Who’s walking who?!

That’s sort of the theme for you these days now that you’re fourteen months old. You are constantly trying to be the big kid, to see who is in control, to test your boundaries and your own limits. You love walking the dog, climbing on furniture, pointing at new objects, and communicating your desires with a point or a yell. For example, you will now go to the door and grab onto the leash hanging on the hook and bang it against the wall until I take it down and hook it to Leela’s collar. Then if I try to intervene and grab Leela’s leash to direct her, you start yelling and crying. You want to walk her yourself! When you are tired, you walk over to the couch so that I can nurse you and put you down for a nap. Yesterday you walked over to the pantry, opened the door (a skill I’d hoped you wouldn’t learn so fast) and pointed to the giant jar of animal crackers. You also think you can go up and down the stairs like a grown up does and, unfortunately, you can’t. Yesterday you fell and I felt like I’d really failed you. You are a daring kid and capable of much more these days requiring me to be quite the lifeguard, so to speak. I have to make sure you’re not walking me sometimes! Whenever I get stern or tell you “no” you get a very mischievous face and laugh! I never know what to do when you do that! It seems the best course of action is just to direct you into doing something else…to get your mind off of the thing you’re not allowed to do and focus on something else. Those times are rare, though. Most of the time you are easy breezy and so much fun to be around. The other day I was taking a shower and keeping an eye on you as you played in the bathroom and your bedroom (the rooms are connected) and the minute I lost sight of you and didn’t hear you I got scared and ran out of the shower to find you reading a library book by yourself on your couch! What a grown up boy!

Your Dad’s favorite new development is holding his hand when you walk. It melts our hearts when you reach up and grab our hands to walk down the driveway. My other favorite moment recently was taking you to the Orlando Museum of Art, a place that has been a big part of my life for seven years with people who have known me since before I was married to your Dad, and with art that I’ve known and loved and shown to lots of children, some not much older than you. To see you walking those halls and looking at the art (which you did! You looked at everything!) got me all teary.

Your favorite things at the moment include: your Ming Ming robot toy which you point at every night so I’ll play it before bed, tomatoes in any form, hugging for awhile when you get up from a nap, looking at lit lightbulbs, flipping through your books, climbing onto the couch to cuddle with people or watch the Wonder Pets or Yo Gabba Gabba, any sort of ornamentation or grate on the ground, turning the XBox on and off, putting objects in and out of containers, placing magnets on and off of the refrigerator, any sort of rocks or gravel, your shoes…for some reason you are fascinated by them and try very diligently to suck on them, rolling around on pillows and blankets, and walking walking walking walking as fast as you can.

We are approaching your second Thanksgiving and Christmas. I remember last holiday season so well thanks to you. I remember you nursing under the dinner table at Thanksgiving dinner so that I could eat with everyone else. I remember setting you up on your Kota dinosaur for the first time and watching you try to eat it. I look forward to this year’s memories which will include a trip on a Disney cruise next week. I can’t wait!! Your father and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary. Five years! I can hardly believe it. I feel so fortunate to have such an amazing, strong family and marriage. I want our relationship to be an example of everything a marriage can be so that you grow up to make wise choices and to look for a relationship full of mutual respect, friendship, and love.