I’ve been writing this post for weeks. I’ll come back to it every few days – changing out pictures, adding anecdotes, but with 17 months staring me in the face I finally made myself press “publish.” I don’t know why it’s so hard to finish these things these days.
At sixteen months, our Chief is a lot of things – he’s a mountain climber, a carb lover, a wannabe electrician, a moon man, a tiny tornado, our clean-up crew, and a ladies’ man. Every day it’s a new title.
Baby Update:
He has new words. Cheese, cracker, ball, bear, book – nothing useful. I’m still waiting for hungry, thirsty, sleepy, hurt – you know, something that could help me pinpoint problems.
He sprouted another tooth. An upper canine. Little Chief Sixteen Teef.
He walks backward. Our little moon man has figured out those feet can move backward too. What a discovery! He’ll walk backward with the biggest grin on his face and never once turn around to see what’s behind him.
He puts up the grocery bags. When I unload the groceries, I always hang the empty bags on a door knob until I’m completely finished. He’s seen me do this a time or two I guess. If you come to our house, any bag with a handle is hanging on a door knob. It doesn’t matter if you were packing it to take somewhere or if it was completely empty, he’ll hang it up. More than once has he completely unloaded my bag I’ve had packed just so he could hang it on a door knob.
He loves carbs. I have to hide the bread in our pantry. If the bread is within reach, he will bite a hole in the plastic bag, then rip off chunks until he is completely satisfied.
He also loves cinnamon, maybe a little too much. He found the cinnamon in the spice cabinet, got it open, made a cinnamon mountain on the kitchen floor, then dove face first into his creation. I watched the face plant happen in slow-motion. I got to him quickly, but not before he had cinnamon smeared all over his mouth. He quickly broke out in this rash all around his mouth – I was terrified he was allergic to cinnamon. Apparently too much of a good thing is still too much, cinnamon causes skin reactions in a lot of people if they have too much. Who knew?!
He’s a mountain climber. We spend the majority of our days climbing up the stairs, climbing down the stairs, throwing “Dog” the raccoon down the stairs, carrying him back up. I think it’s safe to say we get our steps in around here. He wants to climb the stairs first thing after he wakes up, and the last thing before he goes to bed. Thankfully he’s learned not to come down the stairs face first, he slides down on his round bottom at lighting speed.
He learned to turn lamps on/off. Pull strings, twist knobs, or the switch that you push from one side to the other – it doesn’t matter, he loves them all. Our running joke is that he’s just regulating our electricity usage – “That’s enough electricity, Mom. Turn this lamp off.”
He’s scaling our furniture. He has a few favorite perches in our house – the most accessible? The rocking chair in his room. There is a floor lamp that sits behind the chair with a pull string to turn the lamp on/off. He likes to climb into the chair, step onto the balance beam like arm rest, then balance himself on that ledge as he turns the lamp on/off. It’s terrifying.
Thankfully our couch is still a little too tall for him to hoist himself up onto, but that doesn’t deter him. If he makes his way onto the couch, by using a yoga blog as a boost or by one of us picking him up, he’ll quickly climb the back of the couch until he’s perched on the very top. From here, he can open and close the blinds, yank at the curtains, or pull the blinds open as he hunts for dogs in our front yard. When you pull up to our house, it looks like a bunch of frat boys live here. Our blinds are always a little caddywompus, a few of the blind panels are broken, and our storm door is covered in finger prints, kisses, and streaks of slobber.
Can I put him in a bubble?
He blows kisses. This is by far my favorite development. For two weeks, the only person that got his coveted kisses was the nanny we hired over Christmas break. Every time she left he would blow dozens of kisses in her direction. Now, the boy blows kisses to just about anyone. If he’s leaving (or you’re leaving) there’s a kiss coming. Waitresses get them when they place his meal in front of him, strangers on our walk get them as we pass by, and cashiers get them as we’re leaving the grocery store. It completely turns me to mush.
Mama Update:
I’m feeling so great. We haven’t traveled since Christmas, I’m cooking a lot, I’m working out as frequently as I’d like, I’m finding time to read, and I’m loving my days at home with Chief. I signed up for my first half marathon this month. I’ve started training, but I’ll get into that in next month’s update. I’m still crossfitting about 3 times per week, and I do yoga/mobility work at home. I’m making time for the things that are important to me, and pushing things to the side that really don’t get me fired up. A year ago, this stage I’m in seemed like an eternity away, but here we are – I’m back to “me” with the best little addition by my side. I don’t know what I did before Chief. I’m sure I was really bored…
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