Fifteen Months (And a Week)

Sorry for the delay in the fifteen-month post, but the wireless access at Keeneland last Saturday (the actual fifteen-month b'day) was spotty at best.  Seems that your typical race-goer just doesn't have the same blogging obligations that we here at Walt's World do.  But now I'm settled in for the evening, with the baby snoozing in his crib, the dog snoozing on the couch next to me, Josh off playing basketball with lawyers, and Lionel Richie crooning "All Night Long" on the XM radio.  (The last song was "Man!  I Feel Like a Woman!" by Shania Twain.  What is this station?)  Anyway, I'm now ready to fill you in on the past month.

Every time I go to write the monthly update, I think, "Gee, it's only been a month, surely he's not doing anything too different."  And then I go back and read the previous month's post and I find that at fourteen months he wasn't walking (now he's practically running), he had just a few signs (now he's got more than a dozen), and he only knew two bathtime animals (now he knows four -- fish, duck, turtle, and hippo).  Now, that's progress!

The walking is definitely the major development of this month.  And it started just in time, because I'm guessing crawling down the sidewalk in shorts just wouldn't be all that comfortable.  And we spend a lot (I mean, a LOT) of time outside.  In fact, if Walt is awake and not otherwise occupied by eating, harassing Evie, or carrying our shoes to the four corners of the house, he is generally standing at the front door whining to go out. 

You can usually appease him with a quick trip out to the front steps to point at airplanes arriving at Memphis International and wave at all the passers-by (who are always delighted to be greeted by the mayor of Nelson Avenue).  And it is super-fun to stalk birds on the lawn or play with your new ball. 

But sometimes, the yard is just a little too confining and he wants to broaden his horizons, so he'll head over to the new jog stroller and bang on it, as if to say, "Driver!  To the park!  And make it snappy!"  And off we go.  At least once, sometimes twice a day.  Fortunately, we have a killer park only six blocks away with lots of swings, slides, and even real, live train tracks on the embankment running alongside it.  Sometimes, the train engineer waves at us, and let me tell you, that is just awesome.

His signing is coming along quite nicely, as well.  In his repertoire are milk, more, eat, banana, apple, Evie, all done, bath, potty, no, bird, fish, and dada (but NOT mama!). 

Walt signing "milk".

Oh, and a special shout out to Gram for teaching him the sign for
"cookie", which he uses approximately 17 million times a day.  Hey, you
never know when the old folks might break down and give out the goods!

"Cookie!!!"

It's a good thing he's taken to the signing so well because there hasn't been much progress in the talking department.  He's great at the sound effects -- trains, dogs, truck horns, etc. -- but about the only words he says consistently are "all done" and "thank you" (which comes out more like "ta-ta", but we get the point).  It's not as if he doesn't jabber on incessantly, but so far, we haven't been able to translate much. 

So, I guess that's about it for this month.  By the way, if you noticed that the pictures in the post A) are better than usual, or B) took longer to load, you can thank/curse the very cool Nikon D70 (a digital SLR camera) that we are borrowing from my parents for a bit.  Check out the "April Pics" folder at left for some other shots taken with this remarkable piece of equipment.

Songs that played on XM while I wrote this:  "Maybe I'm Amazed" by Paul McCartney & Wings, "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis & the News, "Better Days" by the Goo Goo Dolls, "Lucky Star" by Madonna, "Ain't No Woman" by The Four Tops, "Valerie" by Steve Winwood, "Small Town" by John (whatever happened to Cougar?) Mellencamp, "True" by Ryan Cabrera, "Got to Be Real" by Cheryl Lynn, "Calling All Angels" by Train, "The Way You Make Me Feel" by Michael Jackson, "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John, "Hard Habit to Break" by Chicago, "Dream Lover" by Mariah Carey, and "I'm Free" by Kenny Loggins. 

I like a random assortment of music as much as the next girl, but this is a little ridiculous.