Eating: You love to eat. You go where the food goes. You’re like a dog, constantly begging. You’ll try anything, but your favorites as of late are pasta, bananas, oatmeal… who am I kidding? You love everything.

You’re starting to use a fork and spoon and get pissed when I expect you to use your hands. But then I give you a fork and then you get frustrated by your inability to use it as fast as you’d like. Nevertheless, you’re getting better and better and are actually able to get some food on the fork and bring it to your mouth.

We’re done breastfeeding and I have a few posts on my feelings about it that I’ll leave out of this post, because waaaaaaa. We’re still giving you breast milk I had hoarded away in the freezer, but when we’re out and about you do fine with cow’s milk too. You like to throw your bottle onto the floor when you’re done drinking it, causing milk to spill everywhere. You also like to chew through all the nipples. Nearly every bottle and/or sippy cup has been chewed through.

Sleeping: When we stopped breastfeeding, the thumb took over. Yup, that’s right, you replaced me with your thumb and you better believe that makes me feel like a million bucks. I lie. I mean who wants to be replaced by a thumb? It’s the funniest looking finger. In any event, it’s a tell tale sign that you’re tired when you stick that thing in your mouth. Before I put you down to sleep at night, I throw your blanket over my shoulder and sing “Hush little baby” and your head plops down on my shoulder and your thumb goes in and just like that, I say goodnight.

You have an attachment to your blanket.

Your schedule looks like this: Wake up around 8:30am, nap from about 10:30 to 1pm, nap again from 5 to 6:30pm, go to bed around 8:30 or 9pm. We’re looser with your nap schedule and rely on you napping in the car if we have plans to go out and do something. You can get by without a second nap, but with a shorter fuse in the evening hours.

Talking: You say “da” for “dog”, “dah” for “down”, “bir” for “bird”, “ba” when you see a “balloon”. You’re surprisingly quite easy to understand and despite your limited vocabulary, you’re a very good communicator. You use what we call your “gimme gimme” hand when you want something just out of reach or when you want more of something. In general, however, you use a lot of “da’s” with various forms of points and whines and jaw drops to make your point.

Development: You started walking a week after your first birthday and have not looked back. You’re able to walk long distances and able to recover your balance without falling a lot of the time. Between your brother and Sarah, you have quite the obstacle course.

You can jump when holding on to something. You like to hold on to the back of the sofa and jump on the cushions. A backward fall into the coffee table is in your future. You also like to try jumping on the bed.

You took your first good spill into the corner of a table and have a shiner on your right eye to show for it. Then you came home, same day, and fell into the coffee table resulting in a smaller mark on your left eye. These are those days, aren’t they? Helmets are looking safer and safer.

You love wearing shoes and are constantly picking up shoes around the house and bringing them to me to put on your feet. It doesn’t matter how big the shoes are, you clearly want them on your feet. You also like wearing sunglasses.

You can follow directions. If I tell you to sit down in the bath, you do. If I tell you to set your milk on the table, you will. It’s amazing to watch those little wheels spin and make sense of everything. Right now, you’re a good listener.

Favorites: On any given day, we can find you getting into the cupboard under the microwave where all the baking supplies are. You love grabbing the containers of sprinkles and carrying/shaking them all over the house. Fortunately you have yet to discover how to open the containers.

You also love carrying around your plastic scissors and a pen.

You still love your four wheeler. You also love playing with your brother. But, still, Mama is your favorite. And I’m not just saying that to butter my bread, you really and truly love me and would be happy as pie to spend the better part of the day in my arms.