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"Does he go up and down stairs okay?"

"Oh, yes, of course. Actually, he jumps down the stairs."

A cocked eyebrow. "Jumps?"

"Yes, he jumps down each step. When he hits the bottom, he either falls down on the floor in a heap of giggles, or usually he throws his hands up in the air like a gymnast who just stuck the landing. He can jump up and down on the bed, too."

"Both feet off the ground?"

"Yup."

"That's rather..." a long pause as he struggles to find the words, "advanced. Anything else he can do? How's his vocabulary? Does he put together two and three word sentences?"

"Four words, actually. And he has a wicked arm, as several of us have found out when we were on the receiving end of some toy he's thrown at us."

"Watch him. You don't want to end up in the ER, and his understanding is far behind his ability to understand the risks."

"We kinda don't know how we haven't been there already. He's just trying to keep up with his big brother and sisters; he doesn't know he's not big like them."
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"Mom! See this tower I built? It's an owd tower, from back before Granddaddy died, and when he died and went up to heaven it all fell down, but now I rebuilded it."

She sits in front of our dollhouse, duplo creations on every floor, with small pieces of play money in front of each one.

"This one? This is a flower tree. And this one is a owd owd cabin from when I was owd, way back when I was borned, when I was a baby. This one is Granddaddy. This one is a tweehouse."

I marvel that somehow, a year and a half after my grandfather died, over a third of her life ago, she is still, somewhere, processing things, and I start to ask her if she wants to talk about Granddaddy, if she's sad, and she interrupts me.

"Smell that, Mom? I faaawted." She giggles like it's the funniest thing ever.

Alrighty then. I guess it is the funniest thing ever.

Comments

[hokgardner]

My son can go up and down stairs and jump with both feet of the ground and run and gallop and all that stuff. But he still doesn't have many words. It's driving me crazy. He's getting frustrated, too, when we don't understand what he wants just based on his pointing and grunting. Our doc said not to worry yet, but still . . .

[angi]

LOL, sounds just like at my house :)

I noticed when Ava started jumping too, and thought it was much too early. It is hard not to compare, but Zander was so lazy I don't think he could jump until he was three!

[BananaBlueberry]

That's the advantage to having brothers and sisters :)
Good work Mom !