All about my 18 month old!

My sweet boy is a year and a half! I'm going to write down as much as I can think of about life with my little man right now. (Reading back over this, some of this is pretty random, but they are all things I want to remember.)

**He is at such a fun age. Lately I've felt like James is easier now than he used to be. We can go shopping, run errands, and play outside a lot easier than before, he can tell me what he wants better now, he can entertain himself for longer periods of time now (although, if I walk away, he will most of the time stop what he's doing and follow me) and he's eating better now. I'm probably going to be eating my words really soon, but James as an 18 month old is a little easier than James as a 1 year old.

**One of my favorite things about James, that's hard to put into words, is his playfulness. Times when he looks at me silly and starts laughing, when I'm changing him and kiss his tummy and he puts his arms around my neck and giggles, when he's mad and we make a silly face and his face turns from pouting to laughing, when he gets really excited about something, like bath time or going outside or seeing Daddy after work or me after MDO, when I gently bite his feet (he's very ticklish), and he dies laughing, pulls it away, and then puts it right back up to my mouth. I can't exactly put into words what he does, but it is the best!

**James' 18th month has been a huge month for language development with him. He is saying a lot of new words now, and he is putting words together more frequently, like "Cracka, no-no!" (I tell him not to throw his crackers on the ground, so he'll point to them and say that.) He also saying things like, "Buh-bye, Mama", "Buh-bye, Dada", "Buh-bye, foo" (when I put the food away)..."buh-bye" anything pretty much! If he doesn't know how to say the word he saying good-bye to, he'll say "Buh-bye, buh-bye!" with the same intonation that I use when I talk. I need to get that one on video! His Mother's Day Out teacher said that he's the class greeter, telling everyone hi and bye. I was laying down the other day and he said to Josh, "Mama nigh-nigh?". That was enough to wake me up! :) He has funny ways of saying words, like "tra-doo" or "trac-doo" for tractor (stretching out the doooo). This is the toy he asks for most, and every time we pass one on the road (which happens frequently around where we live), he gets so excited and says "tra-doo" over and over. So much so, that my mom has let him borrow my brother's old nice wooden tractor for a while. When he hears a horn honking, he thinks it's a choo-choo. Elizabeth took him with her to pick up her kids from school, and her breaks were squeaking. She said that every time it did it, he would say either "beep-beep" or "choo-choo".

**He's starting to notice more when people are not there who he wants to be there and will ask for them. My mom was over for lunch a few weeks ago, and I put James down for a nap during her time there. When he woke up from his nap and we walked into the living room, he started saying, "Nana? Nana? Nana?" while putting his hand up to his face and out.

**His favorite vegetables are broccoli and green beans. If I make broccoli a certain way (with evoo and kosher salt, almost burned), he will eat so, so much broccoli (all three of us do)! His favorite fruits are grapes and blueberries, but he'll eat pretty much any fruit if it's fresh. He will gobble up any homemade food, but he's very picky at restaurants. I guess I'd rather it be that way than the other way around. I'm hoping to get that Jessica Seinfeld cookbook that shows you how to mix pureed veggies in food. All of it looked so yummy on Oprah!

**He REALLY loves vehicles, and plays with them and talks about them most. He points out cars a lot and says, "buh-bye, car" when they pass. Speaking of, when Josh is on his way home, we go outside and wait for him. It is the CUTEST thing how excited he gets when he sees that black car turning onto our street! He laughingly screams Daddy over and over, melting Josh's heart every time. We go out and meet him halfway, Josh will roll down his window, and I'll put James through the window and he'll "drive" the rest of the way home.

**More on Daddy. He is so in love with his daddy. Josh has put him down to bed for a long time now, and now if I ever try to do it with Josh nearby, he lunges to Josh. It is one of the greatest joys in life to me, to see them together, and how much they adore each other.

**James hates it when I'm distracted, and tries to laugh or make loud noises to get my attention. If I'm reading a book, he'll sometimes get in between the book and me and just lay there. He HATES it when I get on the computer with him in the room with me. The only way he can stand it is if I put him on my lap and he looks at something interesting, like someone's child's picture or video. He really doesn't like ANYTHING that distracts me!

**We have a great toddler playground at our church, and I go up there and let him play for a while without having to stand right beside him. It's so nice to be able to sit and watch him play on a playground! I didn't realize he could do this until I watched him out my window during Mother's Day Out the first week. He loves to climb up the stairs and slide down the slide. I mentioned this before, but he climbed up 20 steps by himself at our church one day!

**He is doing so great about leaving us to go to class now. He wiggles out of my arms now (most days) when I walk in his classroom!

**His Wednesday night teacher said that during class, the other toddlers will be happily playing, and he'll keep going up to her trying to tell her stuff that she doesn't understand, very persistently, with a look like "Don't you understand what I'm trying to tell you?!". I said, "I know EXACTLY what you're talking about, because he does that to me a lot!" I can understand about a lot of what he says these days, but I don't understand a lot, too, and he's very passionate about what he's saying, so I just nod and act like I get it.

**James has a very loud, pretty deep voice, but the cutest thing to me is when he whispers. He knows I think it's so cute, so he'll start doing it and then get that little grin of his when he knows he's being funny. In Goodnight Moon, I always whisper the part of, "And a quiet old lady, who was whispering Hush!", and now, he whispers when we read that book.

**Jamesy boy is an active boy. And a strong boy. The boy has calves and biceps that make me laugh. He's like a mini-gladiator! He likes to walk on his tip-toes sometimes, and I like to say that he's working out those calves to get them even bigger. A couple of weeks ago at church, they tried to strap him into the little wooden chair, but that didn't stop him from getting around. He just crawled around like a turtle, and the chair was his turtle shell. One of Elizabeth's friends was in there, and she told Elizabeth, "He reminds me so much of Matthew at that age", who was famous for doing stuff like that. In fact, he would do that very same thing! His run is getting so fast now, that I have to work harder at keeping up with him.

**He's got a little bit of a temper. When he's asking for his toy car in the car...and there's no toy car in the car...and we try to give him his toy truck, he will throw it (he could be a pitcher, he's got a great arm), shake his head back and forth with a furrowed brow, and say "No, No". This is fresh on my mind because happened several times going to and from Dallas this weekend.

**He uses a funny growly voice a lot. He laughs at himself when he does it.

**He is such a little love-bucket, as I call him, and he gives me lots of hugs. He seems to get more affectionate as he gets older, but I know it will eventually stop. He won't be in high school giving me big hugs and kisses...oh my, that makes my stomach hurt and tears well up just thinking about it. Speaking of, this sounds so girly saying this, but the other day, I read "Love you forever" for the first time in a while because Mary Beth was over, and it's a little too long for James, and I literally started sobbing...I went from happy to sobbing in a matter of seconds. Mary Beth looked at me like I was crazy, but that book, as Elizabeth put it, is like the "Beaches" of books. No what kind of mood you're in to begin with, you'll be sobbing at the end.

**His hair is growing so much right now, and I'm about to go in for the first hair cut! He's definitely got my curls! On super humid days, you can really see lots of curls in the back.

**He's at a point where he'll test me a lot one week, and then won't test at all for a while. We've tried several things, but right now, putting him in his crib for a 30 sec.-1 minute time-out seems to work the best. He'll have days where he just really wants to test me, and I have to try SO hard not to laugh. In fact, a lot of times I have to turn my head or put something over my mouth because I can't control it. He just smiles and will walk over to my Fall decorations, stop, look at me, and pick it up. That boy can be a little stinker!

**James has started saying "Nana" and "Dih-dah" (Deedah) for my mom and dad, and talks about my dad more than anyone right now! He loves men to begin with, but my dad always has a piece of chocolate for the grand kids, and he's always giving James a bite of his dessert or a sip of his diet coke. When I pull up to my parents' house, James starts calling for him immediately! He also talks about Hannah a lot, but calls her "Nana" now. Anytime he sees her picture, he lights up and says very lovingly, "Nana!"

**James is starting to really think independently, and just today he went up to the laundry room door (on the way to the garage) and said, "go!", opened the door(yes, he is opening doors easily now), went to the door to the garage and said, "buh-bye...car!". It's so hard to say no when he does something like that! He also leads us a lot, but every10 or so steps, he'll turn around to make sure we're following.

**He's sleeping still about 12-13 hours a night, and then will lay in bed for about 30min-1 hour and talk. It has been heavenly enjoying my coffee while he talks, and then getting him out of bed around 8:30! He is also taking great naps at the moment. For the past week or more, he's taken 2 1/2 - 3 hour naps!

That's James world in a nut-shell (a big nut-shell). I have probably lost most readers by now, but I will do my next big update when he turns two!