Ander @ 18 months

If I were being honest, part of why Ander has been M.I.A. from the blog lately is because he is way too busy to sit still, let alone smile and look towards a camera. When I try I end up paying for it:

 Why does he look giddy? Because he just whacked my keyboard as hard as he could, a favorite past time of his. And yes, he always is that proud of himself after.

 And otherwise I get a lot of shots of him running this way...

And running that way... Riveting stuff, ya know?

**Overall, at 18 months Ander is a really great kid. A few things that I've found to be atypical is that he doesn't play with toys. I mean, occasionally he will play with a hotwheels car at church for a few minutes, but inevitably that turns into hurling the surprisingly heavy piece of metal at the Chinese guy's head, sitting in the pew in front of us. 

**Which brings us to the subject of throwing and kicking, most of the time, balls. But if he has the phone in his hand and he decides to to pitch it, you can kiss that phone good bye. Because this boy can throw, and kick, and he does it all the day long. 

**As I mentioned he doesn't like toys. So that leaves house hold items. He wasn't fooled by the fun little tyke-ish phone he got for his birthday, he only wants the real deal. He doesn't leave the phone alone for anything. He turns the answering machine off and on constantly, makes our IP phone beg for mercy and/or retirement. He runs from cupboard to cupboard taunting us that we haven't put child safety locks on them, and he really enjoys rearranging the kitchen while I'm cooking. I do hope our belongings can hang on until he moves on from this stage!

**Ander is a rough-houser and a wrestler. If any of the kids are sitting on the floor he will come up from behind and jump on their back, hoping to get something good going. We've been told they have to watch him in Nursery because if Ander sees an opportunity (so, any poor babe sitting on the floor) he will try to climb on their back. Kohen will indulge this kind of play anytime, anywhere so Ander lucked out there.

**One problem is that Ander figured out how to tackle Aly, and in the beginning he even got Kohen a couple times when he was caught off guard. But Ander comes up behind Aly, hugs her around her waist, then drops his weight and twists to one side, taking Aly down EVERY, SINGLE time. The thing is, Aly usually falls right on top of him so we've had occasional tears over that but it doesn't seem to stop the kid. 

I've tried several times to get video of this but it happens pretty spontaneously. Kennedy was being a good sport one night and letting him "get her" and you can get an idea of his tactics. 

**Another thing I'm hoping is just a phase is recently being accident prone. Nothing serious, but I have glued his eyebrow shut twice in two months, and he also fell and bit into his lip pretty badly. It took several weeks to heal (which seems a long time for a cut in the mouth) and is the first time I really waffled about him needing stitches. Of course all of these things seem to happen when Nathan is not home. Let's hope it's just a phase, shall we?
**Talking? This subject should be easy- Ander doesn't speak. "Dad" is the only word he will say consistently. He knows a few signs regarding food and he seems entirely satisfied with that. He is capable of saying about 10 words but he just won't. So there you go.
**Lastly, Ander is a serious mama's boy and I adore it and eat up every second. I've never had one of my children be this old but still climb up in my lap and snuggle in to watch 30+ min of a movie. He just plugs his fingers in and snugs and I eat it up, willing these moments to stamp into my memory! There is just something about a person who goes 100 mph all day who will only stop for a snug from you.

**So to overcome the picture problem we've been having, I took the camera into his room when I went to get him up, because he is super happy and gloriously contained! Wahlah!

PS- contrary to what this post would have you believe, Ander does in fact own clothes and even wears them on occasion.