18 months

What? Tomorrow my child will be a year and a half. If you round up, that means he is basically two. Which means that soon he will be driving. And then he'll go off to college. Yikes.

This is what he's been up to:

He has words. This is a big one because I was getting a little worried that he wasn't really saying anything. He can say:

• Ba ma ma ma (banana)



• Ba-ooooo (ball)



• Ba-euuuuu (balloon, not to be confused with ba-ooooo. Said frequently during grocery store visits)



• Baaaaa (bath, accompanied by frantic knocking on the bathroom door)



• Bak (Milk)



• Busssss (toothbrush. said with a slight lisp)



• Turtle (said only once to point out a, yes, turtle)



• Ei (the German word for egg, pronounced like "I")



• Oy Vey

• Apple



• Po-ta-to (used to ask for: potato, clementine, blueberries, and kiwi. Sometimes also used for banana)

He says "brrrr" when we say "It's cold out" and shakes his little body.

He climbs up and into everything. I can't keep up!

He loves Ernie on Sesame Street and gets super excited when one of his diapers has Ernie on it.

He still loves to clean. He loves to look at books and can turn the pages himself. He loves to point out dogs and balloons in books. And Ernie. He still loves to tackle mommy and daddy and slobber all over our faces.

When he nods "yes", his whole body moves, not just his head. But mostly, he shakes his head when asked any kind of question. When he truly means "no", he scrunches his nose, turns the head sideways and makes a whiny sound.

I love this age because he is still super cute but not a baby anymore. He can walk, but I still get to carry him. He is getting more independent, but will still do what I say (sometimes).

We still have two big issues.

One is the tantrums. He's been having fits every since he came home, but somehow they have changed. Sometimes I can really tell that it is a temper tantrum because he isn't getting his way. But other times I wonder how many of these tantrums are still adoption/attachment related. When he just can calm down and it takes an hour of me walking him in the Beco, I think it's not just normal toddler behavior.

The other one is napping. He will nap - thank goodness - but I still have him nap in our bed with me next to him. I don't necessarily mind because I know that this way he will sleep and I will get a break, but I know that one day I will have to train him to nap in his bed. Or will I?