Age 1 to age 2: The best year yet! (Part 1)

I love the year from 1-2. I love it so much, it makes me hesitant that we have to do another 0-1 come April. If I could pop this little baby out at the age of 1, I totally think I would! (Besides the obvious extra pain a 20-something pound little person would involve, it sounds like a pretty good option.) Skip the only eat, sleep, poop phase (or if you were Wally Ben, cry, eat, cry, sleep, cry, poop phase). Then pass that boring 4-6 months, then skip right over that uh-oh-the-baby-is-on-the-move-eating-cords-and-other-electric-and-dangerous-items-in-the-room phase. Maybe I’d take them at 9 months old, when a lot of the kinks are ironed out and they can clap and wave and blow kisses and express themselves in more human interactive ways. Yeah, I think I’d do that.

But 12-24 months is such a fun year. (And by the way, I am over the expressing-your-baby’s-age-in-months thing. After 12 months, it should just be 1 or one and a half or almost 2 or 2. Honestly. Who cares if your baby is 18 months or 20? Not this 364 month old.)

Yes, during the 1-2 year, babies become young toddlers, and young toddlers rock my face off. They are past the poop/cry/needy only phase, and pre-ultra independent tantrum phase. (Don’t get me wrong—Wally has his fair share of tantrums, but the good times overwhelm the tantrum-y times.)

During this time, they start to participate in creating humor. Just tonight, Wally Ben sat on Wally’s lap just to toot on him. Who doesn’t love a good tooting joke?

They also start getting passionate about things. Luckily for me, Wally Ben’s love of books has exploded the past several months. He is excited to pick out his books before nap and bedtime. I expect him to be misbehaving when he’s quiet, but he’s sitting reading books. We discovered the other day he has most of his books memorized. If you stop before any noun, he can say it for you. Even if you aren’t reading the book, and just say a line from it out of the blue, he’ll fill in the blank. Clifford had scored a…”touchdown”! Sometimes Clifford was a “naughty puppy.” Thank you for “letting me eat seeds.” I’m so proud of my future nerd.