17 Months Old

Our little Squirrel Nutkin wasn't too cooperative for his birthday pics again. :-)

That's the best I could do.

So many little quirks to mention this month for our little character.  And a character he is!  He is hilarious, loves to laugh, loves to explore and climb, loves to be loud, and has a very feisty temperament.  He's fun-loving, but also has quite a temper when he doesn't get his way.

His speech is crazy good.  He speaks 2-, and sometimes even 3-, word phrases.  I especially loved, "Don't do dat!"  I love when he calls Ellison: "Ehhhhhson!"  He repeats just about anything he hears.  He's very friendly, often looking at random people in stores, waving to them and saying, "Hi!  Hi!," until they respond to him.

He has a little scar on his knee from having two different owes from some falls.  Even though it's fully healed, he'll STILL point to his owie, repeat "Owie, owie" and hold it up for you to kiss, or he'll even say, "Owie, kissy".

We do a sad face when I tell him "sad", and he'll do a fake little whimper, then say, "Happy!" and smile.

I have to say that our 17 month old has actually caused some water damage in our house.  One day when I was in the bathroom getting ready for work, and Marek was in there with me, he turned on the bathtub faucet to the jacuzzi tub, as he often does.  I looked over to see that he had also turned the faucet so it was facing out of the bathtub and onto the tile!  So some water got all over the tile, and onto the floor, but not a ton by any means.  No biggie, I wiped it all up.  That night, when I returned home from work, Jonathan recounted the story to me.  He showed me the pizza-slice-sized water stain on our living room ceiling, asked me if something had happened.  He spotted it that evening, freaked a little that the roof was leaking somewhere, told Ellison and Marek to stay put while he explored the attic.  When he came up short, and knew the bathroom was above it, he figured it had something to do with Marek, but wasn't sure.  But when he frantically left the kids downstairs to investigate, apparently they were both freaked out by his response of "(Gasp) Oh no!!!", and both were crying.  So apparently when the water got on the tile surrounding the tub, it seeped down where the faucet connection is, and went down along the pipes.  The following day, Marek had to "tell" me all about it.  We were in the living room.  He came walking up to the area, looking up at the ceiling and said, "(gasp) Oh... oh... uh-oh... wet...".

Marek's really starting to understand basic commands.  Now whenever I give him a wrapper or something, I ask him to go throw it away, and he walks off and just does it.  It's exciting watching his communication skills take off.

He likes to talk about the temperature of things.  Like touching something and saying whether it's "hot", "cold", or "warm".  He loves touching coffee cups and repeating, "hot... coffee".

He loves taking showers these days.  If he sees one of us in the shower, and he's not included, he will often put up a little fuss.  He tries to walk in with his clothes on even.

He's starting to talk a little more on the phone.  The other day I was on my way home with him somewhere, and was going to call my parents, but quickly hung up when he starting fussing for "googa" (his way of saying he wants to talk to grandma on the phone).  So I locked my phone and handed it to him to play with.  After a little while, he sounded like he was having a conversation: "Heh-yo (hello)... heh-yo... Papa! Papa!... Eh-son (Ellison)... where go?... where go?".  When I looked back and asked for my phone, he handed it to me, and sure enough Gram was on the phone!  It never even rang, and I have no idea how he answered it since it was locked.  My mom said she just was calling, and she figured out that he probably was the one on the phone.  She had asked him if he wanted to say 'hi' to Papa, and asked him where Ellison was.  Crazy!

Bubba is doing this silly thing with his arm lately.  He extends it and quickly brings it back in as if he's saying, "yes!".  I made mention that he looks like he's got half of the "arm pit fart" noise-making down pat.  Well, apparently upon hearing that, Lucas was teaching him to try to do it completely.  Marek watched intently, tried to stick his other hand down the collar of his shirt and all.  

Marek has discovered that when he plugs his ears, his voice sounds different.  He's often shoving his fingers in his ears, then hollering, then removing them and hollering again.  He's fascinated.

Brutus Beefcakes still loves carrying things around, helping empty the dishwasher, playing with cameras and glasses, and crying to play in the van or car or outside.  Every day.  His latest is to also flush the toilet.  If I happen to have left the bathroom door open, he'll make a beeline for the toilet and do the quickest flush ever before I reach him.  If it takes me a second, he'll repeatedly keep flushing.

The thing we love the most, though, with our quirky boy, is the way he always says, "Okay".  He does it with his cute little smile and turns his cheek into his shoulder, almost like a shy gesture.  Love.  It.  It sounds like "Okee", and I don't ever want to forget it.

And finally, I'll briefly mention what a BEAR Marek is with sleep over the past several weeks.  SEVERAL, I tell you.  It's been really frustrating and tiring.  Up several times a night, and he screams as if you are taking a knife to him.  It's pitiful.  We feel so bad for him, but can't figure out how to end the madness.

[June 18, 2012]