>{Note: I started this post yesterday on the 8th, and am just finishing it up this morning.}
Today my baby is a year and a half. I love that for one brief moment I get to count his age in a way that makes sense to everyone, not just those of us with children. So sure, he’s eighteen months, but doesn’t a year and a half sound older somehow? It does to me. And he looks older and sounds older to me today, too.
As I have to do when Sebastian hits any age milestone, I looked back at pictures to remind myself of how far we’ve come since July 2008.
From here in which he didn’t do much besides eat, sleep, and go through diapers:
to this toddler:
My big little boy who walks, talks, dances, and laughs with me most of the day. He does still eat and sleep, though his refusal to eat foods like pizza or macaroni & cheese still baffles me. And no, it’s not because he loves vegetables so much that he trades the pizza for asparagus. He just prefers breakfast foods, with the exception of his beloved PB&J. But his eating habits are a subject for some other early morning rant.
At eighteen months Sebastian loves music and any toy that will play him a catchy tune gets enjoyed on a daily basis. He also continues his obsession with anything that “goes,” so our floors are littered with objects that have wheels of all shapes and sizes. He loves bubbles and books and slides, but isn’t sure yet about Playdoh or crayons.
Sebastian can follow simple directions like, “Put the train in the drawer.” and more complex ones like, “It’s time to clean up.” Yes, he actually knows what that means and starts putting the toys away! Not consistently or anything, but once he did it that first time, it was all over for him because now he can’t pretend he doesn’t understand (insert wicked mom laugh here)!
The teacher in me loves that he so obviously enjoys learning, and I’m not talking about just getting ready for school stuff (though he does know most of the alphabet, all the basic colors, some shapes, and most of his numbers up to 20 – he has some strange bias against 4 and 14 and usually skips those). He just loves any new piece of information, no matter how mundane it may seem to the adults. Yesterday he was enthralled by the notion that shampoo is for hair and food is for mouths and these two things should not be mixed up. He had to ask me about it for half of lunch and all of his bathtime, testing to see if I meant it by holding pieces of his sandwich up to his head and saying, “No hair?” Though I get tired of the repetitive conversations at times, I never tire of seeing his puzzled, thoughtful expression as he tries to sort out the new bit of information, or the glee with which he repeats the idea back to me: “Sam-poo…hair!…food…mouf!!”
I love that he is a sponge, delighted by the world around him, positive that we want to share every discovery and game with him, and learning new words and phrases and concepts every single day. We aren’t quite used to the parrot tendency, though, so it may be my fault if you hear him repeat things he shouldn’t at the top of his voice. So far we’ve kept it to expressions like “Holy cow!” but you know the day is coming when it will be worse.
And though I know that even kids who don’t talk until they are 3 or 4 often turn out to be some of the brightest ones in the bunch, I’m oh so grateful that Sebastian didn’t keep me waiting that long. The days go by much faster now that we understand each other better. I don’t know about you, but trying to sort out one infant cry from another was a lesson that was months in the making for me and incredibly frustrating. It’s a lot easier and more fun when he can just say, “Hi, mama! Milk, peez,” and I can say hi back and give him his cup.
But when I look back on that picture and remember his hand wrapped so firmly around my finger or his little sleeping body nestled against mine, I feel just a little nostalgic and wonder where my baby has gone. Well, he’s only in pictures now. In real life he’s been replaced by this crazy, funny, miraculous boy. Happy half-birthday, Sebastian!
>Yaaay!! Happy Half Birthday, Sebastian!!