Marcus is nineteen months old!
M
arcus is nineteen months old--this page is actually a week late, because we came back from our trip and then it was the TESOL conference and all sorts of other things. Life keeps moving on: our baby is tall (maybe 33 inches) and slim (a little over 22 pounds), growing and developing well, and just getting more and more communicative by the day. I keep losing count of the number of words he has--he can say tissue, trash, train, hi, baby, bottle, water, soup, hot, help, down, up, excuse me, and lots of others. He makes himself understood even when he doesn't know the word for something.
He has all his eyeteeth now, so the general impression when he opens his mouth wide is of toothiness. His bangs have grown out from my tiny snip so they look much less Vulcan. And he's still an excellent sleeper, going down easily sometime in the 7:30-8:30 range and waking up once somewhere around midnight or 1:00. He doesn't cry, doesn't make a sound--just pads out of bed into our room and comes into bed with us for the rest of the night, until he wakes up cheerfully sometime between 6:00 and 7:30. He nurses in the night, and in the day too, but he's really enjoying his daycare meals, and he's eating more and more--with rice, in particular (sushi, Chinese, brown, doesn't matter), he's an unstoppable eating machine.
At daycare they say he's "bossy," but that's completely normal--they sort of laugh, and let him and one other particularly "bossy" boy boss it out with each other. This month we've done so many fun things--he played with (well, screamed and then slept) Debbie while I was giving a presentation, ate out in lots of restaurants, went to Ben and Jerry's free cone day with Howard, and took the train all around the town with me (everytime the train comes, he points and says, "Train! Whoaaaaaaaaa!" at it). He's taking Parent/Tot B swimming classes at the BU pool on Saturday mornings with Robert, and--when not in the pool--he's discovered the joys of pretend play, as he pretends to pour us water and soup and eat it, then makes us do the same, over and over.
He loves watching animal videos on YouTube for short periods of time--pandas going down slides are a particular favorite--and playing in playgrounds (we actually had 3-4 nice sunny, warm days to get to do that) and at the main library when it's raining. He helps me at the self-checkout, handing me each book in turn, and then at home when I say, "Marcus, do you want to read the library books?" he runs right over to the special shelf where we keep the library books and gestures up at them. He blows his nose pretty well, he listens when I say "Stop!" (like when he lets go of my hand and we're outside walking), and--like a baby penguin--he just spends much of his time being cute.
Two videos for you: playing with a horrible singing birthday card at Great-Grandma Helena's house, and being silly at home with the bouncy Rody and with Daddy.