457 Days

Fifteen months today. One and one quarter years old. I am constantly amazed by this child. His fine motor skills are getting more and more refined everyday. He has mastered screwing on and unscrewing the tops to any and all of the numberous tubes of ointment (valuable balm!) applied to various and sundry places on his skin. He laughs at the door knobs in our house. I use the term "door knobs" very loosely because we don't have actual knobs. They are more like toddler friendly levers. These, of course, were chosen when we were ignorantly pregnant and not thinking about how easily our child would soon be able to move from room to room. He is so impressed with himself, poking his head into the room, just to make sure you see what he has been able to do. For now, the locks on the handles work to keep him confined to a particular room - like when you're showering and he is on the loose - but it won't be long before he figures those out too. I have already seen him focussing on them. He still has quite the temper and will pitch his little fits when he feels you have not done right by him, like stopping him from crawling in the oven or playing with knives. Luckily, these fits are getting fewer and farther between. He has also learned to behave differently around different people in order to get what he wants. He knows that behaving like a Hollywood prima donna will get him absolutely nothing from his father and me, but he can use this power over his grandparents with great effect. And, oh, does he use it!
He loves reading his books, with any book containing animals being his favorite, in particular, cats. Once, when he pionted to a pig, I made the mistake of saying, in a loud and funny voice, "Suuwweeee!" Needless to say, we are constantly turning back to the pig pictures now. It actually starts to hurt my throat after a while, but I would do it until the cows come home because he doubles over in laughter each time. And his laughter makes all my insides twitter with happiness. Bryant and I have now settled into the week/workday routine of me taking Reeves out and Bryant picking him up. It works pretty well except that, of course, he never gets home early enough for my liking. That is not Bryant's fault. It's just a result of the fact that I have to be away from him all day so any second after 5:00 is too late. Judy is now meeting me at the BP at 162 and 17. This has been a huge (uge!) help. This has taken about 20 minutes off of my round trip, allowing me to leave the house at 8:00 instead of 7:40. The only drawback of this new arrangement is that most mornings, I am having to wake Reeves up in order to get him ready on time. I hate doing that. Although, I must admit, I kind of do prefer it to the three or four mornings that he decided 5:00 am would be the end of his night, and the start of our day. I was going to post about that while it was happening, but I was afaid that if I gave it a voice, it would continue, and I wasn't ready to start going to bed at 9:00. Luckily, he has resumed his - nevermind, I'm not going to write it. You know what I mean.
On the hair front, we think the troops are amassing at the border and are preparing to make an all out assault. There have already been noticable increases in volume and coverage since the birthday. I know you can't really see it in this picture, but there is actually a little curl off the back of his head. (It's the little things, people.) While we are fairly certain Reeves is going to be a toeheaded little boy, we have had to give up on the hope that he would retain his blue eyes. Looks like that Messervy yellow/green is too powerful for my genes. I find it unbelievable that I can love this child any more than I do already, but I know that I will because each day he brings even more love and joy to his father and me. I love our snuggle time. I love that he is starting to put his arms around me in a real hug now when we sing and say our prayers at night. I love that he likes for me to bite his toes and his fingers. I love that he has to kiss each ceramic animal on his bookshelves, the bear from Russia, and a picture of Grandmother Andy each night before he goes to bed. But most of all, I love that we are the ones God chose to raise this incredible boy. Thank you, Reeves, for every moment of your first 457 days.