Milestones: 18 Months

In December (the day after Christmas actually) my dude turned 18 months. Yeah. It was awhile ago. Not much has changed since then, so we'll just pretend not much has changed and carry on like he is still 18 months.

He's only a serious guy when I tell him to smile for a picture. The rest of the time he is wild, crazy, loud, and happy. He enjoys climbing onto things, like the dining room table, the couch, the beds, and then trying to jump off of them. He loves playing with cars, balls, Mickey Mouse toys, and all of the little Avengers action figure guys he got for Christmas. Each toy has a designated sound effect to go with it, and I'm fairly sure that he was born with the knowledge of how to make car and explosion noises. He likes to get two action figures, carry them to David, then make them fight each other. I don't get this game, because I'm a girl. His dance moves are pretty spectacular too, and he will literally dance to any song that comes on the radio. Sometimes its just a slow head nod, but sometimes he gets his hips in on the action and then becomes an unstoppable dancing machine. 

Witten talks so much more at this age then either of the girls did. He says mama, and dad-dad, and he yells AVA!!! really loud in a deep voice, which is hilarious. He also says ball, of course, and randomly repeats strings of sounds and syllables that we say to him, which sound a lot like real words. He is not shy about letting me know if he wants something, and since he is the baby he usually gets whatever he wants. Most of the time its Skittles, he is easy to please. 

Boys are the strangest combination of sweetness and wild that I've ever seen. One minute he is hugging or kissing me, in exchange for a Skittle, and the next minute he is running across the couch and growling at Ava. He is unpredictable at best. 

His craziness scares his sisters, they run from him screaming because he has masterfully weaponized Barbie dolls. He thinks their screaming is funny, so he continues to chase them. 

As he inches towards two I am happy and sad. Sad because he is my baby, probably my last. He is tall and skinny, only weighing in at 22 pounds at 19 months, and every day those chubby cheeks disappear a little bit more. His legs are long and covered in bruises from his rough-and-tumble lifestyle, his hands are covered in dirt, and his hair is messy almost all the time. He is a boy. 100%. The fading baby gives me only a small bit of comfort, for we all know that one year olds are tiny terrorists. Terrible twos? I beg to differ. Terrible ones are far more accurate. He throws potatoes at people (mostly me), smears Cheetos on the walls, and rams his cars into the front door. Not quite terrible, but he's a handful.

Even at his wildest, brattiest, most defiant moments, I would not trade him for anything. When people tell you that boys are different than girls, they are not lying. He is different down to his very core. He loves playing in the dirt, does not even begin to learn from his mistakes (like falling off the couch), and he is just so physical. A hug from him always involves running, and it is a tight hug like no other. Witten is like a baby daredevil, and every day I contemplate putting a helmet on him. But then he does something wild, cries, and runs to me for a hug.

I don't know what it will be like when he is older. He is brave and tough, but sweet and loving and smart. He makes so many "bad" decisions, like running face first into the wall, and that I can only attribute to his boy-ness. He is wild, but he's my wild. He keeps me laughing, definitely keeps me on my toes watching out for flying potatoes being hurled at me, and he reminds me of his potential to do crazy stuff. One and a half is a lot of work, a lot of tears, a lot of laughs, and a lot of dirt. So much dirt. So very very much dirt. Underneath it all is a sweet and crazy boy, and he is worth all of the mess.