Casper, 3 Years

Lil’ Kanye, Tapper, Wild Man, Doodle, Taperoo, ‘Nuglaroo, Lil' Putz, Big Brother,

Three. Man.

A photo posted by Brianna Klemm (@babbletwit) on Nov 18, 2016 at 8:07am PST

Kid, you are a joy. I mean.... you are also exasperating. You lie immobilized on the ground when you don’t get your way. Between distraction and negotiation we have to budget 30 mins to get dressed in the morning. You insist on log rolling from my bedroom to yours at bedtime and double insist that dad and I walk behind you. We dutifully get in line behind you because we want you to go to bed so very badly and if we step over you we've committed to 15 mins of crying about how you wanted to be first. You have given me new understanding of just how Ritalin gets over prescribed. But you give me so many hugs and giggles and happy tears.

We are a family of many nicknames and you have finally started to participate. You call me "my sweet girl" and you call everyone "You Silly" or "Silly Mo" or "Silly Billy." We are all very silly.

You are a showman, in love with having an audience. You know when you’re being funny and can’t get through a performance without pausing to smirk and make sure everyone is noticing how hilarious you are.

You love building with LEGOs (DUPLOs… shhhhh) and magna tiles, riding your scooter, putting coins into every crevice of our house (especially into "the drink machine" aka the liquor cabinet) and watching videos of marble mazes, domino rallies and Rube Goldberg machines.
You insist on picking out your own clothing and refuse all shirts without pictures on them. You love your Monsters Inc sweat shirt and any and all shirts/underwear/socks featuring super heroes.

You started Preschool in September at Brooklyn Treehouse. You’re one of the youngest kids in the 3s class ("The Stars”) but seem to be doing great. At your parent teach conference we heard about how you’re a leader who the teachers consider the go to for an answer if no other kids will raise their hands. The teachers listed 2 boys as your best friends in class which was a bit shocking as you only talk about the girls at home.

You became a big brother to Quincy on September 29th. I was very worried that you’d be a jealous older brother since you’re such a mama’s boy but you’re surprisingly gentle and loving with Quincy. At the end of my pregnancy when I was too giant to comfortably hold you in my lap or crawl on the floor to play blocks with you we spent a lot of time discussing how when the baby came out I could do those things again. Since Quincy's birth you’ve brought this up over and over again and seem happy to have him outside instead of in. You love to snuggle with us and tell me at least daily how much you love Quincy (parroting me you get right up in his face and whisper "I just love this sweet boy").

I’m a bit hesitant to admit this next bit publicly (and then secondarily embarrassed to admit that I'm embarrassed to admit it.... mama feelings are complex) but I had been allowing you one nurse per day ever since the middle of my pregnancy with Quincy when my boobs were too sore to allow more. In the morning when you would climb into mom and dad's bed to snuggle before getting up you would nuzzle up against me and ask "Can I have some milk-a-mama?" You would then nurse for a minute or two before getting on with the day. As sweet as this was it was making my oversupply issue that arose post Quincy worse and as you approached your third birthday I started talking with you about how 3 year olds don't have milk-a-mama any more. You seemed open to this but if I brought it up in the morning when you asked to nurse you would whine "but i'm not three yet!" Technically true, so I let you keep nursing right up to the morning of your birthday.

On the big day you crawled into bed and snuggled up then said, "can I have...." I gave you a smirk. You smirked back and covered your mouth with your hand to hide your giggles, "I wasn't going to ask for milk-a-mama!" you declared. Then asked, "Can I have some milk-a-cup?" We're now almost 2 months into 3 years old and you have not mentioned nursing again. Even though I'm tearing up writing this I could not have asked for a better, more consensual end to our nursing relationship.

I really wish I could say that your are consistently sleeping through the night but alas most nights you show up in our room at some point and your dad has to walk you back to bed. I feel a certain amount of failure around this but I’m at a loss to solve the problem. Recently, we've been offering up a mega bribes (trips to the toy store, chocolate cake, a movie with mama) if you can stay in bed multiple nights. There has been enough progress that I think this might be working but it's hard to say -- dad is more keen on sleep training you than sleep training Quincy.

You have mastered your scooter in true NYC kid style. You ride as if always in the middle of a very competitive race. Hands wrapped tightly on the handlebars, little foot pushing off with as much force as you can muster, head down to allow for optimal wind resistance. You fly on that thing. It's both scary and exciting and I do a lot of yelling "Ok! Wait for Mama!!!!!"

Over the past year you’ve become somewhat obsessed with pipes. In a new bathroom you love to crouch down to inspect underneath the sink pointing out the pipes and tracing the path of the water. You cannot pass up a drain or a pipe in the wild. Each one must be examined and discussed. “What comes out of this pipe?” “can you put a leaf in this pipe?” “Where does the pipe go?”

You went to your first movie in the theatre (The Secret Life of Pets) this past summer. You are an entirely not self conscious viewer and often exclaim your jump up an down shaking in excitement while watching. Over Christmas you got into watching the animated "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and at the beginning when the Whos ride around on their music making machines you can't help but call out "whoa whoa whoa!!! look at that!" over and over again.
You're prime age for Kids Say the Darndest things. Here are a few of your recent zingers:

• After Quincy spit up on me: "Mom it's all over your arm! It's ok you're tough."

• While picking up toys as mama watched from couch: "If I was a grown up like mama I would hold Quincy and not pick up."

• “Mama you've been doing really good listening so you get three presents.”

You don't want to be called my baby any more -- even though it will always be true (big brother or not). You promise that you will always want to snuggle with me -- even though that probably will not always be true. You're a wonderful little guy and a huge huge handful. Everyone I know with kids says that three is the hardest and so far, I fear they are right. But that's ok -- even at your hardest (when you won't stop climbing on me, when you run back and forth through the house making some weird noise at top volume, when you get in trouble and tell me "I don't like your face!", When you won't eat any of the food on your plate, when you hit or bite or throw.....) you're still impossible not to love.

Casper, 2 Years

You have been 2 for over a month now but since we’ve officially stopped counting age in months you’re still just 2 (and this blog post is by no means over a month late).

I write from just beside the fireplace at Ama and Pa’s (aka Grandma K and Grandpa Horst) house on the afternoon of your 3rd (!!!) Christmas. You’ve enjoyed this one most of all. You love playing with your cousins and opening presents and eating pudding (and cookies and chocolates and ice cream and sugar straight from the bowl if we’d only hand you a spoon). And mama loves watching you play (and the occasional nap…) too much to spend a long time formatting this rambling blog post.

You want to do everything by yourself. If I lift you onto the bed I am thanked with enraged screams of, “Self!” If I reach down to carry you up the stairs to our apartment you panic and quickly tell me “by self! by self! by seeeeeeeelf!!!!!” I sometimes hear you whispering, “self, self, self” while playing alone. Practice for the next time your jerk mom tries to assist you with anything? It is amazing how many different ways you can refuse help.

My ears are still your comfort objects -- you grab at them when tired, when hurt, when snuggling. The inside of my ear is often tender and raw from your machinations. In the morning while we lie in bed with Mama on one side and Daddy on the other you like to reach over and hold an ear from either parent. Just in the last couple of days I have caught you fondling your own ear while napping -- independence.

You are just starting to grasp pretend play. Sometimes you toss your stuffed rabbit, Claude, off of the bed and tell me “he crying. need hugs.” After you rescue him from the floor you tell me, “He needs Mama” and then instruct me to hold him and “Mama say, ‘it ok!’”

Recently folks have commented on how verbal you are, shocking given how long it took you to speak, and yet it’s true. You’ve surprised me with what feel like complicated concepts. Asking, about a rock you found on your dad’s dresser, “where it come from?” Bringing me a block that matches the one I’m holding and saying, “this red also.”

You parrot everything you hear which has revealed just how often I use certain phrases. When I finally get Sesame St. streaming on the TV you’ll announce “Oh! There we go!” perfectly mimicking my own inflection. You walked into my bedroom the other day and out of nowhere announced, “Oh, that’s weird.” (It was never clear exactly what was weird -- life itself?)

You’ve started to grasp the concept of jokes -- your main attempt at humor is putting your wub-a-nub (pacifier) in your mouth and then trying to drink milk or water at the same time. You yell, “Mama! Mama! Mama!” and show me this while giggling uncontrollably. You also like to say things that are obviously not true (“Mama’s shoes? No!” while holding your own shoes) and then laugh hysterically.

You’ve also recently realized the power of choice. A favorite phrase around our house is “a different one!!” You ask for different pants, a different show, a different snack. One night  your dad and I were rolling on the floor laughing as you had argument after argument with yourself about if we would read books or put pajamas on first (“read a book! yes!... NO!!!! No book! Get dressed. Get dressed. NO NO NO!!!”). This past week you made an unfortunate discovery. We’ve often used the trick of giving you a choice between 2 items to force a decision but  one evening I asked you if you’d like Mama or Daddy to perform whatever bedtime preparation that we were trying to move along and you replied, “Nothing.” This choice loophole is sure to cobble many previously smooth paths.

You’ve recently started singing songs -- mostly the ABCs (having mastered your letters in lower and uppercase! Excuse my Mama bragging…). We downloaded you an iPhone application that lets you drag letters into their place in a word and you’re ridiculously proficient.

You recognize numbers up to 9 and you can reliably count to... 2. However, you believe you can count much much higher, “1, 2, 5, 6, 9!” Recently when asked to count over Facetime with Grandmom and Granddad you managed “1,2,5,6,7,8,9,10,3,4” which seemed pretty impressive.

In October we took you to Switzerland, France and Spain because you are a very spoiled baby. You saw many fountains. You saw the Sagrada Familia which you knew from a set of architecture cards that your dad picked up at a stoop sale. You’re still talking about it months later -- building block towers and calling them the Sagrada Familia, reminding me of the stained glass inside (red and green circles!).

You are still nursing once in awhile -- most days a quick suckle in the morning but some days none at all. We’ve finally convinced you that milk can be drunk in a cup and at 2 years and one month you are off of the bottle -- this has lead to a small uptick in requests for “Milk-a-Mama.”

When I’m stripping you down for a new diaper you often look up at me and announce, “Little Nakes, coming out!”  You find it hilarious when anyone is naked -- especially me. If you catch me coming out of the shower you squeal with glee, “Mama Nakes!!!” and then demand that I turn around so you can see my “naked booty!”

You love to color and demand that we draw things for you -- recently you’re requesting a fountain, an ipad an octagon and a Buddha.

On 11/7 you used the potty for the first time after peeing a bit on mom and dad’s bed during bedtime story naked time. You have refused to use it again. We have an exciting weekend of potty training/you peeing all over the house planned for 2016.

Casper Speaks

Casper, you were a late talker. At a year you had no words. At 18 months we told ourselves that you were saying Mama and Dada but it was a bit of a wishful parenting leap -- you mostly ran around chanting "bitta bitta" and "minna minna my" which might have been words but we never figured out their meanings. I'll admit here that I was just a little bit worried. Logically I know that talking, unlike rolling or smiling, was something with a huge range of normal. And yet.... what did it mean that you didn't talk when other kids did?

Starting in May, you slowly found your voice. You said "bye bye" and "baby" and very slowly started picking up new words. For a long while, I kept a list.

Words as of 8/7/15

mama

dada

bye (first post mama dada)

baby

me (“memememememe” when you wants something like a bottle of milk (said while hitting the refrigerator) or dad’s iphone)

clock

dump (for dump truck)

hi (Kenesha taught you this on 7/14)

Zayd (for Zayden)

book

up

bus

apple

good (7/21)

dog (7/31)

hot (in reference to the beach sand in CT 8/1)

‘dilla (quesadilla 8/4)

nanna (banana)

poop (early August)

pee (8/7)

Not too shabby. In parallel you worked on your animal noises, mastering moo, hiss, peep peep and aroo (elephant). And mostly, you worked on your letters. You love letters. I blame the subway and books about the subway -- the first letter you learned was "F" for "F" train. At 21 months you know the entire alphabet save W (which I suspect you know but can't say). Often while walking the neighborhood or while riding the train you'll spot a sign and exclaim "A D! A D!!!!!" or quietly grin up at me to whisper "M. M. M."

A couple of weeks ago you and I took our 4th solo trip to CA to visit family (your 10th round trip plane trip!) and the new surroundings seemed to inspire your speech. I quickly lost track of your vocabulary as you sputtered about bears and cows and bugs and rocks. Quickly renaming Grandpa Horst to "Pa" and Grandpa Kay to "Ama" and demanding they take you to the car, to the tractor, to the horse, to the cat. Requesting crackers and cookies and apples and bread and snacks (always "'NACK!!!").

We came home after a week and the words continued to spill forth -- now in groups of two. "More book!" you yell. "Dada off," you demand. Frequently, you name things I had no idea you could identify -- this week alone I've heard toe, couscous, phone, on, light, read, meat, card, pig, goldbug, giraffe, yoga, all done.... Forget accounting for them all I can't even account for today.

Developmentally I believe this is called a leap. Welcome to the other side Big Talker.

Casper, Months 13 and 14

Dear Squirm-bot 5000,

As you get older, I get lazier (or is it more tired? Hard to say.). Welcome to this decade's answer to laziness -- the listicle!

Things Casper Can Do

Walk. Like a penguin. Like a baby fawn. Like a drunken sailor. Like the most efficient and ridiculous version of all three of these things put together

Refuse food. Smirking, nose in the air, mouth clamped closed in a thin line, uttering a dismissive and bemused “uh,” as you turn your head away from things that just yesterday you devoured.

Find specific books and bring them to an adult to be read.  A cute trick that sadly enables never-ending afternoons spent reading books that I’m fast getting sick of.

Find a way to shove shapes into the right holes in your shape sorter toys even though you for sure do not know your shapes. You know that things can go into the holes and that if you twist them around and try all of the holes probably what you are holding will fit in somewhere. Trial and error plus determination are powerful tools.

Things Casper Loves

Baths. So much so that I have to not bring them up until the water is ready in order to avoid tears of impatience. So much so that I have to physically restrain you from clambering over the side of the tub to dive face first into the water/dry bath tub.

Books. I should be one of those parents who brags about her child’s love for reading but mostly I’m one of those parents who occasionally helps certain books go missing because she simply cannot read about lame-o Winter Friends for a 45th time in one day.

Empty carbs. Just like everyone else.

Knocking down towers of blocks and screaming a loud and proud “Eeeeeeeee!!!!!” It’s rare that I can get even 3 block on top of one another in this house before destructor swoops in.

Rolling off of the changing pad in the middle of a diaper change and toddling your naked butt all over my house. Giggling the whole time and looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re being chasing.

Bananas, yogurt drops and graham crackers. All of which have to be hidden in the cupboard with our glasses -- you’re on to the pantry and the wonder is holds.

My ear. Months ago when you started having a hard time going to sleep we tried to introduce a small stuffed bunny named Claude as your love-y. At night we all say good night to Claude and then he cuddles up with us before bed. And then all night long you ignore him. There is little love for Claude. But as soon as I pick you up, when I rock you, when you're tired, when you're crying... you little hand paws at my face, pushing my head to the side, creeping crawling up to my ear. You knead the lobe and trace the outline with your fingers before grabbing on and settling in for a snuggle.

Things Casper Hates

When Mama leaves. Even my morning bathroom break requires reassurance that I’m coming right back.

Having a fever and being forced to go sledding. (In my defense I didn’t *know* you had a fever until later and then I felt so bad that I let you sleep in the big bed with mom and dad all night).

Napping in his crib. Currently banned from life. Big bed 4EVER!!!!!

Casper, Month 11

11 months is a weird little spot -- so overshadowed by the looming end of your first year. But this month has been its own little bundle of highs and lows. You're fast outgrowing baby-dom and it leaves me desperate to savor it. I often feel panicked that I have not captured enough of the baby you (though a quick glance at my gigs of pictures would indicate otherwise). I am torn between forgetting what my baby was like and excitement over meeting my little boy. I try to be in the moment. And so here is this moment, 11 months.

Back in month 7 we sleep trained you. Silly dad and I thought that was it -- you were trained, you went to bed, you slept, you woke up in the morning. It was bliss and we were so proud. So sure that we had cracked the baby sleep code. Such naive newbies. Some other mother wrote in her blog that she had thought that she had beaten the sleep training game and then was shocked to discover that she only passed the boss on world 1. We arrived at a new level this month and it is like one of those bullshit underwater levels in Super Mario. The ones where you have to flap Mario’s arms at just the right speed to keep him above the stupid fish floating near the bottom but below the dumb flying fish ready to gulp you up at the surface. And just when you think you’ve found that perfect balance you run into a column of those mystery bubble that push you upwards and slam you into a jellyfish -- then you’re fish food. Many nights this month I have felt like fish food.

As with most things baby I’m not exactly sure what was going on with you. It could have been teething, it could have been the discovery of object/mommy permanence, it could have been a bit of hunger since the world is often too interesting for you to focus on nursing during the day. But I think the main problem was that you have figured out how to pull up to standing in your crib. This makes sleep protests so much more dramatic. In addition you have really upped your screaming game. Gone are the infant mews and fusses. Now we have howls worthy of horror flicks. You don’t know how to talk yet but somehow you’ve managed to communicate expletives that would make a sailor blush. Many times at the beginning of the month we gave in and brought you into our bed where everyone could sleep -- me with a baby foot in my face but it (mostly) beat trying and failing over and over and over to put you down. Whatever the core issue eventually mom and dad brought the sleep training hammer back down on you and we cried it out together and now, again, we all sleep all night (separately).

Remember last month when I said that you loved me most of all? I had no idea. You love me more. Or, rather, you hate not being with me. Unfortunately, loving your mom the most does not mean you are always happy when you are with me or that you greet me with only snuggles and compliments about how thin I look. It means that you are a royal asshole whenever I go to the bathroom alone. It means I sometimes have to hold your hands while dad changes your diaper. It means I scream the words, “I’m RIGHT HERE.” from every corner of the apartment in a futile effort to stop the whines. I’m flattered, I guess. I love you too.

You started properly crawling at the beginning of the month. You prefer a lopsided creeping motion with one foot pushing off behind you and acting as motor. Between this and your brave cruising between the furniture, you are everywhere. There is a lot of falling. This is the month that you can look back on should you ever worry about childhood bumps to the head having caused permanent damage. To make matters worse you managed to make real your dream of diving head first off of mom and dad’s bed. No obvious damage is visible at this time but I will personally look back on that moment one day when, as a surly teen, you forget to take out the garbage for the fifth time in a row. It was cold comfort that you took this moment to whimper out a sad "mama" for the first time.

In the war of Casper vs the baby proofing you are losing.... but just barely. Despite vigorous tugging and banging all but one of the cupboard locks has held (you can now access the pots and pans, if we had to lose a lock that was arguably the least necessary one). You did end up victorious in the battle of the corner covers -- none remain on the coffee table or the entertainment center. There is something poetic about turning around to see you crawling towards me with something that we bought to protect you hanging out of your mouth like a chew toy.

You’re much more vocal this month. You’ve become a bit of a mimic -- willing to play little call and response games with your screams or lip smacks. You’re saying Dada with meaning. As mentioned above, you also, seem to be saying mama… but there is no glee in it. “Dada” is for laughs, for silly screams, for prideful babbling. “Mama” is only to be used when sobbing. Beyond actual words your nonverbal communication is blossoming. You can whine with intention to let us know when you want to walk, when you want a cracker, when you don’t want to be held. You've developed an impressive back arch to say, "I do not want to be in the stroller, I do not want to be held, I do not want." You've also become quite the little smoocher - offering wet kisses to me and dad and your reflection in the mirror and all of your stuffed animals.

You’re finally really into books. You’ll sit still through multiple stories and tolerate a diaper change if you can hold a book aloft in your two little fists gazing up the pages. You like to caress the faces of all of the characters, you like to help turn the pages.  

You remain a happy little guy. When we took you in to get a flu shot the nurse pronounced you jolly which seems especially apt given your ever growing Santa-like belly. You love bananas and can easily put away a whole one grabbing slice after slice and using both hands to shove it into your mouth. You love kicking balls, walking with your walker, animal noises, Grandpa’s dried pears, drinking water from a sippy cup, hiding under the blankets in my bed, when daddy gets your hinny, when I sing “Gray squirrel, gray squirrel, shake your bushy tail,” and when I steal your paci (this is, perhaps, the height of comedy).

Onward we go to even bigger milestones.

Casper, Month 10

You are still a baby but this month, for the first time, I see glimpses of a little boy and it is freaking me out. Maybe it’s that mess of hair that is fast growing over the tips of your ears. Maybe its your insistence on being upright as much as possible. I had my first and second cries over your growing up this month. Never has time moved so quickly. Never before has 1 year, 5 years, 18 years felt like not long enough.

November and your first birthday are painfully close. I find myself regularly wishing that you would stop growing, stop aging and then scolding myself because getting bigger and older is what healthy babies do.

It has been, once again, a month full of milestones. You started clapping on 8/24 -- I have never received so many rounds of applause for so little actual performance. The next day you surprised me by cruising from the ottoman to the entertainment center -- a leap of only 5 inches, but a leap all the same. 

On 9/2 your nanny, Kenesha, showed us that she has taught you to do an indian call which left me feeling super non-PC for the rest of the month as I tried to explain the trick without explicitly calling it an “Indian call” (“You make an “ahahahaha” noise by bouncing your hand on your lips? Do you know what I mean?”).

You’ve continued to put off traditional crawling and we worry that you’ll forgo it entirely in exchange for early walking. You are a pretty proficient army crawler -- swimming across our hardwood floors when motivated to chase a toy train or snack on some electrical cords. On 9/4 you started getting up onto hands and knees and revving your engine by rocking back and forth but you revert to the tummy crawl when you actually want to go anywhere.

By 9/6 you were pulling yourself up on the edge of the bathtub or onto the ottoman and on 9/8 I officially lost my happy sitter. Gone is the baby who would stay quietly on his blanket immobile and playing with toys. Suddenly, you are everywhere. Under the jumperoo. Sampling dead leaves off of the doormat. Pulling the power strip out from behind the armchair. I will never be able to sweep enough to keep the outside out of your insides. I have already, multiple times, considered the cliche of taping a swiffer pad to your belly to exploit the free cleaning opportunities that an army crawling infant presents.

You want, very badly, for someone (anyone, really) to let you hold their fingers so you can walk around all day long. Often when I move to set you down you lock your knees to try to force me into a walk-a-thon. If I do manage to detangle my fingers from yours and step away I must endure cries of outrage followed by rivers of baby tears.

This probably doesn't count as an actual milestone but you have also discovered my face this month and have taken a real conquistador approach to the exploration. You push my head to the side so you can fiddle with my ear. You force your little fingers between my lips to feel my teeth. In the morning when you're lying between your dad and I in our bed you seem to wait until one of us starts to drift off before shoving your pointer finger up into our nostrils. This is not my most favorite thing about you.

Despite the nose rape you've made morning my favorite time of day. Before you were born I slept until 8 and couldn't imagine enjoying a 6:30am wake up call. But you are so joyful after a good night of sleep. I can't help but look forward to your snuggles and giggles even if the sun has yet to rise. All three of us get a solid two hours of hanging out together before the day really begins and it feels like truly stolen moments. It's 7am. No one ever calls or texts. No one expects us to be anywhere but home. These found hours are just for you. I'm more tired at night than I used to be. I go to bed at 10pm and feel like kind of a loser for doing so but being lame is worth it.

Casper, Month 8

Hello my 8 month old boy! My Big Chompers. My Poop Machine.

I recently reviewed your newborn pictures and discovered something alarming. You were not that cute. You had baby acne and baby-patterned baldness. You didn’t know how to smile. This raises serious questions about my own objectivity since I distinctly remember wondering how my newborn got so adorable. I also remember your father commenting at 5 weeks the he was afraid you had peaked for cuteness. In retrospect, this is insane. So while I want to report that, at 8 months, you are the cutest and always getting cuter, I cannot honestly assess the situation. To my eyes you are dangerously good looking, but in reality you might be a troll.

Your nanny, Kenesha, says you are "very advanced at eating." I'm sure that's code for, "a little piglet." You love food. You devour sweet potatoes, grilled zucchini, bagels, blueberry pancakes, cherry tomatoes, cheese and avocado toast. In most cases you take the Cookie Monster approach to eating -- fistfuls of noms head toward your mouth, 10% consumed, 90% turned into directionless projectiles. Sometimes it seems that all we’ve done this month is eat and bathe.

We’ve been taking the baby led weaning approach to food (a poor name for “give your baby food and let them eat it” -- we are by no means weaning you off of breast milk) and I cannot recommend it highly enough. However, I am no longer able to quietly snack around you -- as soon as you spot anyone eating, you unleash a chorus of whines until all food is shared. What a little communist. On one occasion you dive bombed your dad’s hamburger. Another time you stared so hard at a stranger on the subway as he munched on peanuts that I felt I had to apologize for the death glares being sent his way.

Eating adult food is messy business so we prefer to feed you out on the patio clad only in a diaper and a bib. Our bib of choice includes a handy trough where the food that didn't make it into your tummy can commingle into a half chewed soup. At month's start you didn't know about the trough but by early July you had discovered this exciting repository of back up food. You are happy to reconsider all trough options from plum coated in avocado to pineapple basted pasta.

You are now capable of sitting in a highchair at restaurants which has opened up scads of brunch options for your dad and I (no longer restricted to the occasional NYC venue big enough to house your stroller). Your happy to accompany us for the small fee of a croissant here, a fried potato there.

You’re not talking yet but, perhaps in preparation, your mouth has become very active (even when not eating). You’ve learned to smack your lips to produce a satisfying popping noise. You move your little mouth around like a ventriloquist dummy -- all motion and no sound. You bababa and dadada.  No mamamas yet, which I hear is to be expected.

You’ve become a screamer -- gleefully screeching like a little baby car alarm. I constantly have to reassure others that you’re not upset, just loud. I worry that our neighbors are unamused.

When I come home from work you attack me with opened mouthed drool-y kisses. Your lips banging against my cheek, head shaking back and forth, “Ah! Ah! Ah!” you shout.

All of the kisses are for mom but the guffaws are all for dad. That dude cracks you up without even trying. In the morning while you’re nursing in bed you crane your head back to gaze at him and giggle till the milk dribbles out of the corner of your mouth.

You are full of motion. You, "throw your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care." You flap your arms about in glee. Your little fists playing open/shut them on repeat. Drool streaming down your chin and soaking the front of your shirt. You absolutely Do. Not. Care.

You like to hold the outsides of my palms while I clap. You LOVE when I grab your palms and help you clap. Everything is worthy of celebration.

You’re showing your first real interest in books beyond tasting the corners just in case books turn out to suddenly be edible. You reach out while we are reading to grab at the pictures and slap your palm at the characters faces. Your favorite book, by far, is Carry Me. Your dad and I joke that you view the 10 pages with pictures of babies being carried in different ways (in a pack, on your back, etc.) as more bible than story. A convenient list of suggestions for ways your parents might consider executing the sacrament of carrying. You reach your own arms up out of the jumperoo or your crib -- jazz hands screaming, “Carry me! Carry me! Carry ME!”

My constant lesson is to focus on appreciating you as the baby you are today rather than panicking that you won't ever be this little ever again. It’s difficult at times. I don’t quite understand moms who want their baby to meet his milestones early. Being an advanced crawler doesn’t seem worth rushing through babyhood. I am much more worried about not having time to savor your babiness than I am concerned about having a gifted child. As much as I loved you as a newborn I am consumed with you as a chubby bundle of baby. I want to eat you. I cannot kiss you enough. I whisper in your ear as you nurse, "You're my baby. Mama loves you. Mama loves Casper."