Life at the condo: Month Fifteen

Dear Henry,

In the past month you have become a champion toddler. You toddle here. You toddle there. You toddle everywhere. It is something to behold. The first few steps we watched you take were impressive, proof that you were progressing as you were designed to. (This isn't an opening for a discussion on Intelligent Design but I promise we will tackle that issue in the future.) But now, that you can dictate where you want your big feet to take you and then go there, you have exhibited a streak of independence that would make any parent simultaneously proud and anxious. You are growing up so fast.

For the most part, you are hitting the standard babyhood milestones within range of your peers. Neither far ahead or far behind, with the exception of your weight, which is still woefully low for someone with fifteen months on the planet. We are doing our best to entice you to eat, providing you with a plethora of calorie-rich foods. The fact that you have shown a preference for broccoli over pie stumps us. We are confident that with age will come the appreciation for pie that your pops and I share. Pie is good, son.

Little idiosyncratic elements of your personality are coming to light. For instance, your pops has noticed that you have a tendency to close drawers and cabinets when you are done playing in them. Undoubtedly you get this from me. You're welcome. You seem to enjoy poking your head into the bushes that line the sidewalk next to the church up the street. You'll do this several times very slowly as we pass by them on the way home from the park, bending ever so slightly at the waist to get just a touch closer to the tiny leaves. You have a new fondness for wearing your hats pulled low over both eyes or completely covering one eye. The latter approach makes me think of you as a little European, which is fitting given my habit of calling you Monsieur Henry. You dance with abandon. Upon hearing music, you tilt your head toward the sound, find your groove, and start bobbing. When we were at the mall for some mall walking, it was hilarious to watch you pass the stores because each time we passed a store playing different music, you would stop, tilt, and bob. Awesome.

Last night you were all sorts of trouble getting to sleep. I felt at least two teeth coming in so I can only imagine the high level of life suckitude you were experiencing. Teething is hard on everyone. Even though you'd been up since your dad left in the morning to hit the slopes for some skiing and you'd only had one short nap during the day, bedtime came and went and you were too jazzed to sleep. We have not been successful cry-it-out method-using parents. There is something about the crying-it-out part that gets to me. We brought you into our bed because we're still quite comfortable with the co-sleeping arrangement we've had since you were born and instead of nursing yourself into a deep slumber you took the change of venue to mean that bedtime was no longer a requirement. First, there was climbing on your parents. Over pops, caught on the way over the side of the bed and returned to the middle, then over me. Repeat. When this grew tiresome and we let your feet connect with the floor you headed over to the alarm clock. Next thing we know, you've turned on the radio, increased the volume, and were dancing to some African beat. Up, down, up, down. I had to grab the camera because I couldn't not capture that moment on film. (Heads up, the "couldn't not" is a double negative. Cool, eh?)

When the novelty of the alarm clock wore off and you were physically exhausted from the marathon dancing session, you climbed back onto the bed and tumbled over us to my nightstand. On this you found a full bottle of beer. Reaching said beer became your one objective. I won't say you kicked, scratched, and clawed your way to the beer but you certainly made an all-out, balls to the walls attempt to get your mitts on the sparkling beacon of beer. How you know about hops already, I will feign some surprise, but you do. And we're okay with you knowing about beer. We're just not okay with you drinking beer. At least not until you're speaking in full sentences. Although I realize you are almost to the point of stringing together words when signing so "More beer, please," can't be that far off.

You are tall enough to reach the door handle but, thankfully, unable to actually open the front door. I have already spoken to your pops about getting a secondary latch higher up so that you cannot disappear at a moment when we are being particularly inattentive parents. Also, during one of our walks with Beauty the wonder dog you signaled a need for a blue bag, the kind we have attached to Beaut's leash for poo disposal, and you took the clean bag, knelt down close to a patch of leaves, and began delicately pushing the bag against the ground in what was a clear and accurate mimic of how we pick up the dog's poo. We are all too ready to hand that chore to you so we are most excited about this developing skill. You are no longer scared of stepping into the elevator. You willingly hold our hands when you initiate the action and begrudgingly hold our hands when we initiate it. Along with walking home from the park, you have trekked all the way up to the store with me. You stopped several times along the way to check out the leaves that had fallen on the ground and the moss growing on the stone wall bordering a neighbor's yard. We are working to teach you your body parts. We've been talking about your twig and berries - pardon the euphemism - for a while now but you're also learning about your ears, nose, eyeballs, feet, and knees. There are, of course, many more parts to go but I figure this is a pretty good start.