22 months

I have to say having a toddler is more tiring than having a baby, except for those first three months when it seemed like I might never sleep through the night again. Baby Doodle is active and into everything and often wants me to accompany him in playing trains, reading books or playing with his shapes. I guess that's the down side to only having one kid. Maybe it's because we (as a family) have been sick most of the winter (BD and I have runny noses now), or maybe it's because I've reached the old age of 30, but I have been so tired lately -- and I'm not even pregnant. I can't imagine how tired I'm going to feel when I am.

So, back to baby Doodle, the older he gets and the more he's around other kids the more obvious it is to me how sweet and wonderful he is. Yesterday, a friend and her son (we'll call him Jack), who is two and a half, came over to visit. It may be the age, and maybe BD will be like this when he's two and a half, but Jack would take toys away from BD and BD would say "Baby Doodle's turn." Jack wouldn't return the toy without prompting by an adult -- to be expected. When Baby Doodle got the toy back he played with it for a few seconds and then handed it back to Jack and said, "Jack's turn." He's really good at sharing. He understands the concept, embraces it and practices it. I hope he doesn't lose his sweetness as he gets older. That said, right now he's pulling mounds of toilet paper off the roll, bringing it to me and saying, "Oh no" while he laughs hysterically.

He understands the general rules of our language. He pluralizes words when there is more than one, and sometimes he adds an -es to words that only require an -s. He refers to himself as I now, but still uses baby Doodle a lot too, especially when he wants to say me. "Mommy come play trains with baby Doodle." Sometimes he calls himself you. "Mommy carry you." He can recite some of the alphabet. Most often he leaves out F, H, I, J, L, N, Q and R. But when he says them he always says them in the correct order even though he skips some.

He requests books he wants me or Mr. D to read to him by name, "Daddy read Dinosaurumpus, Mommy read Sheep in Jeep." He knows his shapes so well he now jokes around when he's playing with the shape sorter, saying, "star in circle hole" while he laughs. When I sing Old MacDonald he fills in the animal and the sounds that he wants. He can correctly identify when Josh Ritter is playing and requests, "more Josh Ritter" when a song ends. He's opinionated about what he wants to wear. His favorite thing is his baseball sweater, but he can be persuaded to wear other clothes if I point out something unique and cool about it. Today, he's wearing the green sweater I made him with the bear buttons -- those are the draw.

He's into his independence these days. He wants to "do it by self." He walks up and down the stairs "by self" even when I'm in a rush to get somewhere. He likes to brush his own teeth and hair. He likes to put things back where he found them. He puts the phone back on the cradle and his toys in their place. Recently, he has been throwing things down the stairs from the second to the first floor. Sometimes he stops when I ask him, but most of the time he looks right at me and throws it anyway. Today, he didn't throw my sneaker downstairs when I asked him. I praised him and hugged him for listening.

He can recite entire pages in his books, not short pages either. He still goes to bed smoothly and without incident every night whether we're at home or away. He's incredibly sweet, giving hugs and kisses to our friends when they leave often requesting numerous hugs. I know he won't always be this sweet, like when he's sixteen, but I will always have these memories to think of when he's sneaking out to drink with his friends.