How does such a little guy appear to be such a big boy?

Since Robert has started walking everywhere he goes, he's gotten a new perspective and so have I. He now walks up to me, but keeps enough distance from my legs so he can tilt his head back to see me without toppling over. It seems like a small thing, but the lack of ankle clinging is a nice bonus to the walking stage. For some reason, when he looks up at me from his new position, with his blue eyes he looks so much older. Yet, he's so petite that he barely reaches my knee. He stands there as if he's a grown man and awaits my answers with those puppy dog eyes, but he's not even 3 feet tall. I still have to stoop to pat the top of his head.

My favorite recent change is that he has adopted a plethora of new words in the last two weeks, including complete sentences. He's probably learned 40-50 words and phrases in the last 2 weeks for a total of about a 100. His newest word-game is to ask for a sandwich. We've eaten a lot of sandwiches while Doug has been away and he's learned the word very well. Now he asks, in experimental tones, for sandwiches around the clock. He looks at me with a tilted head, wiggles his eyebrows and shows his sideways grin, and says, "Sanweesh?" He answers his own question with a sweet little nod that says, "come on, you know you wanna give me a sandwich." If that doesn't work, he tests out the demanding whine. "I want a sandweesh!!" After a cocked eyebrow from me, he reverts back to the cuteness of nodding and smiling. It's no surprise to me that a great percentage of his vocabulary is food related. Sandwich, apple, grapes, banana, cheese, chicken, ucky, mmmMMMMmmm... He's all about the food. The next great category of verbiage is toys. Car, cow, book, ball, balloon, hat, color, dog... The next most frequent category has to do with Daddy. Where is he? What's he doing? How did he get there? What's he wearing? Is he sleeping? Daddy is about action and going places. Mommy is about sandwiches.

A new world has opened up for Robert and he is far more relational than before, too. He says all of our names now, except for William, whom he calls "brother." He calls himself Bobby. This little boy is making a big place for himself in our family. He's the joy of my day, most days.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I want a sandweesh.

We have a walker!!

Robert is walking! He finally did it on his 18 month birthday (today). The past couple of days have been a lot of practice for him with a lot of crawling still. But, today, he's walking around and when he falls, every 10-20 steps, he stands up again and walks. He's so proud of himself. We'll be capturing some video soon of this early, wobbly, high-knee stage. He's really adorable toddling around, walking his diaper to the trash, etc.

Hooray! He finally did it!