Dear A,This has been a month of concentrated concentration. We've packed in a whole lotta spring time fun and concentrated on the important things. Your dad and I were lucky enough to get away to celebrate our fifth anniversary at a little Seekonk bed and breakfast. Your Gran and Pop took such good care of you and you had so much fun that you barely noticed we weren't around. It was my first night away from you in nearly 19 months, and I definitely noticed you weren't around. Thank you for being such a good boy and making it easy to give us a little staycation.
You are a playground guru and you've extended your climbing skills to try to climb up on the tables in the house. You're learning to keep both feet on the floor. You will sometimes intentionally slide your little legs apart into the splits and get "stuck." 
This month you learned to wash yourself when we name a body part, but you will usually only do it when you have two huge fists full of soap. You also figured out what the shower is and you usually want the "rain" instead of the splashy tubby time. You've become so enthusiastic to "help" you started throwing your play food in the trash. But we are glad when you decide to pick up after yourself and even put your laundry in the shoot.
Our little big boy that takes a shower, goes to the potty (usually just to sit - but with some success!), buckles (and even unbuckles occasionally while riding in the wagon!) his own belt, and eats with a fork - oh where, oh where did my little baby go? Good thing you can still wear little hippo jammies - Here you are saying, "waait, i didn't agree to photos"
You have a new little doctor's kit to pretend with and when you look through the ear scope daddy teases you and asks, "what do you see?" You will giggle when daddy answers, "ants eating cheese? chocolate chip cookies?" The ants eating cheese story comes from your recent encounter with ants at a family bbq. You were excited to feed bits of cheese to a big group of ants. To your delight, one even got on your hand, as it crawled around on your hand you suddenly poked at it and shouted "pop" - who knows where you learn these things?!
Your newest favorite is play doh! We found these little molds that make elmo finger puppets, which you usually pull the eyes off of immediately. You love to stamp out shapes and your favorite is the blue moon.
Your sleeping habits are pretty unpredictable in general, but you have been a fairly good sleeper lately. Even when you started waking up in the middle of the night and asking to eat, you would still fall right back to sleep. You like your big boy bed, but you are mostly excited to bring your beach shovels and buckets onto it and pretend it is a big sand box. You like playing in your room and especially playing ball before bed. You were especially excited when Gran and Pop were here visiting this month to play catch. You will announce "caaatch" and tell us who to throw the ball to back and forth - Pop's turn, Mama's turn, A's turn, Dada's turn, Gran's turn! At bedtime we eventually we can get you to slow down with this fun animal cd that sings the alphabet and has a matching book. Our favorite is when Ollie the Ostrich plays the oboe, which you mistake for elbow and giggle as you try to toot your elbow. You will listen closely and sometimes sing along and eventually fall right to sleep.
Your preferences are very clear lately and you tend to stick with the same favorites. You love to read in the car and your favorite pick (even if I bring other books to the car) is the starfish shiny things search book (which sounds about as exciting as it is especially after a bijillion times reading it). You continue to like playing with shoes and especially trying to tromp around in dad's big foamy sandals.
Gran taught you a new game where we will hide something and then you will go on a hunt for it. We will ask "is it under" and you will search there and answer "nooo" in that cute little soft voice. You learned that little cute word (which I hope stay cute as long as possible) from your Sandra Boynton "What's Wrong Little Pookie" book. You just love to read about what might be wrong with little Pookie and say "aat's illy" and then at the end say "um, I fooough-get"
Your flap books are by far your favorites this month. You are usually really good with them, except those circle shape flaps that you find hard to resist yanking off. When looking at the unique animals book, you immediately started asking "whaaat is thaaat?" When we visit the zoo you like to declare which animal is your favorite - usually the giraffe wins that prize (especially now that there is a baby giraffe). You love animal noises and you like to quiz us on the animal noises. You will say the noise and you want us to say the animal, then you shake your head or say yes, yes, yessss.
We took you to a mostly adult party earlier this month with J's colleagues. You were a charmer and even shook people's hands although some people got more of a "low" five instead. You were really good about trotting around not causing too much trouble. The most trouble was trying to interrupt your dad as he talked with some leg cuddles and insisting on sipping orange juice from a little glass mug (which you must have thought was just sophisticated enough for this wine party). You spent most of your time kissing their new kitten and playing with their dog Tommy. You wandered around mumbling Tom-eee and squealing every time he gave you a little lick kiss. You are so darn cute when you say Tom-eee that if I was having another baby soon (which I'm not) I would name him Thomas just to hear you say your brother's name in such a cute way.
You really concentrate on things lately, and sometimes so much so that your little tongue comes out. We look forward to more careful concentration as summer starts.
Love you little buddy, Mama
