Toddlerhood

So much progress in this last month that I haven't written about. Mr. Meh is definitely no longer a baby, but a toddler. A toddler too busy to have his diapers put on, too busy to eat, too busy to sit with me for a second for a cuddle.

It all started about 2-3 weeks ago now when he started to walk -- ie let go of the furniture. Instead, he found support in a broom, which he used as a staff for about a week, and still likes to swing around if he sees the broom laying around. (Of course, Mariposa gets frightened. She thinks he's chasing her around with the broom. And the broom is only a few notches lower than the obnoxious yet ubitiqous vaccum cleaner).

I barely have time to put diapers on him after bathing him. He wants to roll over and slide off the bed.....For any diaper change, I still use the window trick -- plop him up against the window in the spare bedroom. While he's oohing and aahing and dropping stuff under the bed (which he's stopped doing as much as he did before. I guess the novelty has worn off), I take off diapers, clean him and put a new pair on. And then he's on the go. Slides off the bed and make a bee line for the mirror in his bedroom to raise his hand and giggle and say "ahhhh" to himself. It's funny.

The way he walks, toddling left and right, he's just like the diapers commercials. So cute.

While he's walking, he prefers to have something in his hands -- something in each hand. Lately it's been his shoes. He loves those shoes. He tries to hug them and kiss them (just like his teddy bears), which of course is gross because the shoes are shoes. Anyway, he put a shoe in each hand, and if a bottle of milk is handy then he grips the bottle with his teeth and off he goes.....walking toward the mirror, or toward our bedroom.

He also like to hold onto my finger while walking. I, of course, find that so endearing.....It's just like I've been dreaming it. He and I walking together, dawdling slowly, him holding my finger. (Ah what type of romance. Nothing anyone things about until the baby arrives, and now it's the best love affair of my life. Butterflies in my stomach and all. Who could've known.)

He's so busy now that as soon as I get him out of the crib in the morning, he's on the go........walking, walking someplace. He's too busy to eat. It's too much hassle putting him in the high chair, it's much easier to follow him around with a spoon and bits of food and crossing my fingers that he'll eat something.

As walking arrived, so has the exertion of will. He has a will and he's determined to get his way -- get to do what he's aiming to do. If not his way, then the temper tantrum way. It caught us by surprise. The temper tantrums started literaly overnight. We looked at it each and tought to ourselves this past weekend 'who is this child." The previous weekend I worked all weekend so I didn't see him a lot and I worked long hours the preceding two weeks so some days I didn't even see him before he went to bed for the night. (Bad mommy). But during that two week span, he changed from a baby to the toddler.

I'm on vacation this week and next week. I'm so looking foward to it, spending all my time with Mr. Meh.