this and that

I'm here with a belated thank you to everyone who talked me off the ledge after my last post. I'll fill you in on how the story ended: My friend and I discussed the situation very briefly during the only time we saw each other (a couple of days later) but I was still too bound up emotionally to express much of anything. Then she went out of town for a few days. When she returned, I brought it up again and confessed that my feelings were hurt that we talk so openly about so much and yet she'd kept this from me, and also that I knew I was probably being paranoid, but I was worried about what her keeping it from me meant in the grand scheme of things. She swore up and down that it meant nothing; that she hadn't had a chance to tell anyone about it before her friend (now business partner) launched their website, not even her husband. I'm choosing to believe her because she's a good friend and I want to be over this. Here's hoping I'm not about to be knocked out by the Other Shoe on it's way down.

Honestly, the situation was eclipsed by a bigger, scarier WTF, but I'm filing it in the unbloggable folder for now. Mostly because I'd like my blog to be something other than long periods of neglect punctuated by complaints. Bor-ring.

So in the yay column: Elliot rocks my world. I realize I've said this every month since, like, month 5 but... 16 months old is totally my favorite time!! His sense of humor is really starting to come out and he's just so darn sweet, when he's not throwing himself on the floor and screaming until he can't breathe, but as long as I'm in the right mood, I even find that kind of cute. (C'mon, how do you not laugh when a child acts like you've removed a limb without anesthesia because you tell him he can't wear your adult-sized shoes to school?) M teases him about his low standards because he pronounces "Ta Da!" at full volume and thrusts both arms out to the side when he does something as impressive as stack a single block on top of another. He can point out his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, chin, head and tummy and tell us what a cow, sheep or duck says. Oh, and a rooster, if you count "doo-d'doo," which we do, because we have low standards too. :-) He's just a cool little dude.

Oh, this is sort of old news but I don't think I've posted this here before: I LOVE that he can walk. More experienced moms had me all freaked out about the walking stage: "Oh, you think he's tough now. Just wait until he's walking!" and "Don't encourage him to walk. He'll do it soon enough on his own and then you'll be in a world of trouble!" Well I'm here to file a complaint against that craziness. Stationary to crawling was a much bigger adjustment. I don't think he moves any faster walking than he did crawling but (a) I don't have to worry about his hands and knees getting dirty and/or torn up on questionable surfaces and (b) he can actually cover ground on his own now which is helpful if we need or want him to and (c) it makes him happy. He can get things for himself now which makes it easier to meet his needs than ever before. Sure we have to chase him around, but we were doing that when he was crawling and we weren't enjoying any of the "trade off" benefits of his independent ambulation. It's nice that when my arms are full of crap in the morning, we can make a single trip to the car because he can get there on his own two feet. It's nice that we can ask him to go get a pair of shoes from his room and he does it. We play the "take this to your Mom" game all the time - cute and functional. All this is to say that walking is good stuff in my book, so if you've had people tell you otherwise, please add these two cents to the mix.

It's been ages since I posted any pictures, so here are a few so you can see what a KID he's turned into lately:

most recent "bear" pic - 16 months

Fourth of July

last pro photo session - 15 months