Developmental update

Reed (almost 16 months): walking well, occasionally running, can go up and down stairs with amazing ease and speed. Still sometimes crawls to get somewhere fast. Talks a lot: ball, up, out, hat, down, walk, bottle (as in water bottle), num-nums (as in breastfeeding), eat, mama, dada, book, milk, dessert ("sert"), fork ("fuck"), car, penis are just the ones I can think of quickly. He understands so so many more than that. I can really have a conversation now where I understand what he wants to do. He loves to take walks and the way he tells us that is that he walks over to where the Ergo baby carrier is hanging on the coat rack, and tugs on it while saying "walk". He also loves stroller rides but is not a fan of his car seat. He mostly eschews baby toys but loves playing with his big brothers' cars, trucks, airplanes, and markers (markers often go in the mouth). Reed just started at daycare this week and seems to be doing well there. He's going through something of a sleep regression at home, waking up frequently and seeming unsettled, but he has like six teeth breaking through slowly so it's hard to fault him.

Theo (5): just finished up a five-week-long Irish Dance for beginners class, once a week. He loved observing the class before we signed up but then was sometimes reticent about actually going. Once there he loved putting on his dance shoes and joining the other students to learn the steps. After finishing the last class, he asked when he could do it again, which confounds me given how much complaining/refusing he did during the session he did. Wonders about existential issues like why there are people in public places and asks questions I do not even begin to understand. Enjoys drawing and coloring. Theo tends to be more conciliatory and say things that are kind or even bordering on condescending, especially when directed to Beckett or us, like congratulating us on moving our game piece forward in CandyLand or throwing our trash away. He also seems to get over relatively minor inconveniences or misfortunes easier than Beckett, though he has a harder time just asking for what he wants and instead often takes the very long road of complaining about something to no one in particular and saying he wishes things were different and then looking meaningfully at me like, if only you had the power to change this, mama.

Beckett: is getting bored at home after a summer of mostly unstructured time. He does so well in a teacher-student relationship at school or at home, and he can be my most helpful and cooperative buddy around the house or doing things together, especially if he is on his own and not with Theo. His vocabulary is vast and he loves to figure out the meaning of new words. Beckett has been more hesitant about writing and coloring lately. We think that Theo has told Beckett that Beckett is not as good at coloring/drawing than he is, and that this has made Beckett embarrassed about his abilities as compared to Theo. He does not like to compete and lose. Beckett also just lost the first tooth of the family, as a result of a fall. The tooth came clear out, and he was visited by the tooth fairy.