Isaac, you're 18 months old, little guy!

Dear Isaac,

You're 18 months old now. Corrie and I think that this age is more dificult than the terrible twos. In fact, the sheet on 18 mo milestones from your pediatrician reads, "Parenting is hard work. Talk to a freind. Plan time for yourself. Eat regular meals. Rest when the baby does." I pulled the other months/years off of the wall and none of them mention tips for the parent. I think it's a frustrating stage because you know what you want but can't communicate so you resort to whining. You know some signs and words, but once you're worked up, you don't use them.
Your stats:
Height: 33.5" - above the 75th percentile
Weight: 24lbs, 13oz - below the 50th percentile,
Head Circ. 19"
but you haven't gained any weight in 3 months! The doctor was worried and gave me lots of ways to give you calcium since you refuse a sippy cup of milk. She suggested the "blue" Ovaltine, (which should be called Roundtine.) Steven jumped on that suggestion since he had Ovaltine every day for the first twenty years of his life. It even had raw eggs in it until his mom heard about salmonella.
Today, you ate oatmeal, applesauce, a peach, a chicken salad sandwich, ovaltine, a pudding, breast milk, grapes, 2 sloppy joes, shared a Yo Baby yogurt, and drank lots of water. I have no clue how you haven't gained any weight.

You're a little dare devil. You try to stand on the kick boards in the pool, jumped off of the diving board yesterday to Uncle Martin below twice and really bounced to jump in. You climb and jump on everything in the house. You like the deep end of the pool more than the shallow end. You learned how to open the front door so it's always deadbolted. You like to be tackled by your big brother.

You like sports. You try your hardest to dribble basketballs and volleyballs, you hit baseballs off of the tee, you throw and catch a small football, roll or bounce a big ball on bowling pins, throw bouncy balls with all of your might, and kick soccer balls.

You're really into books. Your favorite one was "Doggies," by Sandra Boynton, but now it's one that Jake got for Dylan about football. They're board books. You're mesmorized by the "1 football" and the "5 football passers" and "6 football kickers" pages. You hold your hands like you're ready to catch, a football, then throw your arm or kick a leg to correspond to the football players on the pages. Once I read the book to you, you go sit on Daddy's lap so he will read it to you.

Words:

Apple, banana, Noah, hi, bye, shoes, juice, movie, book, please, hot, hat, more, dog, Roscoe, Mom, Dad, yes, happy, milk, up, no, ball, ow, here, uh oh. You can mimic a lot of things, but sometimes just point instead of attempting to make the right sounds. My favorite new word is when you are happy to see Noah. You call him "no no." I say "Noey No" and you repeated it so sweetly that I knew you weren't saying no. Now you say it by yourself.

You whisper some words like hat, hot, and more. You whine milk and up. Up is your most used word because you want attention. You have some animal sounds and some signs too.

This is such a sweet SOOC picture. Daddy put you to bed with this glow stick. You were holding onto it when I went to take it away, but I instead ran back down the stairs to get my camera. I set it to a reeeeeally slow shutter speed and rested it on the crib railing and tried not to breath for the 4 seconds it took to burn this image. You weren't holding onto it any more, but it's still a pretty cool picture. I like that it lights up the bedding that you got from Chrissy and Lacey and their parents. That was a good investment they made for Dylan (and you.)

I should talk about your sleeping habbits. You sleep through the night from about 9-7:30. You take a morning nap AND an afternoon one! Hip hip hooray! Sometimes I sleep with you, and I don't feel guilty at all.

I do like your personality. You can be so happy and playful and fun. You'll cuddle too still. I love to squish your thighs which are still the softest smushiest things. I love that you don't mind it. You hold my under-shirt and I smush your thighs. It's even. You're into mimicking faces. Sometimes you make the mean faces on your own, but this is the expression that I've been trying to capture for over a week. Daddy got it! The fun part is that you crack up and run at us to tackle us after you hold the dirty look. You make mean faces, silly faces, teeth faces, tongue faces, kissy faces, and more. It's gotta be great for the people sitting behind us in Sacrament Meeting each Sunday.

Look at that face. Then I snatch you up and kiss your little neck while you laugh and arch your back while trying to cover the side I'm kissing only to reveal the other side for me. You're full of personality and I love it.