18 Months Old

Eighteen months have gone by since Colin and Jake graced us with their presence….a year-and-a-half…wow, who could have known how much can happen in such a short period of time?! Well, I guess our parents or friends could have filled us in, but that would have taken all the fun out of it!

The very existence of this blog is basically a recap of how much has changed in the past 18 months, so we won’t bore you with the details of all the changes. But one fairly significant change has occurred since the Month 17 posting. We’ve documented the growth of each of their vocabulary these past few months, but this past month has seen an explosion in communication.

We are not at the point where we’re all sitting down for dinner and having conversations, but it’s safe to say that our communication is becoming a two-way street. For instance, Jake will look at us with his arms up in the air quizzically and ask “Paa? Paa?” looking for his pacifier and we’ll say “I think you dropped it in the kitchen. Go look for it.” Off he’ll go into the kitchen and come back around the corner with a big, goofy grin and a pacifier in his mouth!! Or Colin in the bathtub the other day laughing mischievously after I told him to “Pour the water on your brother’s head” and he looked at me with a “really?” expression before pouring a glass of bath water on Jake’s head. I know there are people studying linguistics and how children learn language and I’m not breaking any new ground here, but it is so amazing and interesting to watch each day.

It has also been a good month watching them interact with each other and to see how much they enjoy each other’s company. There are moments where they both would rather they didn’t have a brother hogging all the attention, but for the most part they like playing and being around each other. This video of them in the bath was taken back in April, but is a good example of their love for each other and how much they are understand these days.

The summer is here and they have been spending a lot of time outdoors. They are the quintessential little boys playing with dirt, water, sticks, rocks and whatever else they can make a mess with.

What is it with trucks that fascinate little boys so much? Thursday morning is the best because that’s the morning that the trash and recycling trucks come. They usually show up right around the end of breakfast and we’ll slide them in their highchairs over to the front window to watch the garbage truck come and take our cans. If they have finished their breakfast already, you should see the sprint to their chairs when they hear those trucks come rolling down the street!

With the summer here, that also means Age is almost done with the school year. To keep her sanity slightly intact, we’re in the process of signing the boys us for swim lessons, Music Together and Gymboree classes. It’s going to be interesting, but I think both of them are really going to enjoy being around other kids and doing fun, physical and different activities a few times a week.

So 18 months are done and we move into the stretch run before the “terrible twos” if there is such a thing!