And this is how it is.

Chase is at this moment moving water from the dog's water bowl to the dog's food bowl, using the dog's food scoop. Luckily, there is no food in the food bowl, but since he has in the past moved food from the food bowl to the water bowl, I know the dog actually prefers dog food soup.

A little over an hour ago, he locked himself in the bedroom. The bedroom to which we have no key. Luckily, he also UNlocked himself in the bedroom, while Mama was frantically trying every key in our odd-key box and calling our-neighbor-the-carpenter.

In between locking himself in the bedroom and creating his own water toys, he had me make a plastic bottle and dried bean shaker..which he opened and ate at least one dried bean and put the rest goodness-knows-where; he tripped over the babygate threshold rushing to say "hi" to Dada (who was on the phone); he amused himself by pushing the stroller in circles in the garage; he got mad at me for folding laundry instead of eating the mushy waffle he was pushing in my face; and he took all the pillows out of the laundry cupboard.

This is life with a toddler.

This is how it is nearly every day. Granted, this day held a bit more drama than most; I don't usually worry about how much of my house I'm going to have to take apart to "save" my son. But the busyness, the swing of emotions? That's there, always.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to stay home with my toddler, to hear him say, "Oh no! Oh no! Mommeee? Momeee? Oh no!" when something doesn't work the way he wants (like just now, when he got his pants wet). He changes so much. Every day. New words, new skills, new behavior...same amazing little boy.

New skills

For all those who asked, Chase climbed IN the dog door for the first time the other afternoon. He crawls out because he really wants to be outside, and usually we scoop him up and bring him back inside. Or we go out with him, but use the screen door instead of the glass one, and he can open the screen door. But the other afternoon, I sat out with him for a while when it was too hot to leave the screen open. At some point, he must have had enough, because he climbed back in! He came straight back out again, then five or so minutes later, he climbed inside to stay. Such a smart and clever boy!

Speaking of smart and clever, he's getting faster on his feet, though not actually running yet. One interesting thing we've noticed is that his "talking" has really increased since he started to walk. He chatters and babbles all the time, but nowhere is he more loquacious than on the changing table! We have quite the conversation there a couple of times a day.



He has started trying to climb on furniture, but he's still too little to actually get on the couch or anything tall. He has taken an interest in pens and other writing implements; I guess we'll need to buy some crayons and BIG paper soon.

Best of all, for Mama anyway, is that he now nods his head "yes". He's been shaking his head "no" for a while, so now I can ask him YES/NO questions. What a world of communication this opens! "Chase, do you want a banana? No? How about blueberries? Yes? OK, here are blueberries." It is SO much nicer than the old grunt-and-point!

The cuteness never ends

Chase is growing and changing SO MUCH. Every week, he is a different kid. And truly a toddler now that he is (occasionally) walking on his own.

His understanding of the world increases by leaps and bounds, and I'm constantly amazed at what he knows. Last night I had a great example of what he truly understands about the way the world works.

We've been having hot weather, and Chase took a late nap yesterday, so he was up later than usual. Up after dark, in fact, which is saying something since it doesn't get truly dark here until sometime between 9:30 and 10:00 at night. I'd been out knitting last night, and dumped everything - keys included - on the chair when I got home and realized the Boy was still awake.

Chase climbed on the chair just enough to get the keys. The he held up his hand and grunted - his way of letting me know he wanted to go walking. Keys in one hand and my finger in the other, he led the way out the front door and down the driveway. At the bottom of the driveway, he let go of my hand, sank to the ground, pointed the remote at the car and started pushing buttons. When nothing happened, he asked to walk again, and we moved forward about two feet. Again, he sank to the ground and started pushing buttons. Nothing. Forward again, each time a bit closer to Daddy's car.

Ah! This time something happened! He managed to pop open the hatch above the tailgate. He kept pushing the same button, and nothing more happened, of course. So I encouraged him to push one of the other buttons. Eventually, he unlocked all the doors, and popped the hatch several more times (with Mama closing it in between).

Now, I could have been annoyed at this. After all, he was up way past his bedtime, I was tired, it was dark out, we should have been winding down. But instead I simply watched in awe as he showed an understanding far beyond what I thought he possessed - he not only went to the car that matched the keys, he seemed to know that he had to be close to the car in order for the remote to work.

Kids really do pick up on EVERYTHING that you do. Everything. Chase will mimic behaviors I'm not even aware of until I see him copy them. The learning capacity of the toddler brain is truly astounding.

Two cute

I have a backlog of photos I want to share, but I'm too tired tonight to do that. Instead, I'm posting because I want to remember these two really cute and incredible things Chase did today.

First, we were in the living room and he was standing with one hand on his little walker-wagon and one hand on my leg. He'd been trying to get to my cell phone - and becoming very upset when I wouldn't hand it over - so I handed him his cell (an old inactive one we had in the garage). he was so excited to grab it, he did so with TWO hands - letting go of both of his supports. I don't think he really noticed; he was intent on opening the cell, standing wide legged and only a bit wobbly while I grinned for ear to ear and shouted (in my head) "Look at you! You're STANDING!!!" After about 10 seconds, he started to wobble, and rested his hand on my leg while he sank to kneeling. He did it again this evening, just letting go and standing for a few seconds. I don't think he'll be walking by his 14-month birthday (another week), but it won't be long now.

A little later, we were sitting on the kitchen floor, where he was insisting on drinking a strawberry smoothie from a "big boy cup" without any help from Mama. We both had our legs out in front of us and we were facing each other, with Chase between my knees. Well, he must have gotten frustrated with how I kept helping him and reminding him to hold the cup steady (and then reminding him to "tip it a little more" when he was trying to drink) - he suddenly pushed on the floor with his heels and spun around, facing away from me! This made him giggle. He took another sip of smoothie (and dribbled a little on the floor), then did it again, ending up facing me. Another giggle, another sip, more spinning. Soon he was just spinning himself around and around, stopping every once in a while to giggle and sip more smoothie. :-D OMG, I about died holding in my own laughter.

By the time he was done, there were plops of strawberry smoothie all over the floor, a dab of strawberry in his hair, and several dribbles of strawberry down his shirt. Addie (our dog) and I both took a stab at cleaning the floor, then Chase got a bath to wash off all the sticky. (He did more cute stuff in the bath, but I said I'd talk about two things...)

Gosh, I love my boy!

Where's my baby??

Look at this cute little baby...dimpled hands, cheeks so adorable you can't help but pinch them, and long wispy hair.


Someone took this sweet little baby and turned him into a little boy. See?

I know his hair was too long and in his eyes. I know it looks neater this way. But oh! my baby! He looks like such a little boy, now! Luckily, he still acts like my baby ;-)

But even that is changing. And so quickly. Just last week Chase figured out how to move from the coffee table to the couch without sitting down first. He would only "cruise" a step or two along the edge of the table or couch. Then at IKEA on Tuesday, we bought him a little pushcart and all of a sudden he's taking long walks from one side of the living room to another!

We were lucky and James caught his first lock-steps on video.

Leaping forward by sliding back

I think everyone knows babies go through growth spurts - where clothes seem to get too tight or too short overnight. I suppose it makes sense that they would go through a similar process mentally, but I hadn't really noticed that with Chase. Every new skill was preceded by weeks - sometimes months - of trying and practicing.

Until recently...

One day last week, I was sitting on the couch with Chase and he started scooting backward toward the edge. "Careful, baby, " I said, as I have said many times before. "If you get too close to the edge you might fall." Usually, this was enough to stop him, at least breifly. Not this time! This time he kept going, bracing his hands on the cushion and letting his legs, then his torso, slide down the front of the couch until he was on his feet. What??!! "I didn't know you could do that!" I said, as he grinned up at me.

A couple of days later, he tried the same thing off the bed, which is much taller. I nearly stopped him, then decided to just "spot" him as he slid (just enough to keep him from banging his head on the hardwood floor!). My spot wasn't needed, though. He had a tight grip on the comforter and used it like a rope to "repel" down. And although he managed it just fine, landing solidly on his feet, I think the distance to the floor surprised him a bit. He had a shocked look on his face instead of the "I did it!" grin.

What was so surprising to me about this is that I've only shown him a couple of times, and not at all recently, how to back down off of things. Actually, I can only remember doing it once, and it was definitely before Christmas, maybe longer ago than that. So, did he remember that lesson once he'd acquired the physical skills to achieve it? Or did he somehow figure it own of his own accord?

Either way, I'm looking forward to what my baby can show me next.