Baby James: 14 months

My dear little boy,

You are 14 months old now and quite a little character.  You weigh a little over 20 pounds, by my rough estimate, and you now have 8 teeth - with two on the bottom just having come through in the past week. Although you haven't gained much weight in the past few months, you have grown a few inches taller and I figure you are around 2 ft, 2 inches tall.

You cruise confidently and crawl like there is a firecracker up your bottom.  You have tentatively stood on your own for a few seconds, but not very often.  One time I turned away from you in the bath only to find you stood up on your own two feet sporting a very cheeky grin, because you know you aren't supposed to stand up in the bath. You would climb anything and everything if I let you, but you have no understanding of what it means to potentially fall so unfortunately you must remain earthbound.

You've learned to clap and blow kisses with a big, exaggerated "mmmmmm-wah" sound.  You've become an artful little mimic.  Like the time that daddy stubbed his toe and heard you echoing "ow-ow-ow," or when your sister coughs and you put on a little fake one too.  Once when I lifted your dense little body out of the car, exhaling forcefully with a groan, you tried a passable imitation of that sound too which made me laugh out loud and feel really old at the same time.  You say "Mama," "Daddy," "Uh-oh" and say something that sounds a bit like "Hello" when you pretend things are a telephone.  We think you have a sound that means "Thanks" but my personal favourite word is "Bubbles" which I didn't believe you actually knew until you pointed and said it out loud spontaneously last time we played with them in the garden.

You are an astute observer of what goes on around you and often surprise me by attempting to do things you've seen us do around you, but not necessarily to or for you.  Like when you got a hold of your sister's little frozen windmill toy and started trying to blow on it.  We never showed you that, but you don't miss a trick.  You've tried to put your own shoes on, and are actually quite handy at helping me dress and undress you.  You once even started "weeding" bits of grass and putting them in the wheel barrow when you watched daddy pottering around out in the garden.

You love pushing toy cars around, and playing with shape sorters and stacking rings and you just interact with the world so much more physically than I am used to.  You are obsessed with opening drawers and cupboards and pulling things out, but you also have the endearing habit of tidying them away again, albeit in the wrong places - which does make things difficult if not impossible to find sometimes.

We played a game with your sister the other day where she and I tried to build a block tower as fast as we could while you repeatedly knocked it over.  Each time you did, she squealed, then you squealed and you laughed so hard you fell over.  She is one of your absolute favourite people in the world, and you are one of hers, even if you do drive each other a little insane sometimes.

Sometimes you have little tantrums and this past weekend you would throw yourself backwards onto the floor for effect, narrowly missing the toy shelves a few times.  I hope when you do eventually crash into them, it doesn't hurt too bad and you learn from it because in this case I am going with the "if you're going to be dumb, you've got to be tough" school of parenting.  And Miss Elle at nursery told me about an incident last week where you crawled off in a snit, pitched yourself to the floor theatrically while howling out your frustrations, but then kept stopping to check for her reaction.  So you're no dummy.  You know exactly what the score is.

Nursery has been brilliant for you.  Each day you confidently lunge out of my arms towards one of the waiting nursery staff.  I've not yet seen you upset about being left there even though you hate it if I leave you alone to play at home.  You are happiest where you can play and explore at will and your confidence in doing so makes me so proud.  You are about the most sociable, charming, adorable, cheeky little thing I know and you keep me smiling and laughing so much.

Now if we could only sort out this sleeping through the night thing.  But even with all that, my son...

I love you with all my heart,
Mummy