Little Big Boy

hiya, quinny!

i'm sooooooooooooooo late and behind and generally slacking. okay, i'm not really slacking...i've been busy keeping up with you and doing a little freelance work in my "down" time!

mr. man, you are growing like the proverbial weed. you look different just since your christmas pics, which we had taken just a month ago. you now have a full head of longish, curly, soft, strawberry blonde hair that i cannot keep my hands out of. daddy and i talk back and forth about cutting your hair, but the bottom line is that i cannot bring myself to do it. i think we're going to let it grow a couple more months before we cut it. in the mean time, a couple of people have told me how pretty you are (thinking you're a girl), but i try not to let it bother me. i know you're a boy :-) a boy with gorgeous hair.

dude, you are a movin' machine now. you walk fast and confidently, you are close to running, you have tried to jump, you can get yourself up very quickly when you fall, and you even walk backward down steps really well. you are very comfortable and coordinated in your own skin. you seem to have reached this level of confidence long before sissy did when she was little, though you'd never know it looking at her now. i know, i know...all kids are different. but, we can't help comparing you guys.

you are trying to talk. you have mastered a couple words...NO, dada, and doggie. you have a few others that you like to try out...ma, close, yeah, and coppa (for copper...often sounds like caca). you also have said baba several times very clearly. you looooovvee your baba and light up when you see him. you walk/run to him as fast as you can with your arms outstretched and a big grin on your cherubic little face.

you have had a couple of struggles since i last wrote to you. teeth are popping through at an alarming rate...fortunately, they all seem to be broken through now, if not all the way through. teething really messes with your sleep. you had a pretty nasty allergic reaction to something you were exposed to, and we suspect it was peanuts. we are a peanut butter loving family, so this could be pretty huge. you seem to do fine when we've eaten peanut butter and then breathe on you or touch you, but after a fun dinner at a friend's house where there was some peanut sauce, you had a super nasty diaper that caused you to break out in hives that spread until they covered your entire torso front and back. due to the nature of peanut allergies, this really isn't something we can safely test by purposely exposing you to peanuts, so i will be asking your pedi to get you in for an allergy test after we see her for your 15-month well check.

your personality continues to shine through. you are a pretty laid back guy, you are very affectionate and snuggly, you are very playful and not at all shy. you seem to have NO stranger anxiety and get clingy only when you don't feel good or are very tired/hungry. you love to be outside. you love to climb. you seem to be really obsessed with high places, which is worrisome. keeping you safe in the house (let alone outside of it) is a bit of a challenge, but because you are very active and curious, it's reasonably easy to distract you from something that's not safe for you. you do continue to be an expert babyproofing consultant...if there's a weakness in a babyproofing system, you are sure to detect it, test it, and disprove it. you are your own quality assurance team!

i love you my little moving, shaking, climbing snuggle bum!

-mommy