Your mother is a delinquent who procrastinates on good ideas far too often, but this one she’s jumping on. So ideally while this would read “This is 1 year”, rather than scratch for the memories that should still be fresh (but you are changing far too quickly) I will strive to capture the here and now…
At 15 months old you are 31 and three quarters inches tall and 27 pounds 15 ounces but your personality fills up the space of an 8 foot tall man. Your smiles are so big and so genuine and your belly laughs can make the whole day better. You have just started cutting your eyes and playing coy and when we catch you, you think it is the funniest thing in the world. But make no mistake there is plenty of fire to counter that sweetness. You definitely have your own opinions about what you want and when you want it and you don’t hesitate sharing them. You will furrow your little brow and babble baby unpleasantries at us. For the moment your “tantrums” are incredibly short and for this I am grateful because I know already, with your level of focus and determination, we are in for some epic battles.
You don’t like wearing shoes and make quick work of removing them while you are in your car seat. Socks are sometimes better tolerated but not really, apparently you like feeling rooted to your surroundings. You have been walking since a little before 11 months and now, boy can you can fly. I can barely get down the hall in front of you before you are on my heals. Two weeks ago you figured out how to get yourself onto the couch without any help at all (the hard version of this involves you throwing your leg up as if to scale a wall and pulling and grabbing with all your mite, your newer, much more creative version, involving using your mini arm chair as a climbing tool to make your couch assent). You also just figured out how to use your Bumbo seat as a stepping stool adding a cool 10 inches to your reach span…sorry to burst your bubble but mommy’s moving that one to the attic tonight!
You are talking up a storm…I’m not sure where you get it. You can say mama, dada, dog, hot, bye-bye, hi, shoe and yes (or rather “yea”… we’re working on this one-but its pretty adorable). Sometimes we would swear we hear you say “I got it” or “I don’t know”. You mimic us (and everyone else) like crazy. Your babble has perfect conversional inflection, you clearly know what you are saying-we’re the one’s trying to catch up. To help you “talk” we have been teaching you some sign language. You have mastered signing “please” and “thank you” and now you sign “please” anytime you want something- not yet old enough to understand that please won’t always get you what you want-but your so damn cute when you do it, it almost always does. Daddy has taught you “show me” so that you can guide us to what is it you are grunting about at any given moment…now you take our hands and “show us” EVERYTHING. But it’s so sweet to hold your hand we don’t really mind.
You are very inquisitive and are clearly like your daddy in that you want to see how things work. I see lots of broken stuff in my future. You like to play with the remote control and a toy Elmo cell phone; you also like to pretend to “stir” things like mommy does in the kitchen. Just last night you accomplished this with an old wipes container and a toy hammer. You love books, just not reading them. You prefer to pull them all off your book shelf or chew on the bindings if your teeth are bothering you. Apparently you are getting plenty of fiber as eating paper is becoming a favorite past time. You defiantly prefer the books that have fun textures to touch…or pull out…or eat. As for real food you actually eat really well. There aren’t many things you don’t like, except green beans and this baffles me, but you will still try new things and although I’m sure it will, I really hope this doesn’t change.
You want to be like us in so many ways and do the things we do but it is so very clear that you are your own special person. You give sweet hugs to your friends by leaning your head over to touch theirs, although this sometimes ends in you with your head on the ground, the gesture is so meltingly sweet. You give kisses upon request although when you aren’t really feeling it you might offer up your cheek or on a particularly stingy day the back of your hand. You love dogs and the cats at your daycare and I’m pretty sure you think your daddy is the best person in the world. He is your best buddy and I love watching the two of you together. We have many many wishes for you wonderful boy and at the rate you’re going you’re going to grab hold of them all!
