this boy.

Sooooo happy in the water!

Lots of people ask me how old Dane is. 

(I think that's just what people say when they want to talk to you about your kid but aren't sure how else to start a conversation with you.)

When they ask me how old Dane is, lately I've started saying, "Almost two." He is twenty-one months, aka 1 3/4, aka ALMOST TWO.

The last month or so, he has really started to act less and less like a baby and more and more like a real toddler. He has always had strong opinions, but all of a sudden he's started to be VERY INSISTENT on those opinions and gets very upset if we don't follow them. The temper tantrums have increased. Just the last week or two he's learned to argue "I do" or "Dane"--he wants to do everything by himself and whines until we stop helping him so he can do it himself. 

For heaven's sake, he can JUMP now! He actually leaves the ground (just a few centimeters, but still)! This is a huge milestone that really makes him seem OLD to me. He is sitting in his crib right now saying "Dane jump" and jumping in his crib. 

He loves to say prayers and always wants to kneel down. If you forget to kneel, he'll ask "on knees?" And he loves to yell "AMEN" at the end of every prayer, even in church.

He says full-on sentences. Today he said, "I want more crackers PLEASE." (After being prompted for the "please.") He is a non-stop chatterbox, talking all the time. It is so cute to hear him putting words together. And how did he learn the past tense? In the car today he kept saying "I drove. I drove. I drove." The other morning he woke up and said, "Daddy, I sleep! I sleep! I SLEPT!" I don't even know when we've said those words to him. He loves talking about our "new house" and talks about his friends in Durham all the time still, but I think he really understands that he's not going to see them again. He always says things like "Asher... Kai... bye bye"--talking about how he said good-bye to his friends.

He is suddenly, randomly, full-blown obsessed with Thomas the Train. I am kind of unsure how it started. A few things: a silent clip that we downloaded from Youtube onto our Kindle to entertain him on the plane, a set of hand-me-down Thomas pajamas we pulled out a few days ago, and a random Thomas book I got at the thrift store--and BOOM. He all of a sudden LOVES Thomas and talks about "TobasTrain" all the time. And wants to re-read that one book over and over and over. It is so, so cute and makes me want to run out and buy every Thomas toy and show and book out there (but I won't because I am too cheap). 

His other obsession: Lion King and Simba. (More understandable--we let him watch it about three times in a row while driving and unpacking and moving, and he watches the Hakuna Matata clip all the time.) He likes us to lift him up and say "Simba!" like below:

He is obsessed with swimming (the reason why all the pictures in this post feature him in the water). If you mention "swimming" or "pool" or "beach" you'd better be ready for him to run looking for his swimsuit. He is still obsessed with his Daddy, and it's gotten even worse (if even possible) lately. He won't let me read him books or put him to bed ever, and sometimes will yell, "No, Daddy!" when I try to hand him food or toys (like he only will accept offerings from Daddy and not Mama). He is going to have a HUGE rude awakening when Tommy has to go away to work every single day.

He LOVED being in California with my family this last week. He's been talking about "Bandon" and "Ausin" and "Meel"--all his aunts and uncles. He loves being there and commanding them and making them follow him around. He's a big tease and will ignore people when they are trying to get his attention (especially Bethany). He is too smart for his own good (and for ours).