Bonnie & Clyve: Emmett at 13 Months

Billy is currently doing an audition rotation in Casper, Wyoming. They let him stay for free at the hospital, so it didn’t make sense for me and Emmett to come with him. Emmett and I are currently staying with my parents in northern Virginia. Without very much housework to do (my parents have cleaners come once a week) or cooking to do (they also let me hop on their HelloFresh plan) I have had literally nothing to do except play with Emmett. I was all excited for this little break so I could catch up on my photo books (I try to make one every year, but the last one I made was in 2015), write lots of blog posts, and study for the CPA exam. So far, all I’ve managed to do is start re-watching Mad Men (and I already managed to make it through season 4!) There’s something about having absolutely nothing to do that makes me the most unproductive bum. Although, I must say, it’s been very nice to not feel guilty about reading books or watching Netflix during nap time. All parents know that it’s the worst feeling in the world when you realize you got absolutely nothing done during the nap. But, I don’t have anything to feel guilty about now.

Emmett is also loving it here. My parents’ house is like a dream come true for grandkids of all ages. There’s a playground, fire pit, golf cart, baby pool, and 9 acres to explore. Inside they have a chalkboard wall, coloring room, a basketball arcade game, and a dress up room also filled with giant stuffed animals. My sisters have also given me lots of their old baby toys for Emmett to play with. Plus, he gets to see his cousins multiple times a week, and Granddad and Sue Sue every day, so he has been in heaven here. Although, this grandkid dreamland doesn’t make up for the fact that we miss Billy like crazy.

I haven’t done an update on Emmett since he was 9 months, and I feel like there’s way too much for me to catch up on. When he went from 10 to 11 months, I feel like that was the biggest change. He became his own little person with likes and dislikes (meaning he started to throw tantrums). But that’s when I really felt he wasn’t a little baby anymore, he was becoming a toddler. And now he learns something new everyday. He’s so observant and eager to learn and I love his little personality. Here are some things that I want to remember about Emmett at 12 and 13 months (this is also where the non-family members should probably stop reading):

He throws his hands straight up in the air whenever something happens with a ball—on the screen or in person. It all started while watching Bryce Harper make his huge comeback at the Home Run Derby. I think my dad is more proud of this fact than the fact that we named Emmett after him. If there is any type of ball game on, he will just sit and watch it with us. I feel like usually kids only watch if there’s a kids show on, but he is just as excited about ball games. He’ll point at the TV and then raise his hands in the air to tell us he wants to watch a ball game. He was definitely born into the right family!

He loves to do the motions for the Itsy Bitsy spider. We were shocked when we realized he was doing all the motions with us out of nowhere. And also a little nervous, because what else is he watching us do?

He finally says mama (usually only when he’s whining for me). He has already been saying dada since he was 6 months old. And even though Billy has been gone for almost a month, he still says Dada 100x more than Mama. He also says shit. Most people’s children say uh-oh! when they drop something or get hurt. My child says shit, of course! He also says stop, stop Ari, shhh, milk, yep, yeah, nap, no, hi, and wow. If you’re really lucky, he’ll respond to your “I love you” with “I yuh you”. Although nobody besides me or Billy would be able to understand any of the words except stop and wow. He doesn’t do any of his sign language anymore. We keep trying to re-teach him the signs, but once he figured out that we could semi-understand what he wanted by his pointing or his “words”, he hasn’t done them since. He can understand pretty much everything I say to him now. The other day, I asked him to put something in the trash to see if he even knew what that was. He immediately grabbed it and walked over to the trash can! He then threw the wrapper on the floor next to the trash can, but it was close enough for me.

He looooves dogs. My parents have a Yorkshire terrier and a red and white Irish setter and he asks to go play with them all day long. If he even hears the tinkle of their collars or their movements he starts making his dog noises. Which is very similar to his duck noise. Both of them sound like he’s trying to clear a fur ball from his throat. I feel like he’s either a genius (because he sounds more like a dog than “woof, woof” does) or he isn’t very smart cause he can’t figure out how to say it properly. He’s gotten a lot better at understanding he needs to be soft with them. Although, he’ll still get really excited and sometimes can’t control the aggression of his “petting”. He thinks the dogs that are smaller than him are hilarious. The other day, I heard him in the other room just laughing hysterically. I go to see what he’s laughing at and he’s looking out the window at Rudy (my parents’ Yorkie) and laughing at the way he runs.

Whenever music comes on, whether it be over the radio, from one of his toys, a commercial on TV, or a cellphone ringtone, he starts wiggling his booty. He’ll throw his hands up and move them around in the air. His moves are killer and it makes me laugh every single time.

He’s very good with lots of animal noises. He knows what a lion says, what a tiger says, what a bear says, and what a dinosaur says. Ok, so those are all the same noises, but at least he’s accurate. He also says “tweet, tweet” for birds, “sssss” for snakes, and “blub” for fish. He’s started saying “moo” for cows, which kind of sounds more like “boo”, but it’s close enough for us! And he does a halfway decent monkey. We didn’t even realize he had all these tricks until he was watching his show, Little Baby Bum one day and one of the songs says “Can you hiss like a snake?” and he started hissing! We were shocked and started asking him what the other animals are in the song and he knew them! We asked him “can you roar like a lion?” and he opened his mouth all big to roar and a tiny little throat tickle came out. But at least he was trying. And now I let him watch all the TV he wants because I swear it teaches him more than I could. Little Baby Bum also taught him where his head, nose, mouth, and toes are. We taught him where his belly button was and how to hold one finger up when we ask “How old are you?” So Little Baby Bum is still in the lead. If he wins the Nobel Prize, I’ll credit Netflix.

He thinks our nephew Mac and our niece Mary Grace are both hilarious. They can get him to do a belly laugh easier than anyone. They are both 10 years old, so I’m wondering if there’s something about the age? The other nieces and nephews try to do the same exact things that Mac and Mary Grace do, but he just stares at them like they’re crazy. And then immediately goes back to belly laughing at whatever Mac or Mary Grace are doing.

He walks all over the place now. He took his first steps a couple weeks before he turned 1, but then he didn’t really start walking everywhere until about 13 months. Everyone warned me that it would be really hard, but I think it has made things a million times easier. He is content to just walk around and explore and play by himself. Right before he could walk, he wanted me to help him walk around all day but then he would get so angry and frustrated that he couldn’t do it himself. He was the same way when learning to crawl—just so easily frustrated. But now he’ll entertain himself just by throwing a ball around all day. He throws it, then walks over to it, squats to pick it up, then throws it again. Occasionally he’ll yell at me to come get the ball out of some hard to reach place he’s put it. He is obsessed with any type of ball. He even gets excited at seeing apples or watermelon or peaches. Because he thinks they are a new ball he can play with.

He also falls a lot now that he’s walking around so much. But he’s really tough. As long as he doesn’t hit his head, he gets back up and keeps walking. Even when he hits his head he’ll just cry a bit so I’ll acknowledge it. He grabs his head to show me he bonked and then wants to be put back down to get back to playing. He has all sorts of bruises all over his face from running into things or from falling down. Billy’s going to think that single parenting really set me over the edge when he gets back.

He likes to get into mischief, but not too much. He likes to play with my parents’ dishes, and I heard them clinking around and knew he was playing with something that was breakable. So I came over and asked “what are you doing?” He hurriedly closed the cabinet door and walked away with a guilty little grin. He knows exactly what he’s doing and that he’s not supposed to do it. He'll also come hand me things that he knows he's not supposed to have--like my phone and pens and remotes. But then he yells at me when I don't give them back to him. His weird little personality makes me laugh all day long.

He is super picky about food. He mostly only eats carbs and cheese which is all I ate while pregnant with him, so it’s kind of my own fault. He used to hate all fruits, but now he’ll eat lots of different fruits. So I’m hoping one day the same thing will happen with vegetables, but I probably won’t hold my breath over it. For now, he gets all of his veggies from either veggie straws (that counts, right?) or the baby food pouches. It's almost as if he won't eat anything unless it comes out of a package. It actually drives me crazy how picky he is. Although, one of the benefits of having a picky eater is that I don't have to worry about him putting weird things in his mouth. He's really good about that. Except he likes dog food, but that won't kill him, right?

He has so many weird little expressions. He'll do a funny drawn out gasp sometimes just to make me laugh. If someone coughs, he fake coughs after them and then smiles like he's in on the joke. My dad and he like to fake laugh back and forth at each other. Sometimes when he's frustrated he'll clench his fists and his teeth together and shake. His face turns red and he'll hold his breath for a good 3 seconds. But then other times he'll do the same thing just to laugh at my reaction. Whenever he's ready for a nap or for bed, he gets super slaphappy. He'll just belly laugh at anything and everything. It makes it really hard to want to put him to bed because he gets more and more hilarious. Then, when I ask him "do you wanna go take a nap?", he says "yeah." And he starts spazzing out flapping his arms as soon as I put him in his sleep sack. He actually gets excited to go to sleep. Must be my child.

I have a trick that I do when changing his diaper to get him to hold still. It only works about 50% of the time, but I start counting to ten. He loves the anticipation, I guess? And lately he has started saying "six" and he yells "ten!" at the end*.

*It's most like "ses" and "teh".

Ever since we've been in Virginia, whenever he needs some love, he'll walk over to me, put his head in my lap and go "mmmm" in a high-pitched voice. It kills me every time. He has also started resting his head on my shoulder whenever I'm singing his bedtime song (Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star). I think I feel the worst about Billy missing this cuddly side of him, because all Billy has ever wanted in life is a child who will hug him and snuggle him.

The boy has got a lot of emotions and he doesn't hide them well. But we wouldn't have it any other way.

He is obsessed with my parents’ golf cart. My dad takes him on a ride every night, rain or shine. It’s gotten to the point where we can’t even say “golf cart” in front of him, or else he will get his hopes up and cry when he realizes we aren’t going on a ride. Kind of like how you can’t say “walk” in front of dogs. The other day, he started yelling at me and pointing to where my parents keep their keys. I didn’t know what he was saying, so I picked him up and took him over by it to see what he wanted. He immediately grabbed the key for the golf cart and then pointed for me to take him outside. I didn’t even know he knew what the key looked like! And if we go on a ride and it’s not long enough for his liking, he’ll start bawling his eyes out. And of course my dad will give in and take him around the yard again. His reaction whenever we pull the key out now is pure, uncontrollable excitement. He gets his really nervous, impatient laugh like he can’t even wait another second to get in the golf cart.

It’s been so fun living with my parents and seeing Emmett’s growing relationship with them. I worried that living in Chicago, he wouldn’t know his family very well since he only saw them a few times a year. So, it’s been the best to see him with my parents. He lights up when he sees them in the morning and kisses them good night every night. He also waves bye whenever they leave the room. Whenever he sees my dad, he always does his dog noise, either because he recognizes that my dad is in charge of the dogs, or because he’s asking him to take him to see the dogs. Whenever he sees my mom, he raises his hands up in the air, since they always watch the Nats games together. He loves all his cousins and aunts and uncles too. It was a rough go with his cousins at first because they all wanted to hold him and snuggle him, right when he was learning to walk. So once they figured out that he was fine walking around on his own and he needed space, they’ve all become the best of friends (although Ari could live without him).

We love our Emmett baby and the little boy he’s turning into!