21 months

Yesterday Isaac turned 21 months old. Aside from racking up some serious mileage in the car seat, what has he been up to in the past month?

*Eating. Pickier and pickier. He won't eat cheese anymore. He still will only eat meat if it comes in hot dog or meatball form. He is losing his appetite for applesauce and graham crackers. But all trends toward eating disorders are quickly solved with pizza. The child will eat anything without hesitation, be it meat, vegetable, or fungus, if it appears on a slice of pizza. Cold pizza is even better.

*The moving vehicle obsession. As you have rightly guessed, Thomas was an enormous hit this Christmas. He now goes to bed most every night with between one and three trains. But it doesn't stop there. Thanks to books, road work along our way home, and having a Dadaw who's a mechanic and a Pawpaw who sells tractors, he also knows and can effortlessly tell you the difference between a car, a truck, a bus, a tractor, a backhoe, a crane, a loader, a bulldozer, and a train. To name a few.

*Sentences. Lots and LOTS of sentences. At least 60% of the words in these sentences cannot be understood by anyone without a toddler translating device, but hanging out with him helps one to understand the end of the sentence, which is apparently the most important. His sentences usually take this form:
Suhbluashdgulboushdfh STAR!
Hekokjbklskodkjlskdjl TRAINS!
Buhnsdkobokslkcasoiek BACKHOE!
But, simultaneously, he is also putting together the most astounding phrases. Some of these have recently emerged from conversations with inanimate objects. Two days ago he was playing with his Little Einsteins DVD case when I told him we needed to leave to pick up Dada from work. His immediate response was, naturally, to inform the Einsteins. "Okay, Einsteins!" he said, "Let's go get Dada!" He also does this frequently with his new Bear (of Big Blue House fame). His perception of things, and subsequent vocalization of that perception, is at once strange, amazing, and unbelievably hilarious. One night at Meemaw and Paw-Paw's we were heating up some milk for his bedtime dose in a coffee cup in the microwave. In a household such as ours where so much coffee is consumed, he has come to associate coffee cups with coffee, and started screaming at Meemaw and I when he saw the coffee cup going in the microwave. "Milky milky milky!" he fussed. Meemaw and I patiently told him that, in fact, we were heating up his milky in the coffee cup, and Meemaw lifted him to eye-level with the microwave so he could see. You could see a huge wave of realization passing over him and he exuberantly exclaimed, "Is no cah-kee; is MILKY!"

*Colors. Two weeks ago he discovered how to clearly and confidently name the color of almost anything upon request. It started with the Wiggles colors -- red, blue, yellow (yeh-yoh!), and purple -- but thanks to Percy he also knows green; thanks to Pawpaw, who sells Kubota tractors, he knows orange; thanks to my pants, he knows brown; thanks to his cat-brother, he knows black. Temporarily this week we had a setback where he refused to say the color of an object, but would instead call it the Wiggle of corresponding color. For example:
Me: What color is James, Isaac?
Isaac: Murray!
Me: What color is that bee, Isaac?
Isaac: Greg!

I think he is pretty clueless on the upcoming-baby front, but there are many signs that he will make a great big brother. All the time I try to tell him that my belly is so huge because it houses a young person in it, but of course this is a little much for him at this point. Both grandmas got him a "I'm going to be a big brother!" kind of book for Christmas, which he finds extremely interesting. As aforementioned, he greatly enjoys talking to his stuffed animals and, more promisingly, taking care of them, showing great concern that they are all without diapers. Perhaps most fun for me recently was to watch him play with a baby doll this Christmas at Grandma O'Neal's. He would try to diaper it, feed it milk from a bottle, and even take it in the bathtub with him and wash its hair. If his brother came today, I don't delude myself into thinking it would be completely fun for him from the get-go, but once he gets over the initial shock I think will make a fantastic Big Helper for Mommy.