Communication

Each day, parenting becomes a bit easier to me. Oh, don't get me wrong here, there are tantrums since a few weeks and I don't know any parent who likes tantrums. There are new challenges too, like the fact that he climbs like a mountain goat. Or as I descibed recently to a friend about the reason for gaining some weight in the last few months: "I was making a wonderfully delicious and healthy lunch for myself but then I had to grab the todler who had climbed on the kitchen table who then wanted milk, which he upended over himself, over me and over the floor and after I had changed us and whiped up the floor I just grabbed the first thing that I could find which was a big fat bagel or a bag of chips."

But even with all that, I feel so much better in this stage than I did before when he was just a tiny baby. This morning I told him to put his bowl on the table. And Lo and behold, Joseph did put his bowl back on the table and went there to nicely eat his cottage cheese and cherries. Now the obedience is wonderful (no parent that does not like an obedient child) but it is actually the simple fact that he understands what I am telling him and is able to respond by motion or words that entrances me. I am such a word oriented person that communicating with my son is such a treasure. It truely fills me with delight. I am certain more experienced moms will already tell me that very soon I will long for just a few moments of quiet, and I already see the forshadowing of that when he repeats "buh" (buckle) six million times over as he wants me to undo his buckle so he can fasten it again, something he does not get tired of for some reason.
But the mere fact that we can actually talk to one another now is such a gift. My little baby is such a boy now. Another step in growing up.