Dear Keaton, the Full Face Smiler,
This month you would smile with your whole face. There are two versions, the big gapping mouth wide eyes or the full scrunch face closed eyes. My favorite is the little scrunch face because you can see the joy in your lips and the jolt of energy you get from the smile. You have a little bounce in your step when you get excited and that paired with music gets you beebopping. The dancing bounce and spinning in circles are the absolute best smiley moments. A close second are your calm cuddle smiles.
You've started walking full force, not just toddling. The zombie arms are now more of a warrior charge with just one arm ahead of you. You can walk in your shoes and your sandals now, although at first you looked like a kitten with tape stuck to the bottom of your feet. Your walking is much smoother compared to the early days where Aiden dubbed you Baby Roboto with your jerky arms and kicky legs. Your brother also nicknamed you Wacky Guy because you like to swing your whole arm back and swing it into whatever may come into its path - wack! You definitely know what gentle means now, but whether you listen is a whole other story.
You've figured out how to carry things while you balance and you manage to carry the big ball and two smaller toys stuffed in your fists. You spent the majority of your days walking in a big circle from the playroom, dining, kitchen, living room and repeat. You sometimes squawk when I try to hold your hand now which is the exact opposite of last month. At your brother's sports class you try to join in and last time the teacher was nice enough to even give you a dinosaur stamp - you squealed with delight.
On our trip to NYC, you loved walking up and down the aisle in the train eating up all the fawning attention from other passengers. You loved kicking your feet in the ergo as we walked, and then jumping out to explore a few fun spots on your own. You got in on the action at the toy stores stomping down the path at Candyland leading me to what you wanted to see. You were not interested in going near the big chubby Candyland King and kept one eye glued his direction as you snuck away. You helped point out pigeons to your brother and giggled as he chased them down in Central Park. You ate up the singers that sang to you at breakfast at the Stardust diner. I think your favorite was looking out the giant window in our hotel room at all the big buildings and stacks of parked cars outside.
Thank you for taking good naps lately, but I have a small favor to ask. How about instead of waking up at 5:30/6am (or earlier - Geesh) and wanting to nap again at 8:30, please consider sleeping until 9? Asking too much? Ok, 7:30? Your night times are sometimes smooth and sometimes screamy and squirmy. You did cooperate in the big hotel room in NYC, let's hope you stick with that on our big cruise vacation this month.
Your crazy hair and bed head makes me giggle. The bird feather baby hair is starting to grow in a bit more, but the original hair is getting longer and longer. So you have this crazy wild hair effect that has a mind of its own. The yogurt hair product you smear into your eyebrows and curls definitely helps the look. The slide I managed to convince your dad to setup in the basement, causes a funny static cling.
You love playing with your toes and reciting, This little piggy went all the way home... especially with your daddy. You get so excited when he gets home. You assume that daddy is on the other end of every phone call, pretend or real. You like to pretend everything is a phone especially the remote control. The remote control is harder and harder to hide from you and oh boy, you don't like when I won't let you wack the window with it. Your getting in some good kicks too, oh boy, more destructo baby moves!
As I rushed into the bathroom (that's my excuse) in our NYC hotel room, you quickly snagged a Keurig coffee cup and decided to try to pretend you were a Keurig machine and punctured your own teeth marks into the grind cup. In other parenting flop moments, your favorite distraction was holding an iphone cord and putting both ends together and making a buzz noise while laughing. I have trouble explaining to you that I can't do anything about the table when you try to stand up under it and bump your head. I try to get you to scoot out carefully but you get mad, mad, mad at that doggone table and your long legs making it hard to stand up underneath it.
This month we broke out the bubbles a few times. You loved watching your brother make gigantic bubbles in Central Park and playing with simple bubbles in the bath. You think all bubbles are amazing. Trying to capture a photo of your squealing and flailing around trying to catch bubbles is nearly impossible. I usually get the reaction after the bubbles have popped.
We have a chipmunk family that lives right outside the glass door in the basement. They pop in and out of the drain pipe and you notice them even from across the room. You will chatter as you scurry towards the door with your pointer finger out. You will tap your finger against the window and squeal at Chippy. I can tell when you see Chippy far off in the yard because you will scrunch your face and pretend to by the chipmunk by chattering your teeth.
You are a climbing boy, and your brother did not really prepare us for this phenomenon. You can make it up backwards on your slide with your squirmy legs and your feet have some traction. You like climbing up on the baby picnic table to get at your brother's cars. Your always trying to get up on the couch to look out the window. You even try to get up on the twirly office chair while grunting the same noise you hear when I say dangerous. You are pretty good about waiting for me until you start up the stairs. You like to try to walk down the steps even though they seem giant. As your daddy long legs grow, it will get easier, so I'm glad that you like to try out the motion of stepping down.
You love being invited to your brother's animal picnics. I try to step back and let your brother lead the fun and let him deal with your attempts to pounce and "destroy" his setups. You love Todd the Cheetah about as much as your brother. You think it is so fun when Todd gives "attack hugs." You were super huggie at library storytime the other day. You made a friend and you both wanted to share hugs that end with a roll on the floor.
At the end of the Moo, Baa, LaLaLa book, it asks "What do you say!?" Your answer is correct, "Da, Da, Da!" This book along with the Barnyard dance have been in constant rotation lately. You are getting a longer attention span for books, but still like to pull at the pages more than listen. You do sometimes take a quiet moment on your own to turn pages in books on your own and babble and point at the pictures.
You are so excited to have your own hooded towel like your big brother. I'm not sure why it took us so long to get out our stash of towels. You now want to take a quick bath in order to get into your hooded towels as soon as possible. Those towels make you giddy. The other favorite giddy moment is when this Lisa Loeb kiddy song, Opposite Day, comes on the radio in the car. No matter your mood, your head immediately starts beebopping and your arms start raising the roof. I look forward to dancing through another fun month with you as we kick off the summer in style. Caribbean here we come! Happy 40th anniversary to your grandparents!
Ya Man! Mama
