20 Months or The Many Faces of Walt

I believe it was Jack Handy who once said, "The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face."

First, there is the innocent face . . .

Yeah, no one's buying that one, Walty.  Then, there's the "You talkin' to me?" face . . .

We're all real scared, tough guy.  There's the sultry screen star face . . .

You may need to lose the baby face before you start getting offered leading man roles, Sweet  Pea.  Then, of course, there's the yogurt face . . .

Uh, Walt, you've got a little yog . . . oh, never mind.  And the getting-licked-by-Evie face . . .

And finally, the I'm-bored-of-having-my-picture-taken face . . .

But here at the end of his 20th month, as Jack Handy so astutely observed, the mouth part of Walt's face is doing most of the talking.  Whenever I start getting him dressed in the morning, he wants to know if we're going to the "cark" (park) or "poo" (pool).  You definitely have to put on your "hock" (socks) before your shoes.  And before he goes, he would like a "cuh" (cup) of "glk" (milk), or maybe some "wahr" (water) and some "cahcuhs" (crackers).   And then there are all of the other things he says that he thinks make sense, but they very much do not. 

A few of his favorite things at 20 months, in no particular order . . . trucks, Evie, my bag of nail polish bottles, cheese, crayons (not coloring with them, just dumping them out of the box and putting them back in), Slicky, trollies, long car rides (KIDDING!), wearing shoes, the balloons at the grocery check-out, hats (on other people), yogurt, and jelly beans. 

Despite what all his other caregivers (grandparents, teachers, friends, etc.) will tell you, Walt has definitely started to assert his will in a very big way this month.  He has put on several very impressive tantrums after not getting his way and now gets to spend some time cooling off in his room whenever one erupts.  I'll have to say, it's a simple strategy, but it works like a charm.  The tantrum usually stops within 30 seconds of me putting him in his room and walking out, and after I've given him a few minutes to collect himself, I typically return to find a little boy with a sheepish grin on his face sitting in the floor looking up at me.  And that is really when his face says it all, and it's saying, "How'd you get so smart, Mum?" 

Let me tell you something, Kiddo, you ain't seen nothin' yet.