Mom Badge

Benji the Wunderkind

January 22, 2018 / Tara / 0 Comments

So, I haven’t written in a while. I’ve been a little busy. As you may have seen or heard, baby Benji is WALKING. I find this both unfair and unacceptable. Ok, that’s kind of harsh. Obviously, I’m thrilled that he’s developing just the way he should. But he kind of missed the memo that he’s my last baby and I wanted him to say baby-ish for, I don’t know, at least a year. Instead, he seems to be made of pure determination. And chunky tree trunk thighs.

This early walking thing means I spend everyday juggling the demands of a high-needs toddler and the world’s tiniest mobile person who wants nothing more in this life than to eat electrical cords. I mentioned he’s determined, right? That special quality of his inspired us to rename the dog bowl, the lamp cord and the bathroom the “Triangle of Terror” because he spends all his waking hours trying to assault them. The phrase “No, Benji. No wires.” has zero effect. All our barricades and baby proofing have been breached. Not only that, but when he succeeds, he just looks at us and smiles. Needless to say, I’m tired.

But the craziest thing about Benji the walking wunderkind is taking him out in public. He straight up freaks people out. Everytime I set him down and he takes off, someone inevitably asks, “How OLD is he?!” or “How long has he been walking?!” When I tell them he’s been cruisin’ since 8 months old, the shock only deepens. Admittedly, watching something that tiny walk around like it’s no big deal is bizarre to witness.

I’ll keep the conclusion to this post simple. He better use his professional athlete money to buy his momma a beach house.

Check out this fly guy.

Adios, Bouncy Chair

July 18, 2017 / Tara / 0 Comments

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Benji boy is a challenge when it comes to sleep. I mean, I guess he hasn’t really been given a fair shake at it. Basically from the moment he was born, Peter and I held him while he slept. It was part survival for us (held babies don’t cry as much and don’t wake up their big brother) and part survival for him (held babies don’t get stomped and “loved” on as much by their big brother). Also, this is very, very likely my last baby and I wanted to make sure I got all the snuggles I could. Because my 3-year-old often stares at me down and tells me, “Don’t look at me, mommy!” Which is kind of the total opposite of baby snuggles.

To make matters worse, he had acid reflux (still does). Which basically means he wouldn’t sleep flat on his back because a river of bile came flooding up his esophagus. TMI? Perhaps. But it’s true. So, after about six weeks of taking turns holding the baby at night, we noticed that he would take naps in this bouncy chair we had. So, one brave evening, we decided to try having him sleep in it at night. And it worked.

It REALLY worked.

It worked until it didn’t. Benji, ever the bright eyed enthusiast, decided he would start rolling the day he turned 3 months old. Which meant no more swaddling — and no more bouncy chair. That night, after the super exhausting bounce house birthday party for Elliott, we tried putting him in his crib, un-swaddled. Disaster doesn’t even cover how it went. After the first half hour, he was awake every 10 minutes unless someone was holding him. It was like we were all the way back at square one. At about 11:30 p.m., Peter and I threw in the towel. He was back in the swaddle, and back in the bouncy chair.

We all slept (sort of). Me, I mostly jumped at every tiny sound, thinking the baby had tossed himself out of the chair and onto the hardwood floors, causing irreparable damage. But, he didn’t. And I started to think he’d be in that chair, wrapped like a mummy, until he was 18. Which is dumb, of course, but try explaining that to a sleep deprived mom who’s topped off with baby hormones.

Anyway, just when I thought he’d be in the chair for life, he up and changed his mind. He decided the swaddle was a form of torture and that sleeping at a 45 degree angle was for old men in La-Z-Boys. Pretty much overnight. So, about two weeks after the first crib-at-night fiasco, we tried it again. And it worked.

Of course babies are nuts, and just as I was celebrating our tiny victory, the 4 month sleep regression hit, and he was up every 1.5 hours/2 hours. But whatever. I can at least say that the bouncy chair has become simply a place to chill, like it should be.

Oddly enough, Elliott hated this chair.

The two weeks where life tried to take me out

July 10, 2017 / Tara / 0 Comments

Now that I’ve 70% recovered, I feel I can finally talk about how life tried to end me two weekends ago. I thought for the longest time that my plane flight from hell was one of the worst experiences I had been through with a kid. But it was just a little warm up for the monumental cluster that was the last two weeks of June.

It all started when I went back to work right before our largest event of the year. Honestly that was rough, but after the mental onslaught of the first day, I started to get my bearings and felt like I could take on whatever the job threw at me. What I didn’t take into account is what the REST of my life was planning to throw at me. First up; the toddler birthday party.

I kind of made the mistake of doing a really good job with his 2nd birthday party, so I felt the need to one up myself just because that’s the competitive type of person I am. So for birthday #3, Elliott got the dino-mite treatment. A dinosaur bounce house, fossil dig and BBQ. Truly, just one of those three things would have made me exhausted for weeks, but I did all three. The only way I pulled it off was because Teeny was in town. All in all, things went well. But I have to say, a bouncy house is like a toddler Thunderdome. Thankfully, the only one who came out bloody was my own child.

The look on his face when he saw the bouncy house was totally worth it.

Since Benji refused to be left out of the celebration, he decided that he would roll over for the first time on the morning of E’s party. And anyone who has had a baby knows what this means. NO ONE SLEEPS. I mean, we just got a rad new skill, so let’s practice it all day and night, right? So, the night after the toddler party when I all I wanted was a few hours of shut eye, I pretty much got none. Woof.

Then no less than a day later, sickness swept through the Hubner household. And it took EVERYONE out. Baby, brother, mommy, daddy — even poor, visiting Teeny. So, remember that part about not sleeping because of baby’s big milestone? Let’s just add some more sleep deprivation on top of it for a big you’re-never-sleeping-again sandwich. Because I was either up with a snotty, coughing baby or couldn’t sleep because every time my head hit the pillow my lungs and throat started to explode.

Benji enjoyed the party. He also was worn out from all that rolling over.

By the time Monday after the party rolled around, I was toast. I think it was that evening that I had a full on mommy meltdown. I literally collapsed in the middle of our hallway, rolled up into a ball, and cried my eyes out. But you know what? Life wasn’t done throwing garbage my way yet.

By Tuesday morning, I had lost my voice completely. Before work’s biggest event of the year. The event where I was going to be responsible for talking to media, on camera and on radio, over and over and over again. And what topic did they choose to focus on? A totally serious one — where I had to have my ish together or else I might do something detrimental to my organization. So what did I do? I gargled salt water, drank gross tea, sprayed myself down with Chloroseptic, and prayed I wouldn’t screw it up. Then I drug my exhausted, voiceless ass to no less than nine interviews. By the end, I could talk about security and cosplay prop policies with my eyes closed. Which honestly, is all I wanted to do.

Then came the con. Last year was my first experience at a comic convention, and needless to say the energy that comes from simply being in the same space as over 100,000 people is beyond exhausting. Add illness, an infant and being mired in the social media comment swamp for three days straight, and by the time Sunday rolled around I could barely move.

Superman took on the dark side at the con.

The good news is, I’m on the other side. The other good news is I never plan to do that again. At least Superman-Maui-Skywalker had a good time.

I hired a sleep consultant

June 20, 2017 / Tara / 0 Comments

The internet is a dark, dark place for parents with newborns. If you’ve ever had a question about ANYTHING in regards to your baby, the internet has at least a thousand different answers for you. And of course, since you’re up at all hours of the day and night, you spend too much time on your phone as a slave to The Google. “What are the symptoms of acid reflux?” “How many naps should my 2 month old be taking?” “How much sleep does my newborn need?” “How dangerous is it for my baby to sleep in a rock and play?” All of these and more I’ve searched, and not a single time did I get a straight forward answer I was satisfied with. So, since 99% of my questions revolve around sleep, I decided to bring in an expert. I hired a sleep consultant.

Honestly, I had my doubts. She wasn’t exactly cheap, and the whole thing kind of felt like I was being sold snake oil. You’re really going to help me figure out a newborn’s napping issues? Yeah right, lady. From what I’ve seen, newborns only obey one thing. And that’s absolutely nothing.

However, I was desperate. Benji is — how do I say this — a difficult sleeper. Naps are a joke. He won’t sleep more than 20-30 minutes unless he’s strapped to my body. I’ve tried the car (hates it), the stroller (hates it), the rock and play (hates it), his crib (REALLY hates it). Unless the mattress is made of living, breathing human, he’s not having it. Unfortunately for him, his mommy is not much of a people person and gets touched out by about noon everyday. Not to mention, wearing 13 lbs of baby is like being pregnant all over again, but worse. My back was killing me. So, enter sleep lady.

We had a 30 minute phone call where I told her about Benji and his neverending FOMO and she gave me a few painfully simple ideas to try. Don’t let him have more than an hour and a half of awake time. Make his room dark. Use a sound machine, medium volume, white noise only. Swaddle him. Rock for a few minutes, then place him in his crib or rock and play with a pacifier. Walk away. No seriously. She told me to just walk away.

I’m not going to lie, it sounded like witchcraft. But I tried it, and sure as shit the Benji boy just fell asleep on his own. No hour of rocking and bouncing. No crazy thrashing and punching me in the face. It was a miracle.

Since that first day, we’ve had mixed success with our new little routine, but overall things are SO much better. Naps are still a ridiculous exercise in insanity, but at least bedtime is a breeze (for now). And the moral of the story? Stay away from the internet, friends. Unless it’s to Google someone who actually knows what they’re doing.

From One to Two

June 16, 2017 / Tara / 0 Comments

Just like with number one, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect with number two. All I knew is that it would be a wild and sleepless ride — one I wasn’t sure I was capable of handling. Now that we’re two and a half months in, I’m still not sure I’m capable of handling this, but everyone is alive, fed and mostly happy, so I guess things are alright. And, just like everyone said, the second one is nothing like the first.

Here are a few observations I’ve made about the differences between my boys:

Elliott would just pass out. No swaddling, no rocking, nothing. Just a pacifier and a cozy lap, and he’d be out in 5 minutes or less. Benji on the other hand? I can’t even begin to describe the number of gimmicks required. And they change every week it seems like. Swaddle, pacifier, sound machine, rocking, bouncing, rock and play — all of these and more are required to get him to sleep. And even with all that crap, it can still take over an hour. We won’t even discuss napping. Kill me now.
Elliott is tough as nails. I can’t tell you how many times I couldn’t tell if he was sick or not and I’d take him into the doctor and they’d tell me something like, “yeah, he has bronchiolitis and a double ear infection.” Benji, on the other hand? He’s my sensitive baby. When he feels crappy, we ALL know.
I thought Elliott was a momma’s boy. Nope. Benji has him beat already, hands down. This baby looks at me like I’m the most magnificent thing he’s ever set eyes on. He also NEVER takes his eyes off me. He literally tracks me around a room, grinning from ear to ear. And if I get out of eyesight? Tears. I didn’t think that sort of thing was supposed to happen until 6 months. Yikes. Needless to say, the kid has my heart.
Whenever you bring a tiny baby out in public, they become an instant celebrity. Every time someone saw baby Elliott they would say, “Oh, that hair!” Whenever I bring Benji out? “Oh, those eyes! He’s so alert.” Yeah, lady. They never close either. Like, ever.

Even though I sleep like garbage, feel like I’m scratching and clawing my way through every day, and hardly have five minutes to myself, I’d say I’m still enjoying this boy mom life. And I’m looking forward to seeing all the ways my boys are different — and the same. If these first few months are any indication, they’re going to have an amazing bond, and I’m so happy for them. When I got into this breeder business, all I wanted was to create two children who had the same kind of relationship my sister and I had. I think we’re well on our way.

Flying with baby(s)

June 14, 2017 / Tara / 0 Comments

I started this blog with a post about flying solo with my 2 month old. And now, as if life has come full circle, I’m going to relaunch Mom Badge with a post about flying solo with my 2 month old — and 2.5 year old.

You might say I’m crazy for attempting such a daring feat after the tragedy that was my first solo flight with a kid. But honestly, the shit (literally and figuratively) that’s been thrown my way since that day makes that flight seem like a cake walk. But if I were to say I wasn’t completely nervous and overwhelmed at the thought of having a toddler and an infant by myself in a confined space full of other adults for 2 hours and 20 minutes, I’d be lying. Not to mention the mental load and strategy involved in hauling not only my human cargo, but all the junk that comes with them. I mean because we can’t get on a plane without our spiky backpack, Apatosaurus, Maui doll, water painting, headphones, etc., right? Not to mention the diapers, wipes, snacks, sippy cups and changes of clothes that are just your standard “we’re leaving the house” packing. Thankfully, I had a couple of weeks to think about it (which I did), so on flight day, my mind was fortified and my plan complete.

Totally worth the trip.

So, how did I do it you ask? I’M SO GLAD YOU DID. I would be heartbroken if all my work went unnoticed. Ok, first I brought a stroller. Typically, if I had Peter with me, I’d leave that piece of garbage at home. But being alone, I needed it for two reasons: 1. Toddler containment. 2. Junk hauling (see list of stuffed animals and toys above). The baby I just strapped to my body in the Ergo so I could have two hands. Because those were needed for pushing the stroller with one, pulling the rolling luggage with the other. Once I got through the full service line, because obviously I need to prove with a copy of his birth certificate that Benji is under two years old (insert eye roll here), things got monumentally easier.

The next secret to success is TSA Pre. It took like 15 minutes as some office in the middle of nowhere to get it, and it’s been completely worth it. Everyone gets to keep their shoes and jackets on, and the line is about 1,000 times shorter. Not to mention they don’t swab my hands because I’m baby wearing.

Now, the tricky part. Occupying a toddler for 2 hours and 20 minutes on an airplane. All I can say is, God bless technology. And a huge thank you to my son for being obsessed with movies, specifically Moana. I just plugged him right in, threw a bunch of sugary snacks his way, and had zero regrets. The baby? Easy. Milk, bouncing and a human mattress. Which to anyone else sounds like that scene from Anchorman where Will Ferrell is stumbling down the street saying, “milk was a bad choice,” but for Benji, it works like a charm. Couple that with the plane noise, and he took one of the best naps he’s had in weeks. I need a jet engine near his rock and play, apparently.

Anyway, after I had both boys set up, I spent the rest of the flight praying for things to stay exactly the same and trying to stretch my wrist that most definitely has carpal tunnel from all the baby holding. And guess what? IT TOTALLY DID. The flight was on time, there wasn’t turbulence, and the boys were angels. The only tantrum thrown was when we had to get off the plane and mommy turned off Octonauts (I’m a terrible person, I know). But considering the number of horrible scenarios that I played out in my mind for weeks beforehand, I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. I’m not saying I’ll do it again anytime soon, but for now I can say that I did, and I felt like a total badass afterwards.

Snacks. Always bring snacks.

See A Sky

July 8, 2016 / Tara / 0 Comments

It’s 7 o’clock. Peter is putting things away in the shed. I’m trying to convince a “not tired” two year old to come in the house, but the makeshift sandbox in the backyard is like his Call of the Wild. Tired and frustrated, I storm across the yard.

“Elliott, it’s time to go inside,” I say.

“No inside. Play a sand,” I hear in return. And so it begins.

“No, buddy. It’s time to go inside. You’ve played in the sand enough,” I say. Secretly, all I’m thinking about is how I hope he’s clean enough to where I can just dust him off and avoid a bath, because at this point, I’m exhausted. The last thing I want to do is bath time. As I’m standing there silently calculating my evening, I hear something.

“I lie down.”

No. NO. Nooooo. Just like that his hair is full of sand, sticks, and crusty old flowers. My plans of just dusting, no bath are going out the window. I’m about to reach down and yank him out of the sandbox when, staring up at the sky, he starts talking again.

“Oooo, pretty trees. So many weeves. Ah-yet see a sky. A cloud in it.”

I stop and look up. He’s right. The trees are beautiful, full of green summer leaves, the evening light shining through them in shades of orange and yellow. They’re set on a perfect backdrop of blue sky, just a single white cloud floating in it. I look back at his little face, sticky and sandy, mesmerized by the show that nature has put on just for him. For a single moment in his otherwise wild and crazy day, he’s peaceful. Still. Happy.

I let him keep his head in the dirt, and I sit next to him. I can’t even remember the last time I’ve done it, but I spend the next few minutes quietly looking at the sky. Then, just like that, he’s up and racing around the yard again. But for a moment, we both stopped and were silent. And for a moment, I was reminded of the beauty of summer evenings, courtesy of my tiny wild man.

Ok, not the evening I reference. But it’s my boy in nature, which is close enough.

Turning Two

July 3, 2016 / Tara / 0 Comments

I’m feeling emotional. My boy just turned two. He went from a fluffy haired baby to a tiny person with loves and hates and opinions. He loves Dinosaur Train, anything with wheels, and dirt. He hates beans (green or otherwise), diaper changes, and “the clapping song” (S.O.B. by Nathaniel Rateliff and the Nightsweats). It’s the cliche of all cliches, but it’s going by so fast.

We had a party for his birthday that was full of sand, dump trucks, and barbeque. The kids all ended up dirty and covered in frosting, so I feel like it was a success. But, I think we’re all going through birthday withdrawls. E just walks around saying things like, “where Teeny go?” and “I go to Matt and Tara’s house,” and “I want to open presents.” The Monday after your birthday party is a pretty rough time for a two year old. Actually, when I think about it, it’s pretty rough time for anyone.

Of course, I made sure to take all the pictures. So many that every time I picked up the camera E would look at me, frown, and say “no more pictures, mommy,” with all the attitude of a Hollywood A-Lister. I started to think that maybe I should put it away. But honestly, I can’t stop. I’m terrified that if I don’t capture that moment, I’ll forget it forever. And I can’t forget — this could be my only shot at being a mom. I read something recently from a woman who had a daughter and was trying for a second, but things we’re moving slowly and with complications. I have never read anything that resonated more with me in my entire life. She said she felt as if she was trying to balance gratefulness and longing. It’s true — I couldn’t be more grateful for my beautiful son. But every moment of every day is also filled with longing for the second child I have yet to meet.

Also, thanks to the ordeal from a few months ago, I’ve found myself in mysterious territory. For the first time in my life, I don’t trust my body. Growing up, it was one of the few things I could consistently rely on. I told it to run fast, it would. I asked it to jump high, no problem. Now, in my 30s, I asked it to safely carry a child and it couldn’t. I asked it to conceive again, and it won’t. I finally understand how healthy people can end up taking a wrong turn because I feel I might be doing it myself. All of a sudden I’m eating more, drinking more, and exercising less — all because I’m mad at this garbage body of mine. The most frustrating part is I know EXACTLY what I’m doing and the consequences, but I don’t care. I’m angry that genetics, fate and whatever else reason I can come up with stole something from me. And the only thing I can take it out on is this empty shell of a body I was left with.

Wow. That was quite the tangent. Unfortunately, that’s how my mind works these days. Happy, happy, happy… plunge into extreme sadness… happy again. It’s a wild ride. I think I’ll end this super strange brain dump of a blog post with a few funny stories from the birthday weekend.

We rode the Georgetown Loop, which blew E’s mind. Especially the part where “Mr. Conductor” came by and punched his ticket. On the way home, Vera (his cousin) and Elliott had a lively discussion over a Ziploc bag full of ice. V was holding it on her knee, which she had scraped. E was trying to reach over the seat and open it. V, being the good girl that she is, politely said, “no, we can’t open the bag, Elliott.” E just gave her the cheesy smile and said, “yes.” They traded yesses and nos for about 5 minutes. All polite, no escalation, all with a cheesy fake smile. My son the terrible con artist.
After begging me to sing Happy Birthday to him over and over, when the big moment finally came at his party, he tried to hide his face in his chair to make it stop. (Like mother, like son.)

Gone.

February 15, 2016 / Tara / 10 Comments

The baby has no heartbeat.

I wasn’t prepared to hear those words. Just 30 minutes before, I had hopped into my car and was thinking to myself just how much I was nailing life right now. I was hitting all sorts of deadlines at my new job, I was on time to all my appointments and meetings that day, the weather was beautiful and warm, Elliott didn’t whimper like a sad little puppy when I dropped him off at daycare that morning, and I was going on vacation next week. Just a quick check in with the doctor to see how the little jelly bean was progressing. My mind couldn’t have been further from the heart wrenching truth that was about to be thrown in my lap. “The baby has no heartbeat,” she said. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

It’s not your fault.

As I lay there, the ultrasound technician stroking my arm, I tried not to hyperventilate. I tried not to cry. I tried to turn everything off. But there are some things that you can’t shut out no matter how much you want to. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “It was likely just a chromosomal abnormality. It happens more often than you think.” Underneath the shock, I knew it wasn’t my fault. Genetics are complicated and the fact that we can create life at all is a miracle. But, guess what? Lying there on that table, covered in ultrasound gel and tears, logic seemed like a luxury. It felt like it was my fucking fault. Was it that soft cheese I ate? Did I work out too hard? Not enough? Maybe the Tylenol I took for a headache? Those drinks I had before I knew I was pregnant? The fact that I forgot my vitamins almost every day? Of course it wasn’t. But try convincing a mom, whose sole purpose in regards to her children is to love and protect them, that she didn’t fail the dead baby she’s carrying inside her.

We’ll let you know what your options are.

Options? What do you mean options? I thought the only option I had was to cry and mourn the loss of my unborn child—the sibling we so desperately wanted for E, the little girl I was convinced I was carrying. But it turns out my body was holding on as tightly as my mind was to this baby, and I had to decide which option to choose to “help the process along.” A surgery—effective, detached, but requires full anesthesia. A medication—could be done sooner, could be done at home, could mean that I see and feel things I may not wish to. I chose medication. The pain of knowing my baby had no heartbeat could only be matched by the pain of knowing this wasn’t over yet. I didn’t want to wait for surgery. I wanted to finish this right now.

It took me a few days to build up the courage to go by the doctor’s office and pick up the pills. When I finally stopped by, they pulled a brown paper sack out from under their desk with my name pen scratched and misspelled on the outside. It seemed insensitive, but really I don’t know how you could package such a hard, cold dose of finality in a way that would seem right. Bows and ribbons? Hell no. I guess that paper sack made about as much sense as anything else did at the moment. I drove home, read the instructions, said goodbye to the future I had been building in my mind for the last 12 weeks, and took the pills.

It didn’t happen right away. Just like full term labor, you wait. You cramp. You try to sleep. Then, when your body decides everything is ready, it happens. I won’t share details, but in many ways it’s like giving birth to a live baby. Minus every ounce of joy. It’s just blood and pain.

On February 13 at 2:30 a.m., from my cold, hard bathroom floor, I said goodbye one last time to my little girl. The little girl I had created a future for in my mind—that was going to be two years and two months younger than E. She was going to look like mommy, but be head over heels for daddy. She was going to fight, play with, and fiercely love her big brother, who would do all of those things right back. She was going to exist joyfully, but with just enough pain to show her what truly matters. Most importantly she was going to live.

I’m still trying to sort out what something like this is supposed to mean. What lessons it’s supposed to impart. I assume that one day it will teach me to be thankful for what I have or to appreciate things more. But right now, all it feels like is sadness and anger. I’ll work to heal, because in the new dream I’m building, we try again. And I want this new dream to come from a place of happiness, not fear and pain. But most importantly, I have to get it together for my beautiful baby boy who needs his mother whole and intact, not fragile and teary eyed every time she sees another woman attempting to juggle a toddler with a swollen, pregnant belly.

Until then, I’ll remember the first 10 weeks of my pregnancy, where I felt like I was on the verge of throwing up every moment of the day, with a mixture of fondness and disgust. I’ll hold on to that one ultrasound photo I have of my baby, when her heart was still beating. And as I bury the future I planned with one child, I’ll work to create a new future for another. And one day, hopefully, I’ll be able to say thank you.

Just not today.

Ha-coco, Cookcook, and Yo-yolk

December 3, 2015 / Tara / 1 Comment

You know, for a while there I thought the obscene number of ear infections E machine had this spring may have made him deaf. Which of course is completely ridiculous because he only had 3 or 4, they were weeks apart, and that boy can find a speaker in any room in under two seconds flat. However, now that I’m a full on mom (I thought I was just playing at it for a moment), I automatically default to the worst possible scenario every time.

My concern actually stemmed from the fact that I read the internet too much. All those stupid forums that use abbreviations like LO and DD and CIO said that he should have some words by now. And all my son was saying was “mama” and “dada,” and they were more like noises and less like he knew what was coming out of his mouth. Enter worry and self doubt.

Then all of a sudden, something changed. One day he decided that the only thing he wanted to do was sit and “read” books. He’d point at all of the pictures and I’d tell him what was on the page over and over and over again. We did that for weeks. And the result?

Kitty.

One day he was looking in one of his books and he pointed to a cat and said the word, “kitty.” And from that moment on, it was all different. A torrent of vocabulary started pouring out of my son. Every day he was adding new words — ball, blue, car, truck, moon, walk, duck, outside, sock, shoes, boots, night night, rock, owl — the list went on and on. But out of all of them, our favorite word attempts right now are helicopter (ha-coco), Cookie Monster (cookcook) and yogurt (yo-yolk <–Add an amazing amount of phlegm to the yolk part when pronouncing).

“Choo choo!”

What’s even more amazing is his level of understanding. He probably has two dozen words he uses, but he comprehends so much more than that. And he’s making these interesting word associations, too. For example, the other night he was “helping” me cook, and I asked him to please keep the noodles on the counter. Of course he totally ignored me and then looked me in the eye and said, “AH AH AH!” At first, I didn’t get it. Why did you just make a sound like The Count from Sesame Street? Oh wait… I said COUNT-er. Duh, Tara. Of course your kitchen surfaces laugh maniacally like a vampire puppet.

So far, this jump into language has been one of my favorite stages. There’s nothing cuter and more exciting than getting your first real glimpse into what your child’s interests are. And based on what I’ve learned, my son is a gear head, tech junkie, nature loving, foodie with a desire to keep a clean house. Basically if he keeps this up, he’s going to make someone very happy someday. And I couldn’t be prouder.