C at 18-months

  18 months...a year and a half old...wow!  My little guy just keeps growing and progressing.  He's as fun as he is exasperating.  He is ALL boy and keeps me on my toes throughout the day.

He loves cars, trains, trucks...especially Thomas right now.  He loves wearing Thomas shirts and loves X's undies with Thomas.  He loves to have an engine in his hand at all times.  He loves reading Thomas books.  He is completely Thomas obsessed...however, he does still find the time to play with cars, trucks and tractors.

He's had a huge growth spurt in the last month.  He went from 18-month tops and 12-month bottoms to 2T shirts and 18-month bottoms in the blink of an eye.  I am just taking the shirts from X's drawers and putting them into C's.  (Thankfully X grew just enough to move into 3Ts...although it is strange to see C wearing shirts that X wore late last fall.)  He just keeps growing.  He is a bit over 32 pounds, I believe.  He's a solid guy.

He really isn't talking much.  He says, "mama" all the time.  It means, "Give me that!"  I think I preferred E's non-naming me to C's demanding using my 'name'.  He says "Da-da" for Jut.  I think he intentionally says, "puppy" and "yah" for 'yes'.  Mostly his vocal cues are unintelligible or screeches (especially for the cat...she has her own special C screech).  But, he didn't walk until after Christmas just after he turned 14-months because he could do what he wanted by crawling.  I think that he gets what he wants by pointing and screeching and so he doesn't find the reason to talk.  I've tried signing with him on and off and he just smiles and continues to screech and point.  My little stinker.

Fortunately, he has outgrown his love for emptying the refrigerator.  He will still raid it if he's hungry but we don't have to keep it constantly barricaded anymore.  That's a nice change.  We don't have to keep the kitchen chairs flipped over either.  He'll still climb on the table and do the 'table dance' if we are out there but he doesn't do it all the time and unsupervised.

He does love to color...and rip pages out of his coloring books.  He sits at the table and does 'school' with us.  It is fun to have all the kids sitting together at the table working on their different projects.
He has also learned that he loves watching the television...for awhile.  He really enjoys Thomas but he'll watch most things for several minutes.  Unfortunately when he's 'done', he thinks everyone else should be done also and he turns off the DVD player, which results in much screaming and gnashing of teeth by the other two.

He's adorable, dimpled smile gets me every time.  He's too adorable for his own good.  I love that little grin...or his bashful look when he buries his head into my shoulder.  He cuddles in at nap and bedtime.  Putting him to bed has turned into one of my favorite times of the day now that he will sit and cuddle and not fight it.  I'm so glad we are done teething until those next pesky molars erupt closer to age 2.

Chasing the big kids around the house is great fun.  We have 'poisonous' time most night before bed.  The kids run laps and chase each other...sounds very calming, does it not?!  C loves the chase and the screaming.  It is funny.

A year and a half...hardly seems possible.  He's a sweet guy...loves screaming when he doesn't get his way...but we'd all do that if it were socially acceptable, wouldn't we??