news from chicago: 18 Months

Here we are at a year and a half already. I told James today during lunch that he had been with us now for a whole 18 months, a year and a half, and he just looked at me, smiled and said, "Mom." Then he went back to eating his raspberries. Pretty much sums it up right there. It's been the most amazing 18 months of our lives. I know I speak for Doug too when I say that we cannot and will not imagine our lives without James.

James is doing so much these days that I can't pinpoint when some words were said or when he did some things. James can sign "please" now and we're trying to ask him to say/sign please when he hands us something and says "do dis" or "dis" so that way he can begin to associate saying please when asking someone a favor. James also gets SO excited and says I did it! It sounds more like "Ididih" but we know what he's saying. Today after Montessori we were walking and I asked James where the car was and he pointed to it and yelled, "Ididih!" and was so proud of himself. Sometimes he'll clap for himself afterwards.

We prepped pumpkins to carve but because we've just been so busy lately, we just have uncarved pumpkins on the balcony. Despite all of the excuses I could give you, it doesn't really matter because they still look nice and it was so much fun to have James help to get all the seeds and the insides out of the pumpkins. He had a blast working with Daddy on that one.

While we were in Dallas, James also sat forward facing in the car. And on the plane. We thought it might be trouble when we got home because his car seat is still rear facing but he did not protest at all when we put him in for class. We'll ask the doctor tomorrow about turning it around. I would keep him rear facing longer but the poor guy has to prop his legs up on the seat when we drive because he's getting so tall.

Dad had a great idea a few weekends ago - he went out to run errands and came home with A KITE! I cannot even express to you how much fun we had. There was hardly any wind on the day we decided to go out but the kite did take flight 3 times and each time James was just in complete awe. He was so excited to help Daddy and held the string of the kite while Doug tried to get it to catch the wind. After it fell, James would run over to it and say "down" and then go to help pick it up. It was awesome. Hopefully this weekend it will be both nice and windy so we can do it again.

We're getting excited for Halloween on Sunday! There are a few condos that are signed up for trick or treating so we'll be able to take James around. One of our neighbors on our floor told me this afternoon that she bought a special treat for James because he's too young for candy - how thoughtful was that? I just didn't even know what to say except thank you. Acts of kindness like that always just make me smile. However, the special treat notwithstanding, I think the most fun he'll have will be pressing all the buttons in the elevators :)

Tomorrow we have our doctor's appointment so I'll post the stats then. I know - three posts in one week - feels like old times again :)

Here are a few photos from the last month!

Swinging high to the sky and loving every minute of it.