Almost-Toddler

My baby turned 18 months old last week!  SOB.  Where did eighteen months GO?!  When did the wee smidge of a baby with a dusting of blond feather-hair become this sturdy, laughing toddler-person who is on haircut #2?

I’ve been aware of turning time and passing stages as Hunter moved through babyhood, but I always looked forward too much to the next milestone to mourn the departing day.  But now we are moving into toddlerhood, and babytime is so very almost slipped-through-my-fingers gone.  And oh, the mourning?  It’s finally here.  Because my baby is waving bye-bye at me, and he’s never coming back.

I want to clutch at these last few days, hoard them away in memory so at least I can take them out and remember.  The shutter has been clicking, but I want to journal too, to put the memories into words.  And so, a collection of random “word pictures” of my 18 month old:

He loves to eat.  food he can feed himself is the biggest hit.  Little man is close to self-sufficient with a plastic fork, and manages a spoon nicely with mashed beans or avocadoes.  He stubbornly insists on holding utensils like a grownup, which of course doesn’t work very well with baby fine motor skills, but he persists, transferring the fork daintily from fingertips to fingertips, and then wobbily to his mouth.  Despite all my best efforts he has turned into a true picky eater; loving a food one minute and then flinging it against the wall the next.  Argh.  The one food that is always a guaranteed hit are his grain-free cinnamon squash pancakes.  The day I added cinnamon to the mix, he gobbled them up with a ginormous grin on his face, and then stuck two thumbs into the air and splatted sticky hands together in baby applause.  Needless to say he got seconds.

Independence is the new word of the day.  He’s perfected this angry parrot squawk which means “Mom, let ME do it!”.  When I see him struggling over a task, tongue peeked between his tightly pursed lips, any attempts at help are met with a chubby hand held imperiously in my face.  He also knows how to roll his eyes and does so frequently, blue irises disappearing for an exasperated moment behind his outrageously long sandy eyelashes.  He’s loving, affectionate, tempestuous.  His moods change faster than windblown clouds. Most of all, it’s becoming apparent that he is first and foremost a comedian.  He does everything for show.  Instead of merely hiding behind a curtain and then peeking out during hide-n-seek, he swooshes the curtain over his face, holds perfectly still for a silent moment, and then sweeps it aside with the aplomb of a ringmaster.  “Ta-da!”  When I fall over in feigned shock at his amazing reappearance, he goes into a fit of high-pitched giggles and repeats the performance until we’re both too weak from laughing to continue.

He’s not walking yet, though he can stand independently for a few seconds.  His crab-crawl is lickety-split-fast, and his absolute favorite activity is escaping my grasp in the library and scuttling in between and under shelves, giggling hysterically the closer I get in pursuit.

Yesterday he colored with crayons "correctly" for the first time. He scribbled a crayon on paper and his eyes opened wide as he saw the purple scrawl.  Gurgling in delight he hauled on my pant leg to show me the masterpiece.  Then, humming quietly to himself, he used every.single.crayon in wide, sweeping rainbows of color.  After we put the crayons away, he went back to the paper quite a few times, tracing the drawing with his pointer, cooing quietly to himself.  I thought my face was going to split from smiling so hard.

We've been dealing with a lot of fussing at work and home lately, so last week I laid down the law: "Okay, I'm not going to pick you up when you're whining.  You have to be happy and then I will pick you up!"  After a few episodes of copious tear-shedding on my feet, Hunter got the idea.  Now, he scuttles over, signs up, then pastes on this huge gap-toothed grin.  Every time.  Heartmelter.

He is bright, shiny and hilarious.  And I am so, so blessed to have this little dude in my life.

I Did Graphics!!!

Squee!  I found TIME (great glorious wonderful stolen-in-the-quiet-of-a-midafternoon-nap time) to make the very first graphics of Hunter that I have ever done in all his almost-eighteen months!

Those who know what a graphic factory I used to be will understand what a big deal this is.  :)

Blogger hates photographs and, if memory serves, hates graphics even more, but let's see if it'll play nice.

Playground Photo Binge

I took Hunter to the park this past weekend.  He wriggled out of the stroller the instead I popped the safety belt, and squirmed onto the ground where he froze for a moment like a bird dog on point.  You can see the ideas of what trouble can I get into first! running through his brain. 

First he decided to investigate all the climb-y things so plentifully scattered about.

 

 

After watching kids pop out of the bottom of the spiraly slide he crawled over, stuck his head up into it and hollered “Dadababa whowho wow?”  (Translation:  "Where do those kids come from???")

 

Then he sat and watched five kindergarteners pelt across the playground.

“They are so silly looking, Mom, wasting all that energy on nothing!”  (You should see yourself, dear.)

He sat in the sunshine and thought Baby Ninja thoughts.

 

After a while he got worn out and sat in peaceful enjoyment of the ebb and flow of playground chaos. He is so darn beautiful, isn’t he?

 

His chubby babyhands make my heart stop.

 

On the way home I saw this leaf and crouched down in the middle of the running path, one foot jammed behind the stroller wheel while I twisted into a human pretzel to capture the liquid color of it.

 

This, so far as I can tell, is the very first sunset I have clicked shutter on since moving back to Wisconsin.  In Florida, sunsets are an institution, and beach sunsets became my peaceful place.  In that glorious moment where the sky exploded into color, my heart would find content.  I thought it seemed fitting that this day at the playground, like a little bubble of stability in the whirlpool of our everyday life, ended with a sunset over a river which rivaled those over the ocean. 

I'm Driving My Son Crazy

"Hi Mom!"

"Are you taking photos of me again?!"

"I hate it when you point that thing at me!"

"Fine. I just won't be cute. NOT. CUTE. AT. ALL."

"Maybe I can sneak off when she's not looking..."

"Nooo! No MORE PHOTOS!"

"Fine. I'm just going to sulk."

Seen on the 4th of July

Mmm, that was a delicious baby!


Patriotic pajamas?

The All-American retiree couple.

Hummer limo? The new style for Military-In-The-Know?

I actually started feeling patriotic when I saw these signs.

Nothing funny here. Prolife in a parade is awesome. I cheered.

First horses I've seen in six months! I wanted to hug them and smell them and touch their noses SO BAD!

Shirley Temple totally attended the parade. (Justine Bieber did too, but he was only cardboard.)

Proof that wearing mixing bowls on your head is endorsed by the military.

Watching parades by myself definitely brings on an overabundance of sarcasm.