What happened to the months?

Folks, I have to admit that it's getting really tough to remember Devin's age these days. Whenever someone asks me how old he is, I always have to pause and think, count backwards and forwards, do a bunch of arithmetic and calculus, double check it in my head against the coming of August when he will turn 2, and try to remember what I said last month. You'd think I was trying to get into Mensa with all the thinking I have to do around this question, but no one has invited me to a meeting yet.


Finally, after realizing I've run out of countable fingers and toes, I usually blurt out, "twenty....uh....one months!" and Davis standing next to me corrects me, "No, he's not. He's 22 months." All I know for sure is he's almost two. When I was pregnant and first started taking an interest in little people and life around little people, I never understood why parents always -- unfailingly -- gave their child(ren)'s age(s) in months. Why all that precision? Isn't "a little over one" good enough for a 14 month old? But then, when I saw how much of a difference each month started making in Devin's development, I understood. A one year old is NOTHING like a fourteen-month-old. Despite this fact, though, I still find it hard to keep track of the months. I think I lost track at about....18 months. Or, a year and a half.

This is the long way of saying that I've SLACKED OFF on updating his monthly blog. I went from daily to weekly to monthly posts, and now I've missed...(how many, can't calculate)...months. During this time, he's changed tremendously. He's become more communicative (loud), expressive (frustrated and whiney), and physically agile (bruised). Life has been fun.

This weekend he started feeding himself with a fork and spoon. Literally. A fork in one hand, a spoon in the other, and simultaneously shoveling the food into his mouth with both. I used to worry because we were really into the habit of having to distract him with a toy or some gadget to feed him. Dinnertime was becoming absurd as we'd have to find something new to capture his attention so he'd open his mouth for us to shovel in the food. One night it would be a clothes pin, the next night we'd go hunting through the apartment and pull out a can opener for him to play with. Then it was the telephone. A flash drive (that held the chapters of my dissertation), the camcorder. Each meal, the obsession for novelty escalated. Until we got to the lava lamp. That's when we hung our heads and admitted to having a problem.

He always wanted to do something with his hands, and now I am so pleased that he can use those hands to FEED HIMSELF (and he eats faster, too)! I hope the novelty doesn't wear off soon for him, but...it probably will. Over the past week, he's also become skilled at drinking out of a regular cup (no sippy, no cover, no straw). He can even do it while walking across the living room carpet, without spilling a single drop. Now, *that's* something to boast about.


His favorite activity these days is to run around the apartment and point out all the things for which he has vocabulary. He often goes around like he owns the place, pointing and saying, "couch," "chair," "door," "TV," "Dada," "Go-Go" (Lucy)....and eventually, "Dunno." when he gets to something he doesn't know. In fact, "dunno" is one of his favorite words. When he's mysteriously disappeared around the corner, and everything seems dangerously silent in the apartment, we ask, "Devin...Where are you! What are you doing?"

"Dunno."