18 Months Old

Hard to believe, but our little baller is 18 months old! He continues to love playing ball, playing outside, reading books, playing with his "animals" and repeating their sounds, wrestling, bothering the dog, and talking, talking, talking.

Ryan likes being silly, dancing, singing, imitating animals, and being a ham. He'll empty a bucket and run around with it on his head, play peek-a-boo from behind a door, pretend he's a growling bear crawling after you on the floor, and tease you by pulling things away from you at the last second. Another one of his jokes is giving you a kiss on the cheek, then wiping his mouth and saying "Ucky!"  Speaking of ucky, he also waves his hand in front of his nose and says "Stinky...P.U!" when you change his diaper and he is not often wrong.

He now lets us know when he's hungry by going to his high chair and demanding "EAT!" or "SNACK!" He points to various food storage locations and calls for "Applesauce, Crackahs, Cheese, Manas, Mee-koo, Muffies!"  Manas are bananas, Mee-koo is yogurt for unknown reasons, and Muffies are homemade miniature muffins, for those of you who might be concerned I'm feeding my child wool ear warmers. His vocabulary is enthusiastic, if not entirely accurate. I wish I had a video of him begging for "Peeet-zaaaaaahhhh!" every meal since last Friday when we ordered some pizza with friends. He'd make a great spokesperson for Casey's General Stores.


He continues to enjoy shooting hoops and with the recent March Madness, now refers to the TV (even when it's off most of the time) as "Basth-ket-ball!" He also has to point out basketball hoops whenever he sees them on driveways or garages around the neighborhood.

Since I seem to always be blragging (this is blog bragging for those of you who don't live in my head and have immediate comprehension of words I make up), here are a few things Ryan's not so great at:

• Eating in restaurants, or anywhere in public for that matter
• Eating what you want him to eat. He suddenly has no interest in things he used to like and it's very tricky to get any kind of veges in him. I think he'd live on cheese, crackers, yogurt, and grapes if we let him (and sometimes we do)
• Leaving the dog dish alone. He's beyond eating the food, but loves to throw it around the kitchen, empty the water bowl, and then bang the two metal bowls together
• Leaving the dog alone. Nika is pretty tolerant and Ryan will say "nice" and start out nice but an interaction often ends up with a yelping dog and a devilish look in the kid's eye
• Waking up. I actually don't mind this too much since he is such a good sleeper, but it is funny in the morning when he doesn't want to get up and cuddles into the corner of the crib with his arms tucked under because he doesn't want to wake up yet and the light.is.just.too.bright.
• Tolerating long car rides. He gets fed up with his car seat sooner and sooner and makes the commute not-so-fun for either of us sometimes, so if you ever see me doing fingerplays while driving down Hwy 60, I'm just trying to keep him entertained.

But we'll take every part, the good and the bad, and just enjoy each new day and each new discovery. It is a true joy to see the little person he is becoming. Happy half birthday, buddy!