While Barrett’s behaviors may be so textbook toddler and so average for his age, here are a few of our current most beloved Barrett-isms …
- He often grabs a book (and book after book after book), backs his little bottom into our laps and points throughout the book at each object, saying “that” and “this”. Until we say what it is he points at, he persists “dat!” “dat!”.
- At the end of our night time routine, we’ve long said our bedtime prayer and then pulled his little arms into the air and exclaimed “Yay God!”. At the end of our pre-dinner prayer, little B’s arms now burst straight into the air with a smile from ear to ear.
- When asked where his little body parts are, Barrett identifies his head, ears, nose, mouth, hands, fingers, feet and toes. When he doesn’t know something (always seems to be his eyes) he defaults to grabbing his ears.
- Barrett loves to collect items in his little trucks and push them around. When he’s completed this task, he takes out the items one by one and hands them to me. The other day, I ended up with a collection including a container of shower gel, a red crayon, a baby toothbrush, a cow and a diaper.
- Although Barrett is still quite picky at the dinner table, when he doesn’t want something, he tries to feed it to Adam and me. So, even if he’s picky, I suppose perhaps he’s polite.
- He currently seems to have gotten the beat. We walk at the outdoor mall near our house and he searches for the outdoor speakers that project the music and stops by each one, bopping his cute little bottom up and down.
- While he still only says a handful of words that truly make sense to us, he will have 3-5 minute conversations in some sort of jibber-jabber that is completely nonsense. Then, when he’s finished he looks to us to respond … which, of course, we do.
- Barrett loves bathtime but we are very firm that he not stand up or crawl in the bath. He scoots to and fro in the tub on his little tooshie.
- B loves to hand out kisses to anyone who’s a taker — the other day, he walked right past Adam and planted one on Anne.
- Although he still uses a pacifier in the crib, we have a very strict rule that it’s only for use to sleep. When we get him from his crib, we say “what do we do?” and B throws down his blankie. We then say, “what’s next?” and he generally plops out his bink and throws it (forcefully) into the crib.
- Whenever we blow on our food or blow on something for B, he imitates us by blowing (or spitting) with his merry little mouth. And keeps blowing. And blowing.
- When we go on walks, he likes to ride in the car Grandma B gave him for Christmas. With one hand on the steering wheel, he points with the other, to everything we walk by, exclaiming, “dthat”.
- He loves to wave to everyone … especially cars. He loves walking the outdoor mall on a beautiful Saturday … so many cars to say hello to.
At nearly 17 months, those are just a few snippets from the sweetest stuff that make up Barrett. What a great little guy!