Tuesday, December 11 ... 1 year, 8 months

a.k.a 20 months, but that officially sounds pretentious.

Adorable things he says and does ...

• "Read it", putting a book (or CD insert) in my face.
• "Flying", flapping his arms. Not sure where this one came from.
• "Bee-Boo", a.k.a. "Peek-a-boo", often while grabbing my iPhone out of my hands, even though he has a perfectly good one of his own.
• "Bee-Bee", a.k.a "Booby".
• "This one", pointing to whichever booby he wants.
• "Dyo", \'d-\, a.k.a "Dora". This is a weird one, because I remember something about banning Dora and and Dora/Diego paraphernalia from my home. hmmm ...
• Oh, and somehow he's ditched Blue's Clues for Dora

"Foo-Fah", a.k.a "Football". 

He counts and answers the question "how many?", but he always answers "Two". When we try to get him to say "One", he just thinks we're counting and says "Two", but I can't argue with his logic.

He sings the ABC song, and rocks at "G".

"Eh-Mo", e.k.a. "Elmo". I had also banned Elmo, but caved pretty soon. I guess it's not THAT bad. I will not have an Tickly-Me-Anything in my house. I may have threatened to tell R that Elmo is dead if anyone gives him Elmo toys for Christmas.

"Gih-Gih", a.k.a. "Gipper" (the dog). 

"No". Right now it's actually cute. His brow gets all furrowed and he sort of asks it "... No?" Or else it's sort of like "No, thank you", like if someone asked you, "Would you like another [blank]?",  "Oh, thank you for asking. Not right now." And he's figured out the Books and Tigger mean it's nap time. So often the answer to "Do you want to read a book?" is "NO!" because he thinks we're trying to get him down for a nap.

He hops like a pro. I often award bonus points for connecting the elements, like in Gymnastics.

Speaking of Gymnastics, I think Circus camp will be the way to go with this one. He likes to balance when standing on my leg (or stomach), putting his arms out and standing really still. He also walks the "balance beam" (the wood divider between the sidewalk and the tree bed) when we're out walking the dog. I saw a Groupon about a Mommy-and-Me gymnastics class in Flushing; totally Can't Get There From Here though, but it sounds PERFECT for him!

He helps us cook.

• He occupies himself with the iphone (and Gramma's iPad). He's actually really good at it; my old 3 that he has is not passcode locked, so he can swipe it open himself.

• He makes the best "I'm smiling" face

• Every paw print is a Clue (including the one on our dog).

• He'll sit alone in his room and read ... though only when we have other kids over.

• He does the Heismann pose.

(the backstory of this ... we watch a lot of football, obviously. There is a Aflac commercial with the Duck playing football, and gives money to a guy all in bandages doing the heisnamm pose.)

Other milestones:

• We met cows.

(that's Natalie, my friend's daughter. She knows a lot about her Grampa's cows. We also discovered that Rowan is terrified of Cows and Natalie is terrified of elevators. It was like City Mouse and Country Mouse.)

• He got a Passport.

(also this will be his passport picture until he's 18, which just makes me smile)

• Mommy gave him a haircut!

On the nursing front, he's totally starting to ease up on it. He goes DAYS without even asking for it. The only regular booby time is first thing in the morning on weekdays. If he sleeps in (past 7, which is unusual) he won't ask of it (shocking! He gets enough sleep and he's not a clingly mess? I wonder if he notices?!). And now on Saturdays when he gets up with Daddy, he doesn't need his booby time before getting up, which means mommy gets to stay asleep!!!


** Have you guys heard about this "get in the picture" movement? It's all about being in pictures with your kids no matter how gross or fat you feel.