18 months!

As impossible as it seems, our little man is 18 months old today! Charlie is all boy - no baby left. There is no doubt he is our son: he inherited Charles' love of food and obsessiveness over things being "just so," my independence, and both of our stubbornness. Yes, we are in for it. He is also Mr. Social, which we'll attribute to his Varga genes.

Fun climbing at the park

His vocabulary is exploding, although he certainly has his own way of saying things that has to be deciphered. He tries to repeat most object words that we say, but many are just the beginning sounds. So figuring out if "pu" means pineapple, pizza, play, or any other word someone said once in front of him that starts with a p can be quite fun sometimes.

Some favorite (and more clear) words are: Bye-bye, hi, car, go, cheese (chEE), milk, water, night-night, poop, Papa, Nana, Mama, Dada, Cody (ka), Jazzy (ya), Ashleigh (aye), ball, vroom-vroom, truck, more, block, high five (hi-fa).

Charlie currently has an obsession with cars and bye-bye. He wakes up almost every morning asking to go bye-bye. The first thing we do is to get up and look out the window at the cars. An average morning goes something like this: Car, car, bye-bye, car, milk, bye-bye, car...on repeat.

His favorite people (and animals) include Papa, Nana, Cody, Mommy, Daddy, Mitch, and Ashleigh.

Favorite activities:
Building couch cushion forts with Daddy
Going on walks and exploring with Cody (and Mommy or Daddy, of course)
"Reading" books
Destroying the house with toys - although he also likes putting them away
Making sure that everything is put away exactly as it should be - he has been known to straighten baskets that are crooked.

"Typing" on his "keyboard"

Developmentally he is right on track, and the weekly email updates on "what your toddler should be into right now" tend to be laughably spot on. Unfortunately, this also means that toddler tantrums have started, most of which seem to stem from wanting things a certain way and/or wanting something very specific that we have yet to figure out. We will be very thankful when he has more words! He can follow instructions and has a crazy-good memory.

He is still our tall and skinny little guy - 23.4 lbs and almost 33 inches puts him in the 16th percentile for weight, and 66th for height.

This sign is SO EXCITING every time we go for a walk. 

Charlie loves patting baby brother in Mommy's tummy, although he has no idea what that will mean here in a few short months! We do have some friends with tiny ones, and he does well, so we are anticipating that he will do fairly well.

On the baby front, today is also officially 30 weeks into this pregnancy - 75% done!