the house of bb

It’s finally time for our new annual family tradition of Christmas at brother's house. I got express service this time, meaning that Mom and Dad picked me up on the way there (instead of me taking the train up to the main station to take the other train down to parents' house to drive all the way back up). We had lunch at Culver’s—there were a bunch of Vanillites outside, which I thought was a nice touch—and arrived at around 3 pm Tuesday.

So here we are in the house of BB. By this point the playpen has been packed up and he has free rein over the entire floor. The world is yours, buddy!

At 18 months, he’s a bit slow in speaking. He has five words: ma-ma, da-da, ga-ga (goldfish/granola/any snack food), na-na (banana), and gone. He also uses da-da as a generic “anything” word, which can get confusing, especially when he uses it to refer to other people. But he understands a lot. “Where’s mango?” (He goes to hug his stuffed mango.) “That’s trash. Where do we put trash?” (He goes to put it in the garbage can.) He’s even learning his colors, which is more advanced than I gave him credit for. Mom was quizzing him. “Where’s the red turtle? Where’s the blue turtle?” He knows!

He’s also learned to shake his head no, which I’m sure is very empowering. Thursday morning, his mom made an omelet for his breakfast. “BB, would you like some egg?” EMPHATIC no. We are not egg fans in this house. The egg sat untouched on his plate all morning while he happily munched on bananas and blueberries and Chex mix. (He no longer has specific mealtimes. His plate is left on the end table and he can stop by and eat whenever he feels like it.)

Keeping track of people is his new thing. On Tuesday, when he came home from daycare, he did a whirlwind tour of all his top toys, as if to touch base with everything. But every few minutes he’d stop and say “ma-ma? da-da?” and had to make sure his parents were still there. (He only did this on daycare day.) Also, whenever he noticed Dad was missing from his usual spot on the couch, he would say “da-da?” (generic) and go looking for him.

He's still a musically inclined boy. He has a toy that plays the ABC song—and does it incorrectly, which is very tilting. Instead of LMNOP, it stops at N and puts the remaining letters in the next line of the song, which weirds everything up. But BB loves it. He was introduced to it on Wednesday and quickly figured out how to play it (slightly complicated: you have to press and hold the button) and was spamming it all day. This kid is going to go to kindergarten and sing the ABC song wrong. We try and compensate by singing loudly over the incorrect part of the song.