One is fun

I am in love with my baby boy! ( I love the other boy in this picture, too, but this blog is all about Abram.)  I love the age that he is (he turned 15 mos. yesterday) and his cute little personality and how he's beginning to mimic everything and develop his own little quirks. I keep thinking that I need to record the little things that I have been noticing and enjoying, because at our house this age is the calm before the storm!  And sometimes during the storm, it's easy to forget the fair weather, so-to-speak.


The things that I'm loving:
- The way that he pats my back when I hold him, and drapes himself all over whoever gets him out of his crib in the morning (the kids argue about who gets to get him up)

-The way he's trying out new faces -scowling and sticking his lips out when he wants to "talk" about something or just look silly (we call them trumpet lips- not so sure why).

-Watching his little hands and fingers make the signs for "more", "please", "down" and a few others.

-When the kids get on the bus in the mornings, the boys and I watch out the window until they're on their way.  We always say, "goodbye kids!  We love you! Have a good day at school!"  Abram was watching me intently yesterday, so for some extra drama, I also blew three loud kisses.  He immediately blew some kisses too.

-Yesterday Isabelle was teaching Nolan all of the songs that she's learning at Kindergarten.  They would practice them in another room and then come perform them for Abram and I.  After they sat down from their first song performance, Abe went and stood where they had been standing and did the hand motions that he had seen them do!

-The way he gets scared of things now.  I must have a sick sense of humor, but it cracks me up to see what he gets scared of, and I know it's mean, but sometimes I have to do it again so that I can see his reaction.  He is scared to death if anyone blows up a balloon - that one I didn't repeat.  The one that is so funny to me is that he is terrified of some life-size baby-dolls that the girls keep in some clear storage boxes upstairs.  He is scared/fascinated by them.  He was pointing and talking about them one day with his little lips stuck out (looks like he's whistling when he does this).  I thought he wanted a better look at them, so I got them out of the box.  He looked at their weird eyes flapping open and closed and went running- terrified- to the other side of the room.  He still keeps trying to talk to everyone about them, but if we start to open the lid it's over! It is kind-of creepy if you think about it from a 1-year old's perspective.  What are some babies doing just laying there all the time, anyways?

-That at this age, a baby can go straight from laughing to crying and vice versa.  I was doing laundry the other day and Abe was beginning to get fussy, but I was SO CLOSE to being done! I decided to take a stack of clothes and make a run for it and put it away before he could catch up to me.  (I can't carry him and put things away at the same time; he throws everything on the floor.) Sure enough I was back before he'd even left the laundry room but he was MAD and crying!!  I decided to wait outside the door and scare him, and after his startle, his cry turned instantly into a laugh. He figured that I'd just been out there waiting to play a game with him. Why can't I get over things that quickly?

-He loves to tease!  He waits beside the stairs until he has someone's attention, then takes off! (He knows that we don't like him on the stairs by himself.)  He shakes his head back and forth as he heads into the bathroom to play in the toilet.

-When I lay him down for a nap or for bedtime, he has to find a corner of the blanket to stick in his mouth.  He prefers a blanket that I made for him before he was born.  It was supposed to have a pirate theme: red and white striped flannel, blue water-looking flannel and red flannel with a small pirate print.  Turns out that it looks more like an American flag.  Anyway, one day I tried to give him another blanket that had rounded corners and he went nuts because he couldn't find a corner.  By the time he makes noise in the mornings or after he wakes up from his nap, all the corners of his blanket have been found and are as soggy as can be. He must lay in there for a good fifteen minutes just sucking on the corners of his blanket!

-I don't know that I love this part...  Some days loading the dishwasher is just too much work with my little "helper" so I wait until his nap.  When that isn't an option, I can count on him sitting on the door for as long as I'll let him.  Yesterday, as I loaded the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, he got out clean dishes and loaded with me.  So as  I load I am also unloading.  Then he gave up on dishes and went to the desk and brought back staples and a gluestick and promptly loaded them.  Anyways, a five-minute job turns into fifteen.  Yesterday I breathed a sigh of relief as I finally closed the door... and he began to cry.  The fun was over for him!  He's the same sort of helper all through the house.  The kids are always dumping blocks out of their shoes, I find socks that he has brought from the laundry room and deposited in the drawers of our end tables and Shawn's work shoes turned up in a drawer in our bedroom.  It makes me smile with each discovery.  Our little boy is "cleaning"!