18 months old

This little guy



turned 18 months old yesterday. I'm fixing to take him to the pediatrician for his 18-month well baby visit, in fact.

You can't turn your back on him. I have learned this the hard way. When we come home from wherever, I tend to put him down just inside the kitchen. He immediately makes a mad dash for the stairs, and before I know it, I can hear the gate at the top of the stars clanging. That's how fast he is. You can practically feel time warping around you.

Of course now that he has learned how to climb down the stairs, he usually races up the stairs and then begins climbing backwards back down. He's pretty careful, but it's still new enough to be somewhat terrifying for his old mom.

I jokingly asked David what all we needed to do to prepare Andrew for his 18-month check up, and he mentioned that most babies should know somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 20 words. We began counting up all the words that we know Andrew can say, and of course, what kind of a parent would I be if I didn't document them here for posterity, given how meticulously we documented William's growing vocabulary?

He regularly says: Okay. Yeah. Uh oh. Ball. Thank you (although it sounds more like gang goo). Mama. Dada. Eye. Ear. Cracker. Apple. All done. Bye bye. Hi. Shoes.

There are a few others that we've heard him say a couple of times, but I never know whether to count them or not. For example, he started saying Upstairs a few days ago. David was standing at the bottom of the stairs when Andrew (allegedly) said it, and he called out to me that Andrew had just said Upstairs. I, of course, was skeptical, but sure enough, he said it again when he neared the top of the stairs. He hasn't said it much since then, so does it count, or not?

I can't believe he's 18 months old, y'all. He's a toddler. I mean, he's been a toddler for awhile now, but I'm just now really coming to terms with that.

Vital stats to come.