Today Baby Evan is 1 AND A HALF, which means I am officially dropping the “Baby”. From now on he will just be Evan or Little Evan. Wish me luck.

The four weeks between 17 months and 18 months were the absolute fastest time of my entire life. I’m terrified that if things get any faster I will wake up tomorrow with Baby Evan standing next to my bed yelling “Mom, let’s go! I’m late for practice!!” We’re not too far off already, since just this week he stood at the baby gate in the kitchen and shouted “I WANT MAMA!!! MAAAAAMAAAAAA!!!!” because I dared to go upstairs and do laundry without him. (He still doesn’t say Mama any other time – just when he is Horribly Upset by how I am Mean.)(He says Dada all the time. He even recognizes the sound of Dada’s car pulling to the garage and starts shouting for him.)

And yet right now he is pantless, dragging one of his blankies around the family room, chugging milk and babbling and looking exactly like the adorable toddler he is. Twenty minutes from now I’ll probably be shouting at him to stop jumping on me and leave the dog alone and come back here with my cell phone and stop putting that power cord in your mouth and why why WHY won’t you listen to ANYTHING I say???? (As I was typing that he threw a remote at my face. Good times.)

Despite suffering from a severe case of early-onset terrible twos, 18 months is truly a super fun age. Evan loves people everywhere we go and they love him back. He plays well with others, especially older kids, and can entertain himself with a book or a toy long enough that I can make a sandwich or put away groceries. His favorite games include “help mommy sweep”, “help mommy unload the dishwasher”, “turn off the lights”, “slam the dryer door”, and “giving super wet raspberries on your face”. He’s still mostly uninterested in the TV but loves dancing to commercials – especially the iPad commercial with the piano music and the L.L. Bean commercial with the Big Rock Candy Mountain song.

He will try almost any food and eats whatever we’re having 85% of the time (the rest of the time he gets peanut butter sandwiches). He drinks so much milk I’ve started buying 4 half-gallons on ever grocery trip and STILL run out sometimes. He will tell us when he’s tired, asks to be put in the crib, sleeps through the night and (usually) takes 1 long afternoon nap.

When he is good, he is very very good. And when he is bad he is horrid. But I love him to itty bitty pieces.

18 Month Milestones (from Baby Center, as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Will “read” board books on his own – Yes! Especially the Mr. Brown Can Moo! book. He makes adorable little noises for all the pictures.
• Scribbles well – His preferred medium is chalk on furniture but when he gets it on the chalkboard he does a pretty good job. Crayons still end up in his mouth most of the time so we don’t do much coloring.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Strings two words together in phrases – Besides “I want mommy!!” he mostly sticks to one word at a time, although if you count signs he can make whole sentences.
• Brushes teeth with help – He loves his toothbrush so much he sleeps with it.
• Stacks four blocks – Why is block stacking such an important skillon this stupid chart? Evan mostly loses blocks but I did actually see him stack 3 the other day. On the closed toilet, but still. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW MILESTONE CHART?

Mastered Skills (a few kids can do)
• Throws a ball overhand – Like a pro. His aim is shockingly good too.
• Takes toys apart and puts them back together – Most of his toys are only one part (ball, car, truck, book). He can take all the pots out of the cabinet and then put them back more neatly than I can. Does that count?
• Shows signs of toilet training readiness – He knows the sign for “potty” and will often tell us when he’s going, but is kind of afraid of the big person toilet even with the child seat. We figure the signing is good enough for now and will make things MUCH easier when we want to tackle potty training for real.

Happy 18 months Baby Evan!

Enjoying some apples with yogurt dip

Using one of my necklaces to make his doggie pretty

Exhausted after Daddy's hockey game - and holding his own stick

Exploring the backyard jungle

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately writing two paragraph blog posts in my head and then promptly forgetting them. It’s mostly due to the fact that I’m doing all my brainstorming in the middle of the night when I a) can’t fall asleep to begin with or b) can’t fall BACK asleep after waking up for no apparent reason. This pregnancy is doing weird weird things to my internal clock and thermometer and electrical system and pretty much any other part of me that could be compared to something mechanical. When the weather changed suddenly last week and the barometric pressure went way down (or up or lopsided or whatever it is that happens when it goes from mild and humid to clear and cool) I woke up twitching from head to toe feeling like my skin was trying to crawl off my body. It was rather unpleasant. And not at all conducive to sleeping. So I stay up too late and toss and turn all night and then totally crash during Baby Evan’s nap time which means I stay up even later the next night and get even less sleep and am more exhausted so the vicious cycle continues forever and ever amen.

I felt the same way last pregnancy, only then I wasn’t chasing a toddler around all day so napping wasn’t really a problem so much as a glorious, wonderful way of life. I’m hoping if I can make it through the rest of this week sans nap and with a 10 pm bedtime my body will readjust and I can start stocking up on zzzzz’s while I still can – that number on my pregnancy ticker ain’t getting any bigger and it has DEFINITELY not been long enough since I had an infant around that I’ve forgotten what that’s like. Ugh.

My exhaustion is making every other little tiny annoyance in my life seem like a Huge Deal this week, which is just making it harder for me to relax. Huge Deal #1 is that I’m still laptopless after almost a month because we’re still deciding if we can afford to buy E a new computer or if I should just buy ANOTHER power cord for my clearly defective yet much beloved HP. So we’re “sharing” one laptop, and by “sharing” I mean I’m currently up writing blog posts at 1:20 am because it’s pretty much the only time of day E isn’t involved in some vitally important online game that he tries to guilt trip me into not nagging him about by claiming he’s “spending time” with his brother and his dad. To which I say: THAT’S WHAT PHONES ARE FOR. Because, obviously, I NEED to get online to comment on all my internet friends’ blogs and whine about things on my own. Priorities, people.

Huge Deal #2 is more bullshit with one of our worst purchases ever – E’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. Go ahead, Google “problem with my 2004 Jeep” and come back in 12 hours when you finish reading eight bazillionty forum posts about stupid problems like windshield wipers that don’t work and cruise control that fails every time it rains and the ridiculous trash they call the “heating system” but I’m pretty sure is just a hamster on a wheel working a little fan that costs $1000 every time we have to have it replaced. Which has been twice. So far. But most ridiculous of all is the windows that simply FALL INTO THE DOOR at random times and then can’t be fixed without taken the entire panel apart. It’s because some genius made the little piece that holds up the electric window out of cheap ass plastic. So the piece itself costs like $7 but the work costs $500 plus two days of being a single car family in an area that does not lend itself to single-car-ness. Did I mention this is at LEAST the second time we’ve had the window fall? I’m pretty sure it’s happened to both the driver’s and passenger’s windows once before but E thinks this is the first time on the driver’s side. He’s been driving the Jeep around with the window down for weeks now rather than getting it fixed (I think we were both secretly hoping it would just sort of…self-heal or something).  I could complain about this for another fifty years (I hate our dealership! Taking my car to work is a HUGE pain for E because of security! Being housebound with a toddler in the rain is the 8th circle of hell!) but let’s just sum up by saying the weather report for the rest of the week is so grim we’re going to bite the bullet and take the Jeep in for repairs today so I’ll be Mr. Grumpy Pants for the next few days. 8th circle of hell here I come.

Huge Deal #3 is..oh nevermind. Whatever. Let’s just say I’m annoyed at myself and annoyed at the world and annoyed at my husband and pretty much nothing is going to change that right now besides a good night’s sleep and a day without being smacked in the face by my child. And maybe a few hours of peace to get the house clean so I can stop feeling like I’m YEARS behind on my to-do list. I’d settle for weeks. The best case scenario is days. I’m exhausted already just thinking about it.

The whole POINT of going to the Eastern States Exposition (known as The Big E) was so I could get a picture of E standing next a sign that said “The Big E”. And although I took 114 pictures of various others things and people somehow I did not take that picture, despite spending 6 hours and a good portion of my sanity wandering around looking at cows and fried things and Fair People.

Fair People makes me think of Bill Engvall’s stand up bit about the fair. Which is why I took this picture:

Sorry, that’s probably only funny to E and me. We’re dorks. And maybe rednecks.

Even though I didn’t get a picture of E next to the sign, I did get a ton of other pictures. There was food…

That's the face of a child getting a major brain freeze from my strawberry-lemonade slurpie.

And animals…

That's one of the Budweiser Clydesdales getting a foot rub.

All that WOOL! I could knit so much stuff! And Baby Evan liked petting them too.

And plenty of things to buy and touch and look at…

That unicorn in the upper left is part of the Massachusetts building. Apparently they have unicorns there. Or maybe they USED to have unicorns, until the pilgrims ate them all at the first Thanksgiving and everyone got gay married. I was never very good at history.

That was some sort of crazy skateboarding themed fun house on the midway. I just like the picture because Baby Evan's wearing his rock'n'roll shirt.

Not pictured: Framed poster of the Jersey Shore cast dude in a tank top was carrying around. I guess that’s what counts as a “prize” from the ring toss game these days. Hand on my heart, that’s 10000% true.

It was a very fun, very busy, very long day. We planned to stay until about 1:30 and ended up hanging around until 4 to meet some friends. My feet were SCREAMING and my horrible pelvic pain threw my left hip out of joint. I ended up half limping, half waddling, clinging to the stroller and breathing like I just finished a marathon. It was dead sexy. And despite my huge pregnant belly, the people who had claimed the very few benches showed absolutely no interest in letting me sit down for even a minute.

So I took a little rest in the grass. At least SOMEONE got a seat.

And just so you know, I TOTALLY resisted having this done:

But it was really really hard.

Maybe I’m a little more redneck than I thought.

I know it’s ridiculous to complain about the sunshine! and the gorgeous weather! and the warm! and the chance to go to the beach! again!!! but I am SO DONE with summer. It was an especially long and hot one here, made longer and hotter by the oven attached to my midsection. Plus, I FINALLY found a pair of brown flat boot to fit over my giant calves and I want to wear them before the pregnancy swelling gets too bad.

The in-between seasons – Spring and Fall – are the best times of the year here in New England. (Although I don’t know why I think of them as in-between. They’re just as long as the Winter and Summer.) And as much as I love the budding trees and melting snow and daffodils and balmy days in March April May, Fall is sort of New England’s “thing”. If you don’t slow down just a little to enjoy the beautiful hills flaming with reds and yellows and oranges or get the sudden urge for a steaming mug of mulled cider on a cool evening or sigh with happiness when the smell of wood stove starts drifting through the neighborhood then you’re dead inside. DEAD INSIDE.

But yesterday it was 84 degrees. And today it’s supposed to be almost 9o. And humid. I would be turning the air conditioning back on…if we had any air conditioning.

I’ve decided the best course of action is to just WILL Fall into being. I got out the pumpkin decorations. I changed the wreath on the door from a jaunty bucket of yellow (fake) flowers to (fake) twigs and leaves and berries. And then, in a blatant act of defiance against Mother Nature, I took Baby Evan apple picking. I wore flip-flops. He wore socks but no shoes (also known as the hobo baby compromise).

Holmberg Orchards

Baby Evan was REALLY convinced he wanted to eat one of the decorative gourds. He tried to sample one in every color.

He did a lot better in the orchard, although that face in the middle is from eating an apple he found on the ground. P.S. The adorable little girl is his friend Amelia. She's FRICKIN ADORABLE.

We’ll have to go back when it’s Fall for reals and do the hay ride and get our pumpkins and buy some mums and cider and do the rest of the traditional New England Autumnal Family Weekend. Hopefully when it’s cold enough to wear boots. Or at least shoes.