My little bean...

Ambrose will be 19 months in just a couple days. Nineteen glorious months...

And he's really a little boy now.

He talks all the time. Aside from dada and mama and bratha/pacton, we get chicken and chickie and cockadoodoo, and goose and bread and snap and eat and water and up and down and walk and play and ball and flower and tree and car and...

And so on and so on.

And we get phrases like "goodbye big dog!" or "outside ball-ball?"

He communicates well non-verbally too, so you can really hold little conversations with him.

He walks and runs and climbs and pushes and pulls and discovers everything.

He puts his dirty clothes in the hamper and his shoes in the closet.

He waves and says "hello" and "bye bye" to everyone he meets, making for a very loud walk in around the park.

He even tells jokes, coming to me over and over again with wide, worried eyes, grabbing his crotch and crying "poopoo!" in a worried voice, then laughs hysterically when I open his diaper to find it empty. He offers a cracker then snatches it away and giggles.

Today he fussed out some geese, pointing his little finger and telling them "no no no!" before going off on them in a long string of babble and half words.

He's... amazing.

And normal.

And everything I could have ever dreamed of.

****

And because I can't leave Paxton out, I have to say that the boy is really READING in the past few weeks, like a switch turned on in his head. Mostly books with very simple words, and he gets a lot wrong, but he's trying hard and he's really starting to get there.

He helps round up the chicks every night from their run so we can put them back in the brooder, very carefully and calmly herding them and picking them up. They're petrified of Nik and I, but are very trusting of Paxton who is so, so gentle and loving. His chick sits calmly on his arm like a parrot, letting P stroke his neck and wings. P fusses at us if we scare the chickens. He's such a good care taker!