Toddling.

Serious toddling developments in the last month. Accompanied by the death of our old hard drive so we lost all our letters to the bug! And hundreds of photos. Happily we were able to reconstruct a good percentage of those photos: do we really need five thousand photos when we have five hundred? There are more pictures of Alex's first year than exist of both his dad and me, ever.

So: serious toddling. We went from first steps, to walking, to almost running now. He can spin around, reverse, change direction. Bend over, pick things up. Get up from a prone position. He's tall, and hip-height, so we need to be careful walking past him; I have on more than one occasion knocked him over by accident.

He's talking, in his own way. He says "Woo woo" when he hears a dog; now, "woo woo" means pretty much any animal, or thing that he wants to point to outside. But it also definitely means a dog. He'll start saying it if he sees a dog, too. When the timer goes off in the kitchen he lifts a finger and says "ah"; pointing upwards means "take me outside"; he'll definitely call me by name "ah ma ma," but only really if he's upset. Da da da, can mean either his dad or me. And he will blow to indicate he wants food prepared for him. So he'll stand in the kitchen doorway, bouncing in the morning, blowing his little cheeks out so that I'll make him his favorite breakfast: oatmeal with raisins. He'll also show his assent by giving you the biggest, toothiest grin: as in--Alex, do you want oatmeal? Do you want to go outside?

He loves going outside.

He also loves playing in the water, in the front yard, where he can see the dogs walk by with their people.

He is obsessed with big kids, between the ages of 4 and 8. We went to the park to show him the duckpond, he said woo woo to the geese, and then was determined to walk around. He found some kids playing in a tent, and stood there for a good 5 minutes talking to them.

Also: teething four teeth at a time sucks.