18 Months

At 18 months old, my Barking Baby is turning into a Barking Boy.

He talks.

He says hot ("Hahtt"), Nana for banana (typically in a desperate, if-you-don't-give-me-that-banana-right-now-I-simply-can't-go-on tone), Mama, Dada, milk ("mok", which is sometimes accompanied by pounding on the refrigerator), socks ("soxsss"), shoes ("shuce"), hat, bird, dog, ball, and responds to questions with "yah" and "no". The first time he actually answered a question I asked him I was floored - a year and a half of talking at him, and suddenly he responds! Out of nowhere! With an answer, a desire, a response to my words!

For the last week, "no no" has been on constant replay, at times in reference to something specific, at times when he is performing a no no, and at times for a reason no rational reasoning can infer. (I hope this phase is a short one.)

He climbs.

Everything climbable. He's our wild little man. Tonight he was standing in his high chair dancing because he liked how it wobbled (Daddy, of course, immediately interceded).

He loves.

He gives kisses. Open mouth, slow-lean-in kisses. He tries to make kissy lips.

He hugs other little kiddles, with big, unrelenting hugs, hugs that sometimes land him and the other little on the floor. Actually, now that I think of it, he mainly only hugs little girls. Hmmmm.

He worries if one of us leaves - the other night when Daddy took him to go get the car while Mama checked out at Target, he whimpered "Mama? Mama?", very concerned until Daddy reassured him they would be picking Mama up in just a minute.
He pats Baby E on the back when she's sad.

He loves brushing his teeth and smiles and giggles when we pull out the toothbrush.

He loves dancing, and will do so to anything that sounds like a beat, and he sings to music in the car.
He loves socks and shoes and opens the drawer after we get him dressed in the morning saying "Soxsss...Shuce..." and hands them to us. He is quite concerned if it's not time to put them on immediately.

And he continues to love slides. Leaving the playground is always a traumatic event.

He laughs.
Big belly laughs.
When we're playing (he's such a playful boy) - giving zerbits on the changing table, chasing him up the stairs, or even just when I look at him a certain way while I make dinner. Sometimes he laughs just because we're laughing, even if he doesn't know why.

He breaks stuff.

Expensive stuff.

No no stuff.

Like his auntie's cell phone and our Ipod dock.

He grows.

He is 34 1/4 inches tall, which puts him above the 90th percentile for length.

He is 26 lbs, which puts him in the 50th percentile for weight.

Even though they are just numbers and his clinical picture has always meant more than the numbers, it's still so comforting to see those numbers on the scale reach middle-of-the-road, run-of-the-mill average. The other side of that coin, however, is that it makes me think back to all that time he was weaning himself from breastfeeding and I didn't know and he was, I fear, essentially starving down to the 3rd percentile for weight, while continuing to grow long - looking back at those pictures he looks so skinny. I feel so terrible wondering if he was hungry all of that time. I just didn't know. So the words "50th percentile" just flood me with relief.

And that's our little man at 18-months-old - a busy, climbing, playful, lovey, observant, all-boy, curious explorer full of joy.