Wilder at 21 Months

Some things I want to remember about Wilder at 21 months old...

• He weighs a solid 32 pounds and is too busy to stand still long enough for me to measure his height.
• Since we moved into this house he's been sleeping from about 8 PM to 9 or 10 AM. No joke. And he takes a 2-3 hour nap after lunch. It's craziness. But I'm certainly not complaining!
• He's had two haircuts... both by yours truly because I don't trust anyone else to touch his little blond locks.
• He loves to give hugs and kisses to us and to the dogs. More often than not these hugs and kisses must have some sort of theme and most of the time that theme is "baseball." For example, he'll say he's going to give us a "baseball hug" or an "umpire kiss" -- sometimes the umpire kiss involves holding one hand over part of his face like a mask but usually these hugs and kisses don't look any different than normal acts of affection. He just really likes to incorporate baseball into every possible aspect of life. 

• Speaking of baseball (But when are we not speaking of baseball around this house though really?) -- the kid can hit a serious line drive off the tee. And he is constantly switching back and forth between hitting left- and right-handed. My dad was ambidextrous so I think there's a good chance we're going to have a switch-hitter on our hands. 
• He has started two funny morning traditions lately. The first, since he always sees the dogs play fighting and I tell him they're "wrestling," now when I go in to get him out of his bed he rolls around with Ellie in a choke hold and saying "w'estlin'" over and over. Another one he started doing recently is that when I go in to get him in the morning he lays back down on the pillow and says "Ni-ni... close door" haha and makes me go back out and close the door until he calls for me again. He would seriously do this 100 times in a row if I let him. It's too funny and he really gets a kick out of telling me to close the door. 
• He knows the colors red, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, black, and brown and can recognize a star, a heart, a triangle, a circle, an oval, and sometimes a square.
• He can draw circles, dots, and lines when asked to and two days in a row last week he drew these two very similar things and told me both times that they were "flowerdies" (flowers). I thought that was pretty good for his age!

• He remembers every single thing we tell him. Like every. single. thing. He definitely gets that from his Dada because I have the worst memory ever. 
• His obsessions are in this order: 1) Baseball, 2) Reading, 3) Being outside.
• He knows and will tell you what pretty much every wheeled vehicle we see is: bulldozer, backhoe, tractor, trailer, dump truck, firetruck, crane, monster truck, race car, jeep, car, mower, four-wheeler, "big truck" (18-wheeler). And he knows which car is Mama's, Dada's, "Cuncle's" (Uncle William's), Grana's, "Yarn's" (Aunt Lauren's), and Daddy G's. 
• He makes sure to tell us when it's getting "dark ou-side" every evening. And the other morning the door to his bathroom had come open letting light in way too early and waking him up. When he called for me and I went in there he was going "Bright ou-side, bright ou-side." When I tried to tell him "No, it's not bright outside yet. We need to go back to sleep for a little bit," he very firmly said, "Mama, bright ou-side. Up!" And then we were up for the day, darnit. Can't pull anything over on that kid.
• He is super bossy. He likes to tell us to "sit" or "walk" (meaning "Come here" haha). And we've started working with him on saying "Excuse me" to people because he's heard me say "move" to the dogs so many times that he's been known to tell random people to "move" if they're in his way haha, oops! 

• He loves to tease us. For the past few months anytime we ask him a question or tell him something he answers with "huh." For a while we thought he couldn't hear us so we would repeat everything we said to him at least three times. Now I just think it means "OK" or is some kind of acknowledgment of what we've said. Anyway, last week Paul started telling him "No more huh's! Only 'yes' or 'no'" but every time he told him that Wilder would give a very emphatic "HUH!" and crack up laughing. Then he would say "yes no yes no." Now it's just a game -- "No more huh's!" "HUH!" "No more huh's!" "HUH!" What a little turd!
• He is such a joy to be around though. He is so good-natured, sweet, funny, and smart. He rarely throws a fit and if he does get upset it never lasts more than a minute or two. I'm hoping he's able to keep his easy-going spirit as he approaches two-years-old and the terribleness that supposedly comes with it. 

Dada and I love you, Wilder, more than anything else in the world. We are so proud to be your parents!