19 Months

You are such a big boy, you eat the apple whole! I start it for you, but you can really go to town on it. You do so good with it, I am very impressed. You ask for them a lot, calling them "ap-bop".

In the morning you say bye to your dad when he leaves for school, this sad plaintive little voice coming from the bed "buh-bye dada".

Your absolute favorite expression is "there is bob bob!" - there are construction trucks all over town and you get so excited when we see them.

Rivaling "bob" though is now "woo woo" - your new love is fire trucks. Whenever we hear one you freeze in your tracks and go "oh mama oh is woo woo!" So excited!

Whenever we eat things like french fries you will say "dip dip" as you dip your french fries in ketchup. You also say "shake shake" when we shake a toy or when you get out of the tub - have to shake all the water off! I love how you have to say things twice.

You say up now when we go up the stairs and "boom" instead of down when we go down. When you go down the steps with Dad you count "booms - one boom, two boom". Makes me smile.

When we hug you give me pat-pat now on my back, I can't tell you how wonderful it is. Such a sign of your affection and love. When I am feeling blue I ask you for "pat-pat" and it cheers me up to no end.

Well we embarked on our first cross-country airplane trip with you. Let's just say you were good, but you were exhausting. You didn't throw tantrums or scream or anything like that, but you didn't sleep and you needed to be read to or played with constantly. And since we had a connecting flight we are talking about 10 hours of travel. Your dad and I were exhausted. We decided no trip to Hawaii in our near future. We were very glad to land in CA!

LA is not the most family friendly sort of town and we were just so run ragged I think we were just too tired for touring. But we tried. We went to Santa Monica and that was fun, walking along the pier. You liked looking at the rides and the fishermen and the ocean. Playing on the swings in the sand was fun too. We walked around the shopping district there too. Then we headed off to the Getty museum and that was just fabulous. What a beautiful site, gardens, buildings. We had a great lunch and had fun touring the gardens. You wanted to throw pennies in all the ponds.

We went back to Santa Monica where we met our friends Ana Maria, Claude and their son Andres for dinner. Mmmmm, Argentinean food. Yum. And we discovered you love steak. You pretty much devoured half of your Dad's steak. Wow. But your favorite was the street performers down there. You loved the music and you especially loved this toy seller and his crazy bubble blower. So that was LA :)

Then we were off down south to Laguna Beach for Hang and Doug's wedding. Let's just say again, you weren't bad. Just very very energetic which is just exhausting for us! It was a great wedding weekend though and we had a great time. Our hotel was on the beach and that was great to walk along the water. You are still scared of the ocean after our wipe out in Florida. I hope you forget soon!

You had a blast at the wedding and were just tearing up the dance floor. I think you thought the band was playing just for you. I get such a kick out of watching you dance. I call it your white boy moves. Just sort of stomping around.

We went back to LA to fly out and we spent the day touring in Hollywood. Very disappointing. The highlight was when I told you we were going to see the "stars" you said "moon!" and were all excited and kept calling the moon and looking for it. I had to laugh, sweet kid.

We did have dinner with your great-grandfather Marvin and his wife Susan before we flew out. Luckily you were on your best behavior as it turned into about a 4 hour dinner. You did very good and even let Marvin feed you. Though I think the highlight for you was when I took you back by the kitchen to watch the cooks. You love to cook! One of your favorite TV shows is 30 Minute Meals with Rachel Ray. We call her the cooking lady.

You have this new "furrowed brow look" I don't know what else to call it. You make it when you are sad, confused or just plain being silly or don't want to do something. I haven't been able to capture it on film yet but I am trying!

Your new favorite word is NO. It's a good thing you say it so cute :)

You've started drawing circular scribbles instead of just straight lines. Random factoid for you!

You sort of count - saying "shay" or six I guess for every number. "shay nay, shay nay" (one horse, two horse).

You love to talk on the phone now and walk around the house having pretend conversations on the phone all the time. This is how they go "Hi Bob, hi nay, hi dada, un huh, choo". You also figured out how to make the internal call feature work so you "call" me ont he other extension and we talk. So cute.

You are really getting more and more into pretend play. YOu love your Fisher Price Little People sets and it is so fun to watch you playing with them, especially the farm. You also love to cook right now as well.

I brought out the fleece pumpkin hat you wore last fall when you were a baby. It's stretchy so it fit again this year. You love to wear it, I think you think it is very cool since you really like pumpkins. Little do you know I am actually torturing you by dressing you up in these type of things!

We went to a small pumpkin farm by Mimi and Grandad's house and you were so excited. You picked up a small pumpkin and were carrying it around like it was a million dollars. Very proud of yourself!

We also went out for Japanese food with Mimi and Grandad. And boy did you have fun! It was a hibachi restaurant so they cooked the food right at our table. You loved it of course. And when the flames would shoot up you would throw your hands up and yell "woohoo!"

We have clothing issues. You just haven't lost the baby fat on your legs. Not that I am complaining because I love those baby rolls! But it does cause some pant problems. MOst of the time overalls with crotch snaps won't fit. Or I think they will fit only to have the crotch pop wide open while we are out somewhere of course. And every time a snap pops you yell "uh-oh!" and reach down and try to re-snap them. Poor kid. You've also started saying "snap" now when I snap your clothes up.

I just look at you and try to remember when you were just a baby, cruising the furniture, before you could walk. It's hard! You are such an independent little boy now. You insist on doing a lot by yourself - feeding yourself, going up and down the stairs by yourself. My baby is growing up! Must be why we have another baby on the way! That is right Alec Martin you are going to be a big brother! We're very excited and I know you will be the best big brother ever.

You walk around and when you pass me you say "hi mama". All the time.

You go to bed at night now like a big boy , dada takes you to your crib and puts you in and asleep you go. I never thought we'd get to this point and I am so proud of you.

You seem to be repeating a lot more now, random words in a book - the other day you repeated "green" and "stem".

You are such a boy - you are now fascinated by burps and farts. "sigh"

You do this new great shaky upper body dance. One of your favorite places to dance is actually in the carseat. You and I have a blast bee-bopping around town, grooving to the radio. You always keep me smiling!

You say spoon now.

You always say "bye home" when we leave in the car or "there is home" when we return home.

If you want me or dada to come with you now you come and take our hand and pull until we go with you. Your favorite time to do this is to drag me out of bed and you get very frustrated if I don't get right up!

We had friends over for pizza the other night and I kept saying that the pizza man would bring our pizza and you were getting very impatient. Finally he knocked on the door and you yelled "there is man!" You'd never said man before so it was quite funny.

You run to us for hugs now. With your arms outstretched, this full out run, slamming hard into us and throwing your arms around our necks. There is nothing better in the world. Seriously.

You're latest and greatest expression is "Don't know" if I say "where is dada?" You'll say, "don't know dada, don't know".

Your Grammy and Paw came to visit for a nice long fall weekend. We told them the good news about the new baby by putting a sticker on your rear end that said "I'm the big brother" and just waited for them to discover it. They were surprised and happy, just like us!

We had lots of fun. Took Grammy to our favorite vegetarian restaurant, went for Thai food - one of your favorites. Lots of food of course! And then on Saturday we went with our school club to a local pumpkin farm. Oh you had fun! It was a bit cold, but still fun. There was a petting farm and of course you loved that. There was a hay ride we went on as well, I wasn't sure how you'd like it but you really enjoyed it. You especially thought it was cool that horses eat hay. Hay is your word du jour right now.

At the farm they had kettle corn which was very yummy and you actually said "there is popcorn" I couldn't believe it.

We bought some pumpkins and carved them later in the weekend. You loved the carving, but of course wanted to help more than you could. You wanted the knives but seemed content to pay with the goop :) Every time we leave the house you stop at the jack-o-lantern outside our door now and lift the lid. Not quite sure what you are looking for in there!

For food you now say "mmmmmmm" or "that's mmmmmm".

You are getting good at shape sorting and recognizing your shapes now. You do well with the sorter and the puzzle we have. I love to watch you learn.