Hello, I like to speak to whoever is in charge of turning my little baby boy into this GIANT PERSON. I am dissatisfied with the speed at which it is happening and would like it to slow down immediately. Thank you.

There’s nothing like bringing home a new baby to make your old baby seem, well, old. Although some of it isn’t just in my head – I ask Little Evan to help out a lot more than I used to and so he’s learning responsibility pretty fast. I know “go throw this diaper away” or “bring mommy her iPhone” isn’t rocket science but it’s still cool to see him understand and follow through. Most of the time. Sometimes he gets weirdly possessive of the dirty diapers and cries when we throw them away. And sometimes he throws them at my face. Oh, toddlers.

In “things I really dislike” news, we’ve officially reached a point where I can’t help comparing my kid to other kids and worry about his development. Why doesn’t he talk more? Should he be saying more words? Why doesn’t he know his letters or numbers? Which of course leads to mountains of Mommy Guilt – although some of it might be just a little bit deserved. If I haven’t really been teaching him letters and numbers how is he supposed to learn them? I’ve been so focused on words (and words that actually SOUND like the words they’re meant to be) I totally skipped the alphabet. I guess I thought we had some time before I needed to start on that sort of learning, but based on my Twitter/internet friends we’re now way behind. And although I love his babbling gibberish I’m starting to feel like people are judging me in public because he doesn’t speak more clearly or say more words. One of my goals this month is to write down a list of all the words he DOES say so at his 24 month check-up I can ask the doctor if he thinks we should look into speech therapy.

Luckily the BabyCenter milestones for this month don’t include language skills so I can try to stop worrying for a little while longer. Oh! Although I have news on the block-stacking front! The other day I caught him making HUGE towers of blocks upstairs in the playroom, so I guess I no longer have to be bitter that he missed all those previous block-stacking milestones. TAKE THAT BABYCENTER.

22 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Kicks ball forward – He’s a soccer player in the making.
• Follows two-step requests (e.g., “Get your doll and bring it here”) – Yes! He could probably follow a three or four step request. Understanding language is not our problem.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Does simple puzzles – Does this mean the wood cut-out ones? Because we’re working on those and he’s getting there but he loses interest pretty fast.
• Draws a straight line – Maybe accidentally. He likes coloring in theory a lot more than coloring in practice.
• Names several body parts – Yes. Especially my boobs.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Puts on loose-fitting clothes – Sometimes, although he has a problem understanding pants and shirts are not the same. Also that pants are not hats.
• Might be ready for a big bed – I’m planning to make the switch for his 2nd birthday. The problem is it involves a lot more than just switching the crib for a bed because the room isn’t very childproof and if he got up to play he could ruin a LOT of stuff before I noticed. But I’m hopeful that the actual transition to the bed will go well.
• Understands opposites (e.g., tall vs. short) – I don’t know? He understand enough differences that I can ask him to bring me one of two similar things and he gets the right one but I’m not sure we encounter a lot of opposites.

This morning in a desperate attempt to calm a temper tantrum I let him try out the piano for the first time and he loved it. He clearly heard the differences in the notes and loved sliding down to press the lowest ones and then reaching up to the highest ones. He also taught himself that pressing one key at a time made a different noise than smashing down a whole bunch. I’m not saying he’s an OMG MUSICAL GENIUS or anything, but it’s nice that he enjoys it.

Hmmm...time to write my materpiece!

Definitely need some of these notes up here

Brilliance has struck!

Stop bothering me while I'm composing!!

Now for the BIG FINISH

That's it! I shall touch it no more. My work is perfect.