My Sparky Boy

  

He is 21 months old!  He gets cuter and more willful every day.  I want to remember so much about him, especially about these last three months or so.  Every age is special but I really love the 18-24 month age. I always want to freeze this time!   So many new words, new skills and a definable little personality coming out more every day.  

He loves trucks and trains.  He rushes to the window at the mere hint of a truck-like sound outside and loves it when we go to my parent's, where train tracks and trains are a common sight.  

He likes to draw and has an amazingly precise and correct pencil grasp.  When he sees the girls with pencils and workbooks he yells for "penduls" too.  We had to buy him his own notebook so that he could be like them.  His newest favorite big boy skill, usurping  his excitement about the pencil, is the scissors.  I get him some unmarked cutting strips and he works with great focus, cutting them to bits

Other things he loves -- actually is rather obsessive about! -- are playing cards and building puzzles.   He is constantly asking somebody to "card-geem-card-geem" (always twice!).  This is an elaborate imitation of the girls' games where he hands you a few cards carefully, talking about "queens", takes some of yours (and says thank you!) and slaps a pile in front of him. 

"Make-a puddle" is a new skill he has acquired.  We did a family puzzle during Christmastime and he worked beside us forcing puzzle pieces together.  I've gotten him out the toddler puzzle boxes that have been every one of my children's favorites  and now he demands that you "make-a puddle" with him and patiently puts piece by piece just where you tell him to, looking up with a proud: "[Sparky] diddit!" 

He also loves animals -- dogs, birds, squirrels, cows.  He hasn't ever shown any signs of fear, even of the big Angus cows on Pop-pop's farm.  He has gone right up to the fence to put his face through when they were only a few feet away, towering over him.

 I love how he runs pell-mell through the house after he gets to "shake-a shower" --another favorite activity!
-- with his towel streaming behind him like a super-hero's cloak.

He loves to work, especially to cook.  He pulls out his "dool" to stand on and wants to mix and pour and doesn't understand how it isn't magically ready for him to eat as soon as he holds up his little bowl.  Some of his food favorites are oatmeal, banana (rolled in coconut, or plain too), clementines, peanut butter and jelly ("burn dolly") sandwiches, Trader Joe's Orange Chicken, anything meat, tuna fish and "seer-rul" (cereal).  Anything green or suspiciously veggie-looking gets a turned up nose from him, or a "eeew." Except raw broccoli.  He'll eat the "lil trees."

At our prayer time he loves to blow out the candle, waiting so patiently till we are done and then instantly puffing as soon as he hears a second of silence. He gets to pick a song to sing and has always loved to listen and to join into any songs we are singing.  

He still nurses, several months past when his sisters were finished.  He climbs into my bed every morning piping "nurst?" and then we have our morning cuddle, me smelling his hair and feeling his little hands on my skin and he wiggling and sighing with comfort. I always hold on to this morning time, savoring the final weeks of this great gift.

Even as I write this he's changing.  He is growing so fast.  This time is so fleeting.  These are the Mommy cliches that are so very true, child after child.  And child after child tugs my heart with their toddlerhood. Little soft skin and hair, still baby-like, but vanishing bit by bit as they joyfully and triumphantly sprout up more and more towards independence.  I try to look only to the future with joy, but I am a mother and so, of course, I linger and remember.