Toddler Tales

You know, before I had Ollie I used to laugh at moms who, when questioned how old their baby was, would respond with the number of months rather than just say he was one, one and a half or two. I promised myself I would not be one of those moms that leaves the rest of the world counting up months on their fingers to determine the actual age of my child. Then I had a baby myself and I realized that the developmental difference between a six and seven month old is roughly equivalent to the difference between a six and seven year old. Thus, Oliver's age has always been stated in months and I have had to eat my words.

This February our little Oliver reached the ripe old age of 18 months. Here is a little run down on his world. At the moment Ollie is absolutely obsessed with balls, trains (Thomas the Train to be exact) and rocks. Everywhere we go Oliver must pick up a rock. My purse, the back seat of my car, and Oliver's room are all full of rocks. If there is a pond, river or bucket of water to throw the rock in then Oliver's happiness is complete.

Oliver is a really good eater and can still devour a carton of strawberries all by himself in a single sitting. Aside from berries, his other favorites include guacamole, macaroni and cheese, olives, carrots and dip, pretzels and oranges. He loves to go to Mother Goose time at the library and to sing songs. His favorite is Popcorn Popping, and he knows all the actions. Oliver also loves to read books, "read" is a relative term here - he likes to look at books, turn the pages himself and point to the pictures but he doesn't have the attention span to sit and listen to the words. Not yet anyway.

He is just now starting to say a lot of words, some of the ones we hear a lot are:

gock - rock
guck - used for both truck and stuck
ba - ball
boey - birdie
bewy - berry
gook - book
shoo shoo - choo choo train
mo - more
ba ba - blanket

He also knows lots of animal sounds. My personal favorites are his rooster and fish sounds, they are just too cute. At eighteen months we are happy to report that Oliver is still the sweet and happy boy that he has always been. He spends most of his time smiling and laughing and makes our lives so very happy.

(This is a picture of Oliver at the zoo. He is looking at the elephants and making an elephant sound which always includes waving his arm in front of his nose like a trunk).