June 2012: 21 months

Dear Patrick, here are some notes from the month:

• “Gummies please” you said the other day from your car-seat while your father and I were driving. “We don’t have anymore gummies, Patrick.” After a moment, this little voice from the back said, “Buy some.”
• You call the stuffed lion (a gift from you Uncle Michael) in your room “Waggy.”  Awesome nickname.
• “This is butterfly.  This is apple,” you say now.  Well, this is a big step as you start to add articles of speech to your vocabulary.  
• You like to count, and you try to do it very fast - all the way to 14...only skipping a few numbers along the way.
• We took you to your first baseball game at the Drive Stadium this month.  You liked playing with the folding seat more than watching the players. 
• Sometimes you wake up from a long night of sleep, and you look just like Gene Wilder - in hair only.
• When Jono and Jen came to Greenville this month for Jackson’s baby shower, you seemed to understand there was a baby in Jen’s belly.  I have a sweet photo of you outside of Soby’s restaurant as we waited for our brunch table that Sunday morning.  You put your hand on Jen’s tummy and said hello to your cousin for the first time.
• “Here comes the milk,” you said as you walked your sippy cup up the plank of the toy bus.
• We dug potatoes in the Howell's garden this month.  I was definitely more excited than you about uncovering “easter eggs” hidden in the dirt.  
• You do not like when Robin Hood is captured, or when the rat appears in Lady and the Tramp.  At those times in the videos, you run out of your room and down the hall to look for help.  
• You woke up at 4:00am in the morning crying on 6/23 and your father and I had no idea what was wrong - you never do that.  But as you held my hand and dragged me to the kitchen for “milk and cheese balls,” we learned you were just hungry!  (As an aside, we do feed you - you are just a growing boy this month!)  Then, after your snack, you went right back to sleep without a peep.
• Your “fort” is under the dining room table.  You invite everyone to crawl on their hands and knees and join you. 
• You went to your first day of school this month.  The teachers say you are very “verbal” and “can be reasoned with.”  (They did not say genius, but I think we can obviously assume they are thinking it.) Apparently, you get a little sad right when Gangie drops you off, but Ms. Debbie says you recover quickly.  She also asked that we pack you more food for lunch.  (I swear we feed you.) 
• You can barely walk under the island in the kitchen without bumping your head. 
• You made your father a frame at school for Father’s Day.  It was a cowboy theme, with your little green fingerprints making cactus and you dressed in a straw hat and bandana in the photo.  Your father keeps it by the sink in the bathroom so he can see his little cowboy first thing each morning.
• You tee-teed in the potty this month -- or as you say, "make bubbles in the water."  
• You threw blocks inside while we were playing one evening - after I warned you not to do it...so they were taken away.  There were a lot of tears initially but you haven’t done it again since.  We don’t give into whining.  
• You love your Winnie the Pooh book - the one Omi and Pop read to you.  We can hear their voices.  I like it too.  "Oh, baaa-thaaa" says Pooh (aka Pop).
• Annual beach trip with Sharon & Big Mitchell, Nannie & Papa, cousins and aunts and uncles was this month for a whole week.  Your father and I don’t know the details - only that you came home very happy, and that's enough for us.

I love you so much sweet boy,
Mom