James is now 18 months old. Wha?! Here are 18 fascinating facts about him.
- James hugs a lot. We haven't done an official count, but he's probably averaging 20 head-on-your-chest hugs a day.
- James continues to be an oddly large child. At his 15-month check-up, he was still off the charts for height (almost 35 inches) and newly off the charts for weight (just shy of 30 pounds). As Ava likes to point out, however, he is still one pound lighter and a few inches shorter than her.
- Jamesie-pooh is CRAZY about going outside right now and would never come inside if he didn't need to eat at semi-regular intervals.
- Eating with James is maddening. He's fairly picky at this point, but will repeatedly yelp for "more" if he sees any food nearby, no matter how much of that item he has on his tray.
- A favorite word of James's right now is "baloobaloo", or balloon. He systematically goes through all the books containing balloons and points out the balloons on each page and then moves on to the next one. It's kind of shocking how many children's books contain balloons. Perhaps he's not the first with this obsession.
- James is particularly fond of kitchen activities. He still loves to prepare meals for us in his kitchen, but he's equally at home in our Tupperware drawer, which gets ransacked on a daily basis.
- James trots with very stiff legs.
- There are very few things that can get James as angry as a diaper change. As if cleaning someone else's poop could get any worse, now we have a huge wriggly, screaming toddler as our diaper-change partner.
- James loves watering cans, which he uses to water his feet and the driveway.
- James has 14 teeth.
- Our 30-pound child generally demands to be carried at all times. If you refuse, he falls to the floor and pounds his fists and wails. Just today we had a breakthrough and walked halfway to the store holding hands. Baby steps, as they say.
- James likes wagon rides so much that he will retrieve the wagon and just sit in it until someone takes him somewhere.
- James is mesmerized by cats (his favorite), dogs, and birds. He uses his best animal calls whenever he sees one.
- We keep a harmonica in James's car seat at all times so that he can play us some sweet tunes while we drive around town.
- We have to reprogram the stereo several times a day. It's one of his favorite toys.
- If James is able to lift an object, he will throw it across the room. We spend a good deal of time telling him, "If you'd like to throw something, you can throw a ball." Then he replies, "ball!" and gets a ball to throw.
- James really likes waving and has a stiff-arm beauty-queen wave.
- Whenever James sees something that looks like a phone, he puts it against his ear and says hello, then giggles.
