY independent boy,

Today you are officially 16 months old and a full blown toddler!

This month started off with attending Daddy’s cousin Adam’s wedding to Whittney. You had a booty shakin’ good time in a stinkin’ adorable outfit… until you face planted on the concrete and started bleeding from the mouth. You quickly recovered, though, and went right back to dancing and having a good time, and kept trying to throw yourself off the dock into the pond before we would catch you (thankfully, we always caught you before you got too far). I got to put you in my favorite new accessory of yours: a pageboy hat. You’re too stinkin’ cute in hats. Seriously. I reused that outfit from the wedding for the rest of the summer, including when we went to the mitten a week later.

We went to Michigan this month for Grandpa’s birthday and to go to his housewarming party and the airshow at the Yankee Air Museum. While we were there, some Japanese filmmakers video taped you  running around and looking at the planes and said you were going to be on a Japanese version of 20/20! I have no idea if we can ever find the footage, but it was pretty crazy nonetheless. My cousin Michael, Great Grandpa D, Claire, and your Great Aunts, Debbie and Dawn, came for the airshow and party too, so it was great to get to see them as well. I love how Great Grandpa will shake your hand and say “How’d ya do? How’d ya do? How’d ya do?” You think he’s silly. Aunt Kate’s band played at the party, and despite how unbelievably loud it was, you wanted to be RIGHT UP FRONT. I only allowed it for a few seconds because I was afraid you’d damage your ears. You were a dancing fool, loving the beat of that drum. Unfortunately, our trip to Michigan also coincided with the death of my cousin Mitchell. We left you with Daddy because you were napping, and Grammy, Aunt Kate, and I went to the funeral and met up with you and Daddy at the wake at Great Aunt Pat’s house, where you met some of my cousins and family for the very first time. It was so weird for me that you hadn’t met some of my cousins yet, but I guess living so far away has been the reason for that; we don’t get many visitors.

“Fiercely independent” is your new name, especially with feeding yourself. God forbid if I try to break something up into bite-sized pieces before giving it to you or pull a handful of crackers out of the bag BY MYSELF. You must assist in all that is involved with eating. You’ll take bites off my food sometimes, but you mainly want to hold the sandwich (or whatever) and eat it by yourself. You eat GoGurt, apple juice juice-box (on the rare occasion you get it), and applesauce all by yourself. You continue to be a food mooch and a cookie thief, and you attempted to eat a dishwasher pac from under the sink (someone left the cabinet lock off) so that I had to call poison control. Thankfully, you’d only taken a small bite and then dropped it and spit it out. I still had to rinse your mouth out with water and get you to drink lots of water. It was a heart-stopping moment for me, but I did a nice job of not panicking. I think part of your curiosity with biting different things has been part of the teething you’ve begun again this month.

You’ve been teething a lot, which means lots of cuddles, Tylenol, and Pixar movies. You love Toy Story best. You’ve also started to really enjoy Curious George and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. We saw the “event of the season” when Daniel got a baby sister, Margaret, and you were glued to the tv for those five minutes that the baby tiger was on there, all snuggled up on my lap. I have treasured those calm moments of snuggling with you in the chair because they’ve been far and few between lately. You’re always go, go, go! You’ve also been growing lots of hair the past month- no longer a little bit bald. It’s fine and soft and extremely blonde. It has finally lost that gingery look it’s had since you were born. Most of all, your physical capabilities have skyrocketed this month. Suddenly, you’re not only walking but almost running from place to place. You climbed up and went down the baby slide all by yourself at a play date the other day, insisting that I not help you. You scare me to death, but I let you try anything before helping you. I try to not help you until you ask for it too, but you often like to get into trouble.

To say you enjoy doing things you probably shouldn’t be doing would be an understatement. You like to pick up and turn over the dog’s water bowl and splash around in it/stick toys in it. I’m forever getting you out of the kitchen so that you don’t make a mess. You’re extremely inquisitive, so most cupboards now have locks or latches on them, especially the dvd cabinet, which you love to empty when it’s left open. You love to empty the pots and pans or cooling racks from the cupboards or the drawer of my measuring cups and spatulas. You carry them into the living room and bang them together or on the table. I’ve just chalked up anything in that drawer to needing to be washed before I use it because I know it’s been on the floor, in your mouth, or probably stuck in the dog bowl. You have discovered your ability to climb on top of things: the couch, the chair, the bed, the steralite tote in front of the window in the office on which you like to dance and look out the window from, and mainly the dog, whom you use as a step stool. (I’m serious, and he LETS you!) Your obsession with your “BA!” has not wavered.

You now say “woo woo!” for “woof woof” and point to the dog when he barks or point in the direction you hear dogs barking and will mimic them. You love to point to dogs while we’re on our walks and bark and wave at them too. You also wave and say “bye bye” in your tiny, sweet, little voice to everyone as soon as they walk away from you. You won’t say “hi” or wave hello yet, though. So, when people say hi to you, you just kind of stare at them blankly, which confuses them, to which I have to explain you don’t know that word yet. You also go and point to the door and say “owsigh!” for outside. You love to sit on the front porch on the stoop and eat popsicles or play with chalk or swing in your swing. Lately, you’ve been venturing more out into the yard (both front and back) and exploring how far you can wander before I scoop you up so you don’t cross the road. When you play inside, you love to play with your Little People farm set and will hold up your farmer figurine and say “grah-pa!” (grandpa) because Grandpa B is a farmer! (You’re SO smart.) You’ve also mastered a new animal noise that Daddy taught you during bath-time: “ppfffttt” (raspberry sound) for an elephant! You are like the elephant eye-spy master; you find them everywhere and make that noise and then point them out to me! Once, we were at storytime at the Southport Library, and you kept pointing to this little baby and making your elephant noise. I was so confused until I saw what you saw: a teeny, tiny embroidered elephant on the baby’s bib! You were also very impressed when you got to see a real elephant at the State Fair!

We volunteered at the State Fair Lactation Station this year with our friends Emily and Collin, and you did very well at not running off. You were in tractor heaven, as they kept circling the circuit right in front of our tent all day long. There was also a big display of John Deere tractors that we played on and looked at while there. Your favorite word is “tractor!” which you say more than anything else. You kept saying it while we walked around at the fair because you kept seeing them everywhere. We didn’t do much exploring that day, though, because I wanted to wait until Daddy was with us at the end of the month.

One of my favorite sights continues to be you and Daddy at bedtime reading books together. You just snuggle in and lay your head against his chest as you sit on his lap, and he reads to you. You read two books together before he hands you off to me to nurse. Daddy used to pick all kinds of Dr. Seuss books; The Lorax, Horton Hears a Who, and The Sleep Book are his favorites. However, you’ve become picky about what he reads to you! You now pick out books! Your favorite (which Daddy and I can both recite by heart now) is I’m Dirty- a book about a backhoe loader cleaning up an abandoned lot full of trash. Daddy does a great job exaggerating the sounds and excitement in the book, and you’ve begun copying his engine noise “Rrrmmmmm! Rrrrrmm!!” and will make that noise when he gets to a particular page or when you’re playing with your trucks/tractor toys.  I have a feeling you might be an engineer or a farmer someday, something where you can play with and work on trucks and big machinery.

I love you, my little farmer,

Love,

Momma