Life with a One Year Old

The age that Evan is at right now is by far my favorite age so far. He is really showing that he has his own little personality and he is quite the character lately. Evan has developed a language all his own that sounds like jibberish most of the time but Brian and I can recognize a few of the words that he says regularly. The first word was "ball" which sounds more like "bah". We've since noticed that everything round is a "bah" ie. apples, cantalope, the little round crystals hanging from the chandelier... all balls. He says mama and dada, Kitty "kee" and dog "daw", balloon "bwoo", duck "duh", done and sometimes all done " ah dun" , banana "nana" and door. Last week he pointed as I was pouring a glass of water and said "wada" (twice) but he hasn't said it since. Yesterday, for the first time he said bye bye. He has a toy phone that Auntie Kristy gave to him months ago and when you push a certain button it says bye bye and Evan kept pushing the button over and over and mimicking the bye bye. Now he says it and waves at the same time. He has also learned a couple signs... he can tell us when he wants to eat and when he wants more... we're working on the signs for drink and please and thank you now. Evan is an old pro at walking now and he climbs and runs too. He has been broadening his palate lately as well. Last week, he sucked on a rock, ate dirt and then tasted a handful of his skin cream all in one day. The most impressive talent this little guy has though is that he can whistle... he gets that talent from Brian. He won't do it on command but every once in a while when he's relaxed and happy he'll begin to whistle to himself (just like his dad). He also likes to give high fives, can point out most of the body parts and replies appropriately when asked what the car says "vroom vroom" and what the sheep says "baa". He loves going to the playground and loves to dig in the sand and throw rocks into the water (especially into the sewer grate in front of our place which his buddy Evan Condin taught him) Evan no longer likes to be in the stroller or the shopping cart for very long. Now that he can walk, he wants to walk all the time. It's such an amazing and fun time having this little man in my life. I've noticed that life has slowed down a lot for me since I've begun seeing life through Evan's eyes and I am so grateful for that... when else can you take 20 minutes to walk somewhere that would normally take 20 seconds and when else can you go to the beach and inspect rocks and shells and splash in the water and point at birds and pick grass for hours on end. Life is so simple and wonderful for Evan right now and luckily it is for me again too. We had a really nice weekend away last weekend with the Condins. We went to a great little resort on the Sunshine Coast called Tranquility Bay. I'll try to post some pics from that soon.