17 months!

Don't know how much longer we'll be able to get a picture with Captain Bear. Jim really prefers mauling him to sitting quietly.

There's really not a lot to report for the month. We've got some new signs: bedtime, up, egg, sit, and chicken. Everything else seems about the same. He's somewhat more cooperative than previously with regards to most things (ie, if you tell him to get off the TV stand, usually he will), but he's also more set on the things he DOES feel strongly about. He will, for example, go into a complete shrieking broken-spined meltdown if forced to leave Sears' tool department without getting to wield the chainsaws himself. He's also developing quite the defiant stare about things that he knows he shouldn't do. Basically the only thing in the living room that he can't touch is the coaxial cable in the wall - we tell him "No coax" and move him away from it whenever he grabs it, because he likes to yank on it. Now he likes to walk over to it and then just stand there staring at us with a smirk on his face. If we get up to move him away, he either shrieks and runs away laughing or grabs and yanks with all he's got until we pry him off.


"There, see? I'm sitting with the bear."


The ONLY one we got in the usual position.

One amusing development this month is that he has increasingly strong opinions about what foods he likes. Mind you, he'll still eat pretty much everything (except sweet potatoes - he loves zucchini, loves broccoli, loves curry and sausage and pickles and peppers, but won't eat sweet potatoes). He just won't eat it if he sees something better at the time. For instance, yesterday morning he was sitting in his high chair watching me make muffins while he ate his morning banana. He threw the banana on the floor, pointed at the bowl of batter, and started signing for food. So, I gave him back his banana. He looked me dead in the eyes and, without breaking eye contact, carefully lifted his banana and threw it on the floor. He then pointed at the batter, shouted as loudly as he could, and then signed FOOOOOOOOOOOOD again. Cruel creature that I am, I figured that if he was only hungry for muffin batter, he probably wasn't actually hungry at all, so the poor suffering urchin had to wait like the rest of us until the muffins were done.


Jim's war face.