17 months

Dear Collin-
You are now 17 months old, just a brief wink away from a year and a half. In so many ways 17 months is such a brief period of time, less than three semester, shorter than the time it takes to get a degree, barely time to age a bottle of wine, and as Daddy and I think about how brief 17 months really is, its amazing to realize you've been in our lives on for such a brief period of time, but added such fantastic riches and developed so much that its literally difficult to image what our lives were like without you.
Between 12 and 17 months so much has happened, and while I haven't had time to blog about it all on a monthly basis, its not that we missed the events. In fact, we've reveled in your accomplishments. Shortly after you turned one, at about 14 months, you took off walking and soon after were running. This opened a tremendous amount of doors for you, as you were quick to gather that being mobile meant access to a lot of new things. At 15 months you started to exert independence- tackling whatever you could on your own. In September you started ECFE and began to pick up on the language your little peers used. Soon after school started we heard you start to use the word "mine", which was both a bit unsettling and exciting at the same time, you were picking up so much in your environment, but we couldn't quite be sure it was language we wanted you to use :)
At about 15 months you started what we call a word explosion, saying, labeling and trying to imitate every word we use. You adamantly use "yes" and shake your head in agreement often, you also sign please for nearly everything you can, even when we're not sure what it is you want. Soon after learning please you became fluent in signing thank you and show off your manners and accompanying skills frequently.
Words you love to use are doggie, daddy, momma, nice, enough, car (vroom, vroom), and many MANY more. You really are like a little fountain of vocabulary. Its particularly funny when you say "enough" as you've watched me say it to the dog so many times that you are as nearly as emphatic as I am when saying it. I often say, Samson, ENOUGH! when he's barking like a crazy animal- and now Collin says "ENOUGH".
Around the same time you've learned how to used refined gross motor skills to get what you want. You can climb on your play set independently, including the ladder to the tree-house(which gives me a minor heart attack to see you do), you love to swing on the swings and climb up and down the slide. You also wander through the yard picking up the frisbees to throw to Samson or pointing on the piles of dog poo for Daddy to pick up.
You're obsessed with the lawn mower and love to watch Daddy mow the grass every weekend. You stand in the front window and watch him go back and forth across the grass and clap in amazement of the lawnmower.

Speaking of spending time with daddy, you've gotten more and more attached to him and love to be near him when he's using tools. You admire his screw drivers and drills always watching contently as he uses them to hang things up or make home repairs. You enjoy your afternoons with daddy, frequently going to the park or playing outside.

As you've continued to grow and develop we've enjoyed seeing your personality continue to blossom. You continue to be such a cuddly little boy, blowing kisses and offering hugs without restraint. You still hold books near and dear to your heart- you love the library, playing in the story hour room and checking out board books by the half-dozen every week.
Your personality is coming through in other parts of your routine as well, you are much more persistent about what you eat now, trying to let us know exactly what you like and don't like. Mostly veering far away from vegetables and things with new or unique textures. You continue to love most fruits and cheeses and dairy, and surprisingly, even though we've tried to keep your sugar intake limited, you love it. You have your daddy's sweet tooth and always head toward the sweeter treats- honey graham crackers, honey butter and bread and A strawberry walks into a bar treats.
You are a fantastic sleeper, you continue to go down by 7 pm and wake up sometime between 7:30 and 8 am everyday. Most recently you've made your naps particularly long, 3.5 hours or so, making us think your heading through yet another growth spurt.
You watch small babies with amazement every chance you can and when we talk about the new baby coming to our home you're able to point to him in my belly and repeat his name. We're anxious and excited for this new part of your life, but also a bit heartbroken that our time will have to be shared between two amazing little boys, instead of just one.

For so long we anticipated looking back at how you've developed-enamored with your ability to do so much in such a brief period of time, and now I can't believe I wanted to be able to take such a perspective as it really means that you're not a baby anymore, you're quite a little boy. You epitomize "boy", in love with all things rugged and related to tools, ready to play in water or sand or both at any given moment and anxious to explore the world by running toward it.

I'm not exactly sure how our life will change when the baby arrives, but I do know that I'm taking these last few months in as deep reassuring breaths that you'll enjoy every minute leading up to the baby's arrival, sucking up every ounce of attention and love we can offer. At 17 months you're taking strides as a little boy- attending school, making friends and becoming an independent amazing life explorer.

We love you, and are trying desperately to you slow you down so we can capture your adorable nature and inquisitiveness every moment of every day.

Love
Momma and Daddy