::18 months::

Yesterday--mother's day--was Sandy's 18 month anniversary! A whole year and a half old. Crazy. Remember the olden days? Awww. Anyway, a few things about Mr. the Sand for you. He's a guy that will only eat a banana will the peel on. If you cut it up and give it to him or peel it and give it to him, no dice. It must be in the peel. He's very serious about it. He still only says a couple of things: Thank you, Uh oh, Out, Hi, Mom (sometimes) and DAD. DAD is said all the time and anytime. Usually first thing in the morning or if somebody reminds him that he has a dad or if he goes near anything that makes him think of dad. Dad is a superhero. He also started calling Max "Bap" last week, but hasn't really kept that up. He basically refuses to say anything else although I know he understands so so much of what we say to him. I figure he'll start saying more when he's ready. For now I'm just having fun giving him little tasks to do and seeing if he can pull them off. I changed his diaper the other day and then asked him to take the old one to the trash. He went straight there--given he did try to put it in the recycling can first, but once I pointed out his mistake he remembered the right can the next time. I also spied him picking up a little crumb from the floor and taking it to the trash the other day, it cracked me up. He's still a very neat eater too. He is almost never messy. He just doesn't really like it. I think maybe that's why he only wants to eat bananas in the peel--it's just too slimy otherwise. He's also driving me crazy with food. He'll LOVE something for a while, like grapes for example. He'll eat piles of them. Arbitrarily at some point later on he is very displeased when served that food and refuses to eat any of them. Like the earlier mentioned grapes. I can't even count how many grapes I've cut up, prepared and served only for them to be very vehemently rejected. He's a very cheery baby and is always willing to be happy and have some fun. His giggle (just like most baby giggles) is totally irresistible. It just makes you want to tickle him and tickle him. He gets to spend lots and lots of time in the dental office. He thinks it's his other house, and I guess essentially it is. He loves all the employees there and he's the star of the show when he's there. He'll be sitting at his high chair having lunch with everybody and if he does something cute the whole table full of ladies will cheer or gasp or scream. It's too funny. I'm not sure it's healthy though, having that much attention. Oh well. He'll have good self esteem. He loves shoes. He will bring me his shoes and ask to have them put on if he sees them. We bought him some little sandals at REI the other day (which he promptly grew out of) and he LOVED them. When I'd put them on him he'd look down at his feet every so often and smile. It's cute. He's started to love bedtime stories--he's getting into our family classics, "a Boy and his Bunny" and "Caps for Sale" to start with. He begs Kris for books at bedtime and Kris always gives in. He still adores his little swaddling blankets and if I'm doing the laundry and he finds them he'll laugh with glee and bury his head in them--with no regard to what is underneath, I always have to make sure he's not clocking his head on the brick floor. He loves cars almost as much as Max does and can play with them for hours. He's pretty gentle with them too and drives them very well, often even making noises. He especially likes to drive the little cars on the windowsills. He mostly just wants to play with whatever Max is playing with--or whatever is under the sink in my bathroom. I did find him with his hands in Max's toilet the other day--grossest possible toilet to stick your hands in of course--so he's not the perfect baby. He also likes to scream when he doesn't get his own way, is hungry, is annoyed or is tired. He's pretty good with being tired though. If he's not feeling unwell in some way he can totally skip a nap without any ill effects--it doesn't effect his nighttime sleeping badly either which to me is totally bizarre. He just barely a month or so ago actually started consistently sleeping through the night. Huzzah! It was rather torturous for a while there, but I knew he'd figure it out at some point. There's so much more to say of course, but we'll have to save that for later posts. We love Sandy, could he only have been with us for eighteen months? Is that even possible? Life without him just wouldn't be right. We're so glad he's here.