21 months

It's J's birthday today. It's hard to believe that he's 21 months old already. I mean, we're just that close to two, right?

I look at him and every day I am amazed. He's so big, so handsome, becoming so independent, and yet he'll still tolerate all of my smothering and affection.

Yesterday, when I picked him up from Abuela's after work, he was sitting in a chair with a book they had bought for him. It's one of those "My first word" type of books, only bi-lingual so that they can read it with him. Funny that the grandparents are learing right along with the babe, eh? Anyway, I was saying... He's looking at this book, and he's got it turned to a page full of different shapes. I've never really reinforced shape names with him a lot. I mean, when we do the shape sorter we'll talk about which shape he's putting in where, and how many sides it has, etc. But I've never actually quizzed him on it. So I asked him, "Jonas, where's the square?" and I'll be damned if he didn't point to it! Thinking it might just be a fluke, we moved on. "Jonas, where's the circle?" I asked. Again, he pointed to the correct shape. We went on like this through every shape on the page, and the only one he missed was star, for which he chose a diamond. Pretty close, I think.

He's also begun to open up with his vocabulary a lot. I've always known that he understands us just fine, but he's never been a big talker. Ever since our trip to Barnhenge he's been a little chatter-box. I guess being around two really intellectual people for a few days rubbed off. :) Seriously, he's asking questions and everything. Mostly "what's that?" or "what is it?" or "where did it go?" But then he listens intently to the answers and it's like he's building this huge memory bank of stuff- cause and effect, relationships, objects. Amazing!

And for some humor- while visiting Laura and Doug, J was sort of nicknamed Onomatopoeia Boy for the simple reason that even if he doesn't know the name of an objet, he knows and will mimic the noise it makes. I found this incredibly cute, but when I tried to share it with some co-workers yesterday, they just gave me that blank-stare sort of look. Not a single one of them understood what it meant. God I hate feeling like I'm "above" someone.

Anyway, I've got to go get J ready for another day at Abuela's. She offered to keep him again today so that I don't have to deal with paying daycare this week. Man, I wish I could talk her into keeping him for the next two weeks as well!

Y'all have a good day.