Emily and Kolby: July 2014

You know what totally caught me by surprise about parenthood? The pride you take in your children. Or I guess more precisely, how early it starts.

Y’all. I am so stinkin’ proud of Beckett. My pride in him comes in moments, often on a daily basis, and my eyes literally well with tears. And I’m not an emotional person.

Right away, I’d look at him, how beautiful he was, the alertness in his eyes, his joyful temperament, and I just couldn’t believe he was ours.

In those first few months, showing him off to our adoring friends and family—I was just so proud to share him.

Then as he got older he’d take a good nap or wake up in the night but settle himself back to sleep on his own and I know this sounds crazy but I’d find myself being so proud of him. One time my brother asked how he was sleeping and my eyes randomly started watering as I told him he’d taken a two hour nap that day. I really wish I could explain how on earth a person gets emotional about something like that. I mean, get a life, right? It was my first real taste of having this all-consuming pride that defies all sensibility.

And now? Gosh everything the kid does causes my heart to just fill with pride. Color for two minutes without attempting to eat the crayons? Proud. Mimic me when I ask him to say “yes please” instead of “ya”? Proud. Navigate a new playground on his own? Proud. Finish his dinner? Proud. Behave well during errands? Proud. Learn something new? Proud. Be brave enough to go down a big slide by himself after he tumbled down it then face-planted in the mulch the time before (mom fail)? Proud. Make new friends with ease? Proud.

And on and on.

Oh, and the best part is that he gets that I’m proud of him. He picks up on it and then gets proud of himself in turn and he has this move that is hard to convey with words but I want to remember it—he swings both his arms back and holds him there or swings them once or twice and gives the most endearing smile.

When we are at a park or a splash pad he loves to play independently so I let him do what he wants and just watch him from the sidelines, but I always wave when he looks at me and give him a thumbs up if he’s doing something good. The other day we were working on him not climbing up the slide (so other kids could come down) and after listening and obeying several times in a row I wanted to tell him that I was proud of him so I called his name and gave him a thumbs up, and he flashed me a double thumbs up back with the biggest grin on his face and then did his I’m-proud-of-myself arm move as he sauntered off. My heart almost exploded.

I hope he always feels how proud I am of him. Meaning, I hope I always remember to tell him and show him.

Beckett recently turned a year-and-a-half old and I have to say, I’m more excited than ever to write about what he’s up to these days. I’m just so proud of the little boy he is.

He’s running around like crazy these days, and by running I mean walking really fast and excitedly with tiny steps and his mouth open and with his huge belly leading the way. Seriously, his walk is hilarious. I spent an hour the other day just taking video of it because I know he’ll grow out of it soon and we’ll forget how funny it was.

He’s such a good communicator. On the day of his 18-month checkup I made a list of the words he commonly uses and made it to 75 easily and I knew I was forgetting some. He probably adds a new word every day, so I’m sure this was my last count and can assume it’s just going to grow exponentially from here. He’s started stringing a couple of words together at times and it’s so fun to hear him “talk.” Occasionally he’ll jabber what he seems to think is a full sentence but is not coherent at all. My favorite things about his speech right now is how he makes the “s” sound with his tongue and front teeth (precious) and substitutes a “t” for a “k” sound. As in, “tar” for car and “Tuh-ter” for Tucker.

He’s so sweet with other people and it makes me so happy. He loves to wave and say hi and blow kisses and give hugs, and we’ve been teaching him to say please and thank you and to be sure to look at the person’s face when he says it. He finally learned to give real hugs rather than just leaning in and making the other person do the hugging.

A couple months ago I was having to watch him pretty closely when he was playing with his friends because he was not always gentle with them, although some of the roughness stemmed from him being a fairly new walker and he’d lose his balance and grab at them. He is so much better now. He’s very steady on his feet so that has helped a lot, but he’s also learned to be gentler and it’s been a long time since I’ve had to get on to him for being too rough with a friend. Unless he has a bat. All bets are off if he somehow gets a bat in his hands. He doesn’t intentionally hit anyone (usually), but he also doesn’t pay a lick of attention to the consequences of swinging a bat in close quarters.

This past month he’s really taken to hugging his friends, totally unprompted. It’s seriously the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. The recipient is usually his best friend, William. And I use the term “best friend” for real here—if you ask Beckett who his best friend is he always says William. It’s the little boy (and son of some best friends of ours from church) that our babysitter kept at our house this past school year along with Beckett, two days a week. He also likes to hug his friend (and second cousin) Liam and he LOVES to hug his cousin Tucker.

Speaking of Tucker, Beckett is ENAMORED by Tucker. He seriously thinks he hung the moon. Tucker loves him too. The other day we met Brad & Remy for dinner and when the boys saw each other they ran up and gave a big hug and danced around and had the most excited look on their faces. I’m pretty sure even the strangers at the table next to us teared up. Seeing their relationship is one of the things that makes me most excited about having baby #2 on the way. Beckett is going to absolutely fawn over having a sibling!

OK, so probably the coolest thing about the past couple of months has been the continued emergence of Beckett’s personality and temperament. Specifically, the seemingly boundless zeal he has for life. He meets every new situation—and I mean every.single.one—with so much happiness and enthusiasm. Nothing fazes him. Some examples lately: first trip to the pool, getting dropped off at a different church’s nursery, first trip to a splash park, several new babysitters, first older-kid birthday party, and his first time to go to a gymnastics place. In every circumstance, he’s off having the time of his life the minute we let go of his little hand. No tears, no hesitation, no stranger anxiety, no clinging to mom & dad… he is just go-go-go. I love seeing him have so much fun and try so many new things. He’s just an always-happy-go-with-the-flow kid. I’m so proud of him.

To somewhat keep tabs on how his interests change, here’s a list of his favorites these days.

Foods: banana, sweet potatoes, scrambled eggs, blueberries, strawberries, pancakes, smoothies, avocado, rice, any type of bread

Toys: baseball cards, bat & balls, his Superman book, hats, cars

Activities: riding the tractor with Pops, playing in the driver’s seat of the car, turning his bounce house on and off, watching the Ken Burns baseball documentary on TV, swimming

Also, at his 16 months post I wrote about how his obsession had moved on from hats to baseball. Well, it's moved on again. He is FULL FORCE obsessed with tractors now. It stems from getting to ride a tractor with my dad when we are at my parents' ranch. It seems all we hear these days is "na-na-na (that's his sound for tractor) Pops" or some combination of the tractor sound, sit, up, down, keys, on, please, Pops... telling us all about how he wants to sit on the tractor with Pops and use the key to turn it on and make the bucket go up and down PLEASE. It's really cute and super annoying at the same time, because unlike hats and baseball, we can't satisfy him when he gets fixated on wanting to ride a tractor. Usually we can pacify him by pretending our knee is a tractor and giving him a tractor ride, showing him a YouTube video of farm work, or calling or FaceTiming Pops and having him explain that they can ride the tractor soon.

Two other notable things that happened lately. First, the day Beckett turned 18 months old was the day we left him with my parents for 5 nights while Kolby and I took an anniversary vacation to Florida. It was our longest time away from him. He had such a blast with my parents (and they with him)! And he slept well and napped well and didn’t cry, so he was as easy as a one-year-old can be… but that’s still pretty exhausting. I’m glad they got to spend some time alone together, and that we got to relax knowing he was in good hands! Second, here are three changes that happened at 18 months that to me signify how much he is growing up (insert sound of me wailing):

1) He now calls Kolby “Daddy” rather than “Dada.”

2) He’s tall enough now that I can walk totally upright while holding his hand (this doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s really such a strange feeling after stooping over for months!).

3) He now often kisses with his lips closed. It’s funny how his breathy, drooly, open mouth kisses were so gross but now how much I miss them!

Also, his 18-month stats.

Weight: 28 pounds (90^th percentile)

Height: 32 inches (95^th percentile)

He was right at average size at one year, so he's really hit a big growth spurt these past few months. He's got a big ole belly and it's the cutest thing in the world. Also, his fourth bottom tooth finally came through (now he has four on top and four on bottom) and he got his first four molars over the past two months (two on top and two on bottom). His molars coming in made him hard to please at times but overall he's been an pretty easy teether. And for memory's sake: he sleeps from 8pm-7:30am and takes a 2-3 hour nap every day after lunch. His sleep schedule is absolutely amazing these days!

Some pictures lately (in no particular order):

Playing in the car.

Possibly my favorite food of all time is a soft pretzel. My mom and I would get pretzels every time we went to the mall. So I snapped a picture of Beckett eating his first mall pretzel. He loved it, obviously. I got him his own because there's no way I was sharing any of mine.