A Wiggle When You Walk

O, my youngest, my baby boy will be 2 in April.  Some of you may have read my Not Me Monday post recently.  This can and does go on in my house daily.  He's a little ball of terror at the moment.   Today it was the tissues, yesterday it was the baby wipes.  

Yet at the same time he is entering a whole other "cute" phase.  Have you noticed that your children have these different cute phases.  These phases are distinct and separate from their general all around cuteness.  In between they are still cute but then it suddenly jumps out at you at just how particularly "cute" they are right now. 

At first they just start out as these little baby lumps.  If he/she is particularly underweight they can be downright ugly little monkeys.  Sorry but it's true.  Then they start to gain weight and fill out and there is always that special day when they smile at you.  Gas shmas, it's a smile darn it.  They snuggle into you, fall asleep on your shoulder or at your breast, hold you finger in their tiny little hands.  Just warms the cockles of your heart.  That's cute phase #1. 

Then they grow a little, get more active, more observant.  They clap their hands, crinkle their eyes when they smile at you, sit up, roll over.. cute little diapered bottoms.  Adorable.  Cute phase #2. 

Then they walk.  Oh how cute they are when you turn around to see them standing there all by themselves, eyes wide, beaming with pride at the neat trick they just learned.  Then they take their first steps and soon are wobbling all over the house.  Precious.  Cute phase #3. 

You see where I am going with this?  Then there are the first words cute phase, learning new things cute phase.  Calling his blankie baby phase.  (E called hers a dik for the longest time so I'm thankful for him calling his a baby. Can you just picture us going around asking where her dik is cause no matter how much you say you're going to use proper words for things you end up using their baby word. )

O's current phase though is his facial expressions.  It's like he suddenly discovered he can move and shape his face into weird looks.  We've started having these staring contests at the dinner table where he scrunches up his face and grins (slightly maniacal actually) at you until you do it back at him and he cracks up.  He can do it over and over.  The girls, not to be outdone by his cuteness, of course, has to get in on the action and before we know it we're all screwing up our faces, scrunching our noses and baring our teeth at one another.  Not a lot of eating gets done.  

What makes this a particularly interesting phase is just how much joi de vivre toddlers actually have for life.  We went to the park this morning, the sun had actually graced us with its presence, and O just ran and ran his heart out.  Despite the fact that he's got a nasty cough you could just not dampen his enthusiasm for the sunny day and opportunity to run free after his sisters.  What particularly struck me as cute (and actually prompted this post today) was that even though my big boy is soon to be 2, he still has that little wiggle when he runs.  How precious is that?  

And as I type this I am aware that it will all be over far too soon!