Since I talked about being a father yesterday, sort of stuck in between two worlds, I figured it would be a good time to talk about my son and what has been going on with him recently. It seems that he is over his colds and all sicknesses for the most part. While his nose is still running a little bit, it is a vast improvement from where it was even just a week ago. There was two incidents last week that provided a little cause for concern, even with his doctor. Two days in a row, at daycare, his lips and fingers turned blue for a while. It was after his nap while he was eating and one of the days it lasted for about an hour. Besides the blue lips and fingers, he acted perfectly normal, no shortness of breath, no lethargy, nothing. Those were the only times it has happened, and luckily it hasn't happened since, but due to the odd nature of it and the fact that his lungs are clear, our pediatrician has recommended that we bring him to see a cardiologist. We are not reading too much into this right now as he has been acting perfectly normal, however, just to be on the safe side, we will be bringing him in a couple of weeks. Oh yeah, he got an ear infection last week as well. Such is the life of a toddler quickly growing into a little boy. Despite those little hiccups in his daily routine, the most amazing part to me about our son is his growth. At 18 months old (or just about), he has broken the 3 foot barrier in height. Currently he is in the 95 percentile for height at his age while his weight has him hovering right around the 50 percentile range. We thought we had child proofed everything in the house adequately except we forgot to factor in for his height and the fact that as he grows he will be able to reach more and more things. As of right now, he can reach the counter tops in our kitchen so everything on them has to be slid back a little bit. Coinciding with his rapid growth is his growing appetite. There are many days when he just won't stop eating. He just packs it in, fills up his belly, and then sprouts up the next day or two. One morning last week, he had the following food within an hour; two scrambled eggs with spinach and cheese, a whole banana, two extra slices of cheese, two grapes, and a strawberry. Incredible.
That is only part of what amazes me about our son. I've said it before and I have to say it again, I love watching our son develop a little more every day. He now loves to "help" cook, especially breakfast. While I am cooking the eggs for our family (ten eggs a day, but only five yolks), he loves to sit on the counter next to the stove and play with all the utensils for cooking. His daily routine is to take all of them out, bang them on the counter seeing which one will make the coolest noise, and hand me a spatula so I can scramble the eggs. Just this past Sunday he thoroughly enjoyed helping make soup for the week. As usual, he was seated on the counter next to the food processor which we use to cut up all the vegetables for our soup. With all the vegetables washed and ready, we handed them to him so he could put them in the top. He loved it, carrots, celery, peppers, he put them all in one at a time so they could get chopped up. We didn't even have to tell or show him how, he just watched us once and figured it out. He is also getting very astute at figuring out where different foods are. He knows that all his cheeses and yogurt are in the refrigerator, he knows the bananas are hanging over the counter, and he knows that the raisins are hidden in the cabinet over the counter to the left of the sink. To show that he wants raisins, he will grab his little bowl, walk over and point up to the cabinet. I think it is taking us longer to figure out what he wants than for him to figure out where things are. As soon as he starts talking, which he is progressively moving towards, things will be a lot easier for our whole family. He is getting closer and closer to mimicking actual words now. I am not going to try and phonetically spell out what he is saying, but he is getting closer and closer. Another cool thing that I noticed the other day is that he loves to watch people. I first noticed it when I brought him to Church Sunday morning. It was just the two of us as my wife wasn't feeling that well. We got out of the car when we got there and started walking. Halfway to the church, he saw a couple people coming so what does he do? He stops, turns, and watches them come towards us and pass us. Then more people come and he does the same. He doesn't move until the people are completely past us. In order to get into church on time, I had to pick him up and walk him inside or else we would have been in the parking lot for a half hour. After Mass, we were stuck on the second step outside the Church as people filtered by. He had to watch everyone leave until there was no one left. I just let him watch them as we stood there.
Yesterday was a funny afternoon. I picked him up from daycare as my wife had a doctor's appointment. The first amusing thing is that when I get into his room, he doesn't want to leave. Rather, he starts running around playing with a little bit of everything, wanting to show me his room. Finally, after about five minutes, I finally managed to get his hat and coat on at which point he bolts for the door, turns and waves to his friends, and then continues running. As soon as we get outside, I have to grab his hand before he bolts off. Outside, I ask him, "Can you find Daddy's Jeep?" He looks around, finds it and points, and starts running as fast as his little feet can take him. It is so adorable. Then he shuts down during the ride home, zombie like staring out the back window with his thumb in his mouth. As soon as I turn off the Jeep, it is back to super active little man, running to the back yard. This past weekend we brought out his wagon from retirement over the winter. Well, he wants to do nothing else except ride in his wagon. Despite the fact that it was drizzling, he wanted to go ride in his wagon, so I agreed thinking that there were much worse things he could want to do. I thought that if I put him in with his bag from daycare and pulled him to the house, we would be good. I got to the back door, suggested we go inside, and he tapped the wagon, indicating that he would like a few more trips around the back yard. That was perfectly fine with me. So around and around we went with him just looking at everything that we went by. After the few extra trips we were finally able to make it inside the house. I am just so happy that he loves the outdoors, and also loves books. Not a day goes by where he doesn't want to go up to his room at one point and flip through some books as we read them. Occasionally we will make it all the way through his favorite books while other times he just flips to his favorite pages and stares at them. I wouldn't have it any other way. I could keep going on and on about our son, but for now, I am running a little late and have to get him out of bed to start the day.
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