Barrett at 20.5 Months

Barrett, you are 20.5 months old and a ball of energy. I find you very hard to describe. Where some kids you can describe as quiet and pensive and others you can describe as loud and busy, I find it difficult to place you in a box that way.

You wake up in the middle of the night and cry out from your crib in our room (yes, in our room). Sometimes you are hungry and after eating a pouch, you go right back to sleep. Sometimes you are something else - scared? lonely? and when your dad comes over and lays you back down, sits on the floor and holds your hand, you calm down and go back to sleep - but sometimes you don't - and you end up in our bed - a little ball of cuddles with your head on your dads arm and your hand on his chest. You like to be close - at times - you will pat our arms, your dads chest cuddled up with your paci.

You reach up whenever we arrive at steps going up or going down. You seem to know we are there because you rarely look over at us, you just reach up to hold a hand to steady you when you climb the stairs - even though you are perfectly capable of climbing or descending on your own. You are so careful sometimes, and yet, you are so rough and fearless at others.

You run through the yard without a care, often tripping and falling and getting up without a tear. You walk with your eyes cast forward and rarely worry about what you might trip over or run into. Your legs are full of bruises, your face covered in scrapes, goose eggs and scabs that make you cry only briefly before you are ready to face the next minute.

You are so loving towards your brother sometimes. You kiss him with an exaggerated "MUAH!" you pat him, you pet him, you hug him and try to hold him. Then, in the same moment you slap him and lay on top of him, hug him too hard. When he cries, you look at us and say "uh-oh" and point toward him. You always want to help carry little brothers car seat out to the car. You proudly loop your arm around the handle.

You love tractors and mowers and machinery. When Gpa mows the yard, you always want to join in. You are so excited and so careful to hold your ear protectors against your head for the entire time you mow. You are so still when your ride on the mini with your dad or gpa. You quietly observe and learn as you watch them expertly run the machines.

You can screw and unscrew caps, open doors, place shaped objects in the right hole, put things away, follow complex directions and click in buckles (like for car seats). You are learning colors and can point to the correct colors most of the time. You can say more (mo), Uh-oh, Uh-hu, No, yea. You rarely say mama or dada. You jabber sometimes but we have no idea what you are saying.

You are thoughtful and caring - you worry. Gpa fell off a chair and it made you nervous, or scared you - and you cried.

You are determined and bull headed. You don't get deterred from an idea easily. You learned to take ice out of a cup at a restaurant and now you want to thrust your little hands into our cups and pull the ice out. When you are done eating, you start dropping food and then dump all the food and the plate and silverware on the floor. You are impossible to put to sleep. Impossible. Did I say impossible? You won't let yourself just go to sleep. You can be exhausted and you won't sleep. You are not the kid who falls asleep in your toys. No. You need to be walked in your bob stroller. We have gone so many miles with that bob putting you to sleep. You need to be in your car seat in the car. We have driven many unnecessary miles while you sleep, afraid that if the car stops, you will wake. When you fall asleep in your crib, we hold your hand - or if you are particularly wiley that day, we have to hold you down, wait for you to calm down. Sometimes it takes 20 minutes. Sometimes it takes an hour and a half. You can hold out forever. It's exhausting.

You want to be outside and won't let us forget until you are let outside. You believe that to be outside you need a sweatshirt and shoes - therefore you refuse to take off your sweatshirt even when it is hot - I think you think that you will have to go inside if you take it off. You play in the dirt, eat it, get filthy and need a bath almost every night.

You love to watch baby einstein movies which we let you do once little brother arrived because we learned it calmed you down before bedtime. You prop a pillow up, put the boppy pillow in front of it and grab a fuzzy blanket and cuddle up. When the caterpillar comes on, you say "ooooohhhhh" and snuggle in excited. You are very focused.

You dance sometimes, sway to music - but only sometimes - when the mood strikes. You try to jump and get no lift off but put so much effort in that half the time you end up on your rear. When you or anyone else toots, you say "oh!" and point - quite the habit...potentially embarrassing. Sometimes you even laugh. You laugh hysterically when you are tickled. You fake laugh sometimes, I don't know where you developed it.

You know grammy's house and will get very excited when we go there. You know where your toys are, where your high chair is. You sway to the music when Steve plays the guitar. You hug grammy and play rough - she lets you do things we don't, like rough "hugs." You always get your fill of fruit and love to check out Kona's kennel and the vacuum, climb the stairs and play golf.

When you are taken away from something you like or we take something away that you wanted, you get mad. You cry, hard. You cry harder when this stuff happens than when you get hurt. You are tough.

Recently, you have developed new boy traits that must be ingrained in being a boy - You tackled Hudson (age 3) and I have no idea where you learned to do it. You are very rough sometimes. You come flying at us like a flying squirrel and we have to try and stop you, especially if we are holding little brother. If you have something you shouldn't and we come for it, you run away and when we catch you, you throw it. You laugh and think it's pretty funny.

Some of the things you do are so hard not to laugh at  - and yet, as parents we have to hold our laughter in until you aren't around. One such incident - your dad was peeing and you closed the lid to the toilet (making a mess) - funny, but not appropriate.

You love to read (or rather, be read to) and cuddle up. You will go to the book shelf and get book after book. Your favorite seems to be the superhero book. You jabber about it like we are supposed to understand (we don't) and point to things. If we try to not read a book you want to read (because we don't like all your books), you grab it again and insist. Sigh. So we read it.

Sometimes you get wild for no reason. Right now, you are sitting on the floor, bouncing up and down, getting on all fours, bouncing like a wild. For no reason.

You are so much fun to watch - you are so frustrating sometimes. You are so loving and cuddly and yet, you are so rough. You understand so much and yet, you pretend not to sometimes. You are active and busy and never seem to tire or run out of energy. You are shy and reserved but so open and sweet with your "people." You are always moving. You never stop or lay still. You make my heart melt.