I took my tiny little baby boy to the dentist today. And he was very brave and has almost all of his teeth (missing 2 molars, but all others are accounted for).
It's amazing. One minute he weighed less than six pounds and I could hold him in my hand and this morning he used a power screwdriver to disassemble an airplane (don't worry -- it's a TOY power screwdriver. It only could hurt him if he put it in his eye/ mouth/ear....). And we walked all the way to the dentist, nearly 10 city blocks away.
Right now, B is exceptionally snuggly. When he is scared or upset he runs to me and says "want to hug mommy" and then he wraps his arms around me and squeezes. He likes giving kisses -- I usually leave the house for work with a fair amount of toddler slobber on one or both cheeks -- and likes getting kisses, which suits me just fine.
He has started saying things that are just funny -- he is always saying he needs "to go over there and check on something" which cracks me up every time. He says "Remember when we (insert something from 3 hours or 6 months ago)" and then proceeds to tell me all about it. We went to a fancy exotic pet store last week and saw a snake eating a mouse. So we've been talking about that quite a bit. And he makes this very earnest snake face with his eyebrows up and his tongue coming in and out of his mouth. It's pretty much hysterical.
I told him Oscar the Grouch (who he knows from his diapers) lives in a garbage can and likes things that are stinky and dusty and poopy, and that caused so many giggles that he had the hiccups for several hours. And then we had to listen to I Love Trash several times.
He has taken to asking "what's that" about 10000 times a day, even pointing to things he knows in his books. (Yes, B, that's a car. The same car in the same book we've read 100 times this week.) It's fun to see his mind and his vocabulary continuing to expand. It also makes reading a book exhausting.
This morning, on our walk to the dentist, we saw a dump truck dumping, a digger, a man with a hose and a sweeper truck. It was possibly the most exciting morning commute EVER. I have never seen so much excitement.
We've been learning how things grow, and so had some forced bulbs in the house (hyacinths, mostly, as I like the smell) and he loves looking at the buds on the trees and how the are turning into leaves and flowers. He can identify a daffodil and a crocus and a tulip (although the flowers on those aren't out yet) and every once in a while will apropos of nothing pull out the word "forsythia."
He's increasingly physically confident. He can open most doors, reach all counters (he is almost 38" tall), and is now fully leaping off the furniture. It's both amusing and terrifying. And he's a great climber. We've also recently acquired a helmet and so now he has started using his scooter in the park.
Of course, he's still stubborn and a mediocre listener and has periods of really really annoying whining. And he's decided that peeing on the floor is a hoot. And he hits other kids sometimes and also sometimes hits me and seems to think it is hysterical (and then I panic think I have a child who lacks empathy), but as it turns out, he's just a large, rambunctious two year old with pretty mediocre impulse control.
I can't believe I have a little boy who can ride a scooter, and has enough teeth to go to the dentist. And who can ask for kisses on the cheek.
However this other thing turns out (and all signs are bad), I'm amazingly lucky to have B in my life.