16 Months Old Today

LoungingMy little monkey Jensen is 16 months old today. I don’t know why that seems so significant to me. It’s not an annual or a biannual birthday celebrated by most parents with kiddos under 3. It’s just another month but it feels like a big deal.

I could swear last week he could still run under the kitchen table but this week he’s bumping his head against it as he roams the perimeter reaching up to see what he can snag from the table surface. He points to his head to tell me he got bonked and gives me that sad little face but he doesn’t cry so it’s all good. He’s off and running looking for a chair or wall to scale.

Milestones pile on top of one another daily. He’s amazing to me and impossible for me to predict. Why does he crash his truck repeatedly into the same objects with the same unyielding results? Why does he suddenly drop to the floor to look beneath the treadmill? Why does he turn everything over? Why does he lift one side of his zebra bouncer, drop it on his feet, scream for me to help him then repeat the process after I’ve sat back down? I’m seriously clueless but I’m also beaming with pride at every single thing he does.

3 MonthsSo, a personal curiosity arises. Why is it, with all these daily milestones that my thoughts continually wonder back to one particular day when he was approximately 3 months old? I had been working on his visual tracking by moving objects in and out of his view. He was lying on his mint green infant lounger in just a diaper -- his reflux was so bad there was no point in trying to keep him clothed. As I tracked a yellow and green caterpillar 8 inches or so from his face he began swinging his arms up and down and kicking his feet with his eyes bright and mouth wide open as little bursts of excitement rang forth. That’s the moment I often find myself reliving. There are others of course but there’s something unique in that moment. Whatever the reason, some undeniable bond formed between mother and son that day while playing with the yellow and green caterpillar.

Do people still bronze their baby’s first pair of shoes? I think I may bronze that little toy caterpillar.