18 Months!

Walt and I were playing in his room yesterday morning (after he finally got up at 9:30!!  what the heck?), and I happened to look up at him and practically did a double-take . . . my baby is no longer a baby, he's a full-fledged little boy!  I know this probably shouldn't come as such a shock to me since I do spend a good deal of time with him, but I was just suddenly struck by how utterly and completely different he is from when we brought him home from the hospital on January 16, 2005.

Then:

Now:

First things first, at the 18-month check-up this week, Walt weighed in at 25 lbs., 6 oz. and was approximately 31.5 inches tall, putting him close to the 50th percentile for both.  We thought we were going to get out of the office without any tears because there were no shots this time, but then he fell on the way out and bonked his head on the tile floor.  Oh well.  At least we had witnesses to the fact that our child really is that klutzy and all his bruises are not the result of us beating him.

 

Walt is definitely talking a lot more this month, although he still uses his signs quite a bit too.  His favorite word is still "car", but the runner-up has got to be "hat".  He won't wear them for more than about 30 seconds, but all of his hats now make an appearance every day.  And when he pulled his winter hat out, he also discovered his mittens and wanted to put them on.  Hey, it's only 95 degrees outside . . . you wouldn't want him to get frostbite, right?

Walt still loves to be outside more than anything else, although he does get a bit whiny when it's too hot.  (Much like his father.)  On those days we typically hit the pool or the sprinkler park, where he is totally in his element.  Somehow he has gotten the idea that he knows how to swim because, when in the pool, he is constantly struggling to get away from us, or get up on the side so that he can jump in when we least expect it. 

 

But if he can't be splashing around in the water outside, listening to a rockin' band is almost as good.  This week was the 30th anniversary of the Cooper-Young Neighborhood Association (where we live), and to celebrate, they had a party for the whole neighborhood with free hamburgers and hot dogs . . .

 

. . .  and best of all, a band!!  Walt convinced our friend Jimmy to take him up a little closer so he could pick up some new techniques for his air guitaring, at which he has become quite proficient lately.  (He was in air guitar heaven this afternoon when I turned on the 80's XM radio station!) 

   

I guess that's about it for this month, but before I sign off, please indulge me as I get all sappy for a moment . . .

I don't know how many of you have read the children's book called Love You Forever, but it's about this mother and her son.  The mother goes into the little boy's room every night after he's asleep from the time he is a very tiny baby until he's adult living on his own, just to gather him up in her arms and sing a sweet song about how she'll love him forever and as long as she's living, her baby he'll be.  Frankly, the page that shows her with a ladder strapped onto the top of her car driving across town to sneak into her grown son's room gives me the heebie-jeebies just a bit.  But I digress.   

Every night before we go to bed, Josh and I always tiptoe into Walt's room just to look at him.  Lately, we haven't been able to help but notice how much room in his crib he takes up now.  While we're standing there in the dark, we often whisper things like, "Look how big he is!"  or "Remember how tiny he used to be?".  When I think of how he used to be just a little, swaddled bundle of a baby, and now he's this great big, sprawled-out boy, I must admit a lump comes to my throat.  But then I think of the mommy in the book and I know that no matter how big or old he gets, as long as I'm living, my baby he'll be.  (But I promise not to climb in his window to stare at him when he's 37.  Cross my heart.)