As we did with #1, we opted for laces, which we can double knot until the thrill of removing his shoes by himself wears off. Of course, #1 never did remove his own shoes. But #2? I can already tell he'll be a shoe remover. And a shoe flinger.
He does lots of things his brother didn't, like putting everything he picks up into his mouth. Like climbing the furniture like a crazed monkey (it's particularly impressive when he uses the knobs on the dresser-slash-tv stand to ascend as if it were a rock climbing wall. The nice thing about colonial American antiques is they're so heavy they don't even shift under the toddler onslaught.
Both boys fell asleep in the car on the way back from the shoe store, so I parked outside the house and listened to NPR til they woke up. It was a lovely, blissful hour of peace.
Broken only occasionally by the snorting snores of #2.
And while he's been walking while holding on to something for months now, he had yet to cross open spaces on his own. No more. He's a proper walking baby.
He still looks like a baby - big head, big cheeks, minimal hair. But he walks.
And apparently he says Mama. But not when I'm around. No, he looks at the door I've exited through, and says it.
Pardon me while I pick the pieces of my heart off the floor.
He is impish and determined (note to self: use birthday gift video cam to record him clambering onto the sofa).
He loves berry applesauce and being tickled and his Dada.
My little mooseling.
Intense. Challenging. Educational. Fun.
My team won it all - the team building olympics, the management simulation, and the board presentation.
Most importantly, we worked beautifully together.
I suspect the online interactions of our entire cohort will be different after this experience.
And now I'm going to bed. I was up until 3 AM tweaking our PowerPoint slides and trying to memorize my material, and I got up at 6 AM so I'd have time to run over to my office and print out copies for the board of directors on good paper with our swank color printer (one of the board members commented favorably on it; every other team had just used the university's black laser printer and skimpy paper).
With me away, #2 has spent the past three nights sleeping in the crib in his brother's room. Looks like we're going to just keep him in there.
No more baby in the bed. That practically breaks my heart. He's growing up.
#2 was crawling up the stairs.
By the time I got home, he'd made it all the way to the second floor, where he was holding court in the grandparental bedroom.
He still hasn't figured out how to crawl down the stairs, but clearly that's only a matter of time.
Not very much time.
Please, Baby J. Don't be in such a hurry to grow up.
"No."
#2 is 13 months old!
He's clever. He's strong-willed, and equally strong, physically. He can wriggle out of his high chair buckle in no time. He wields his sippy cup like a deadly weapon.
He's cautious first, then fiercely determined.
He can crawl onto the sofa from the floor, and occasionally vice versa (though gravity sometimes gives him more help than he requires in the descent).
His favorite thing to eat are Israeli peanut snacks called Bamba - imagine a cheese curl with peanut instead of cheese. He cadged a few from a friend at music class, and we found more for him at Wegmans. He still prefers crunchy food, though he allows as how the soft chocolate cookie from an ice cream sandwich is mighty tasty.
He wakes up gradually, and loves to snuggle in the early mornings.
He still loves his brother most of all.
#1 enjoyed the free concert of classical and flamenco guitar in the Kimmel Center plaza this afternoon. He was especially intrigued by the pipa (Chinese lute) the musican played on a couple of numbers. He was also thrilled by the glass elevator.
He's great.
He stands. He surfs.
He plays. He laughs.
He still loves his big brother more than anything. With the possible exception of rusks. Anything crisp and crunchy, really. He's not interested in food that isn't one or the other, or both. Sometimes we can poke some fruit, veggies or yogurt into his mouth while he's chewing, but half of it comes right back out again. Ah, well.
He most often sleeps through the night, which is a joy. I suspect we could even move him downstairs to the crib, though I'll miss him terribly if we do that. I was planning to bring the crib up to our room, instead, for a while. Though his big brother is looking forward to having a roommate.
He repeats lots of words, though I haven't been sure that he's ever known what he was saying. Since that's a significant part of my personal criteria for first word status, I've not accepted his babbles of dada, or his parrots of auntie. But this morning on the changing table, he looked up at the framed photos of his brother hanging on the wall, and said "Xander." That'll do.
We saw the pediatrician this morning for his 1-year checkup. "Perfect!" she declared. For the record, he's long and lean, like his brother: 30-1/4" long (90th percentile), 21 pounds 6 ounces (50th percentile), and has a head circumference of 18-1/4" (75th percentile).
He was calm through the toe stick (testing for anemia and lead), patient for the flu shot, and only cried for a few seconds after the other vax. My dear, stoic baby.
He was a social butterfly in the waiting room, crawling or surfing all around, smiling at the other babies.
It's such a pleasure to be his mama.
( Anyway, here's the whole story. )
And here he is, on his first birthday.
#2 began class sitting happily on his father's lap, shaking his eggs. And occasionally trying to eat them.
After a while, he wriggled away and crawled around to investigate the other people in the room. He was particularly cherubic - pink cheeks, big smile.
At one point, the man sitting next to me tapped my knee, gestured to #2 and said, "She's got her nametag in her mouth."
I shrugged. "More fiber."
Two
Three
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