Upwardly mobile young men

Well the clumsy first few weeks of motherhood all seem like a distant memory (I won't put a link there because I just don't want to go there).

These days motherhood is quite different. We have a little boy who is cheeky, gives us impish grins before embarking on something he knows he shouldn't. He will cuddle on occasion, but now I mostly get cuddles when I have to carry him through crowded or dangerous places, and he decides he has a better view up high.

He sings (often a song that goes like this: "doidey doidey doi!"), he babbles, but occasionally it sounds like something in context (e.g "Open the box?", "read-a-book?"), and he uses plenty of single words e.g. bubble, Daddy, water, shoe, car, pole, tree, hat, dog, ball, book, banana. He understands plenty more, and we can ask him simple questions and get either a shake of the head or a look of vague interest in reply. Some words have multiple meanings - e.g. "shoe" is not just a noun. It accompanies him getting his shoes and dumping them at my feet, dropping a massive hint that he wants to go outside. Then he gets my shoes and does the same (he knows which shoes are whose!), and maybe even his hat!

And he sleeps - mostly through the night, and mostly once a day for a good 2 hours. Sometimes he even voluntarily takes himself off to bed. And he sleeps in travel cots and at child care. And in the car and pram if the time is right, staying asleep as I pick him up, snoring away on my shoulder.

He walks around with his hands on his hips, in the air, or behind his back, as if he hasn't worked out how to swing them casually yet. He stumbles into a little run, and falls over less and less. He stops and squats and plays with puddles and leaves, and looks up at adults walking past and waves "ayooo!". He falls over and gets bruises and cuts, he wails for a bit and lets us pick him up and kiss and cuddle him, then he either gets distracted by something, or his cries settle down to a few big huffs of breath. He's stopped liking baths and started taking showers.

He smiles at us winningly. He bosses us around, and tells us we should put our oven mit back on its hook! He eats many things, but most things he'll refuse at first (with the exception of banana, most other fruit, yoghurt). He is able to feed himself for a bit, until he starts to lose interest part way through the meal. He loves it when we all sit down together to eat, and his head turns around from side to side, to grin at me or his father in turn.

If you can't read between the lines, I'm loving it!