Mason at 18 months

I started this post a while back but never finished it, so even though he is now 20 months old, here is Mason's 18 months in review. I thought I would go ahead and post it so it will be a part of our blog book one day since that has sort of taken the place of his baby book. :) Its just a bunch of random thoughts to describe him at this age and record his favorite things so we will remember what he was like at 18 months.

The picture above was taken at the doctor's office for his 18 month check up. He had a blast playing in the room while we were waiting on the doctor. Mason amazes me with how much fun he can have wherever we go...the world is his playground. His little mind is always working so fast to try to figure out where to hide and play peek-a-boo, or looking around for pictures of things to name. No matter if we are at home, or in the car, or at the doctor or the post office. He comes up with something to play and has the best time. This is one of my favorite things about spending my days with him. He has taught me to slow down and have fun wherever I am. He is joyful and exuberant from the moment he wakes up, almost every single morning. Mason is my alarm clock in the morning, my morning rooster if you will. I usually stop by the bathroom to brush my teeth before going to get him out of bed and in that time we are talking back and forth to each other through the walls. By the time I walk through his door, he has Bear tucked under his arm and is giggling and talking about some specific activity that he has in mind to do...usually car, ball, bubbles, or kiggy. He wakes up ready to play.

I love the way his eyes sparkle and light up with a hint of mischief even when he isn't being mischievous. His smile lights up his entire face and usually all the faces that are around him too.

At 18 months, he loves to be tickled. When we are having a good tickle session and we stop, he does the sign and says "more" over and over until we give in. He asks for "more" often when it has to do with us and our time ("more" = play with me longer), which is more usual than asking for "more" of food or material things. I love how much he just wants our attention and our playtime. His desires for attention and affection just seem to be so pure-hearted at this age.

Mason loves hats. He doesn't always keep them on if we put one on his head, but almost once a day he goes into his room to get a hat and comes out wearing one. He'll usually bring one for me and Jeremy too so we all have a hat to wear. He likes to put other things on his head too and call them hats, like bowls and plates, or toys....even slices of deli meat can serve as a hat according to Mason. His favorite cartoon is Cat in the Hat. No doubt because it combines his two favorite things....kiggy (cat) and hat. This fall when we collected acorns on our walks in the neighborhood, he said they had hats because of their little tops. Anything can be a hat in his world.

When Mason runs, his entire body moves with excitement and a hint of uncoordination.

He says "no" a lot but in the sweetest voice. The cats get reprimanded a lot by a little boy voice exclaiming "no kiggy!!" And occasionally we will even hear him scolding himself with a "no-no baby".

Mason no doubt has my favorite giggle in the world. I replay videos of him giggling on my phone all the time just because it is the best sound in the world.

He has always really loved balls, but right around 18 months he fell in love with cars and they have now taken the number one spot for favorite toy. He usually grabs a little car on the way out the door to take with him when we run errands. He makes the cutest car noise and anytime I am sitting at the computer working he likes to come over and drive his little cars on my legs.

He knows how to count to 3, how else would you start a race with daddy?! :)

And just recently he learned a lot of boy words.... burp, poot, pee, and poo-poo.

He prefers giving a head butt over a high five. But a good fist bump is quickly replacing that, thank goodness.

His manners are coming along nicely for a little 18month old boy. He says "wuv you", "cank cou" (thank you), and "cuse me". All in the right contexts and all very often, I just want to squeeze him every time I hear it in his sweet little voice. He says "cank cou" anytime we hand him something and he usually waits just a second to make sure we heard him and we respond with a "you're welcome buddy". Sometimes he will even grab onto something we are holding and say "cank cou" while looking us in the eyes as if to say "you have to give it to me now" ;).....this tactic has a pretty high success rate because he is just so stinking cute!

His favorite snacks right now are popcorn, peanut butter, and hummus. He loves dipping crackers in hummus, I think he enjoys the act of dipping even more than the taste of hummus.

At 18 months, we made a list of all the words that he knows and we were very surprised to see the list was at least 70 words long. He says a few little multi-word phrases like "I did it" and "its hot".

When we are on the phone with someone he has learned that we always say "okay, I'll talk to you later" right before we say bye, so every time I say that, he yells "bye-bye!" before I can get the words out of my mouth.

He is such a sweet boy and its so neat to see his personality forming more and more each day. This phase of being right on the cusp between sweet obedient baby, and rambunctious demanding little boy is bittersweet. I'll miss having my little baby to carry around, but all the new things this phase is bringing is so exciting. Seeing him grow in wisdom and understanding is such a neat thing to be a part of. I'm just so thankful to be his mommy.