18 Months

Dear Little Friend,

You are such a big boy! At 18 months:

• You are very expressive (as evidenced in the photo above). You love raising your eyebrows as high as they go while looking at us, getting us to mimic the same expression, and then you burst into laughter (and we do too, of course).
• You can drink from a cup (without a lid) all by yourself. Sometimes you put your hand in it and it spills on occasion but you usually manage pretty well.
• You jump with both feet off of the ground.
• You love to dance to music.

•  You absolutely love basketball. When I take you to a park, you usually stand under the basketball net, pointing at it. This all started a couple of months ago when you saw some older kids playing basketball at a park. You were fascinated. You already loved balls but the concept of throwing the ball in the hoop was so exciting to you. One of your childcare providers, Sarah Henderson, has a mini one at her house that is just your size and you love it. We bought one for you as well, but it is a bit big for you at this point. It doesn't seem to bother you though; you just stand on your little chair to make the basket. I love it. (The apartment we are temporarily living in has hard tile floors so we put blankets and pillows around your little chair so you won't get hurt when you fall.)
• You have also enjoyed kicking balls lately. 
• You love swings. 
• You can say the following words: "wa wa" (water), "up da" (up down), "ock" (clock), "ooper" (Cooper - Tracy's dog), "go ba" (garbage), "all da" (all done), "milk," "oh ba" (oh boy), "eye oh" or "aw whoah" (hello), "mama up" (up), "help," "dada" and "more." You also said "grandma" while she was visiting last weekend (which made her very happy). While you have said all of these words at least once, you don't say them often, other than hello, mama, dada, all done, and sometimes you say garbage and up down.
• You love your favorite bedtime trio: Your binky, your blanky, and your monkey. Dad made up a song that includes these three, and we sing it when it's time for bed. "A bink and a blank and a monkey..." Your blanket of choice happens to be one with snowflakes all over it. You can be upset and crying and we bring out the blanket and binky, and you calm right down and snuggle up. You know they mean it's time to sleep. 

I love that you're making the sign for milk in this picture.

 Love your guts,
Mom