Babyhood to Toddlerhood

Avi loves to hug everything and also to play like he is going to sleep. Here he is with the duck.

They had a sweet playdate last weekend, and his mama brought us dinner.

Avi loves carbs. Carrie introduced him to this awesome food (that's actually good for you! thank you Whole Foods) called the Pizza Pretzel! He loves it!

Leeor was explaining the basics of baseball to the bear, but, he said, the duck's dad would have to fill in the finer details.

I stole that line from Dr. Sears; it rings so true for us right now. Avi is becoming less and less of a baby and entering into toddlerhood every day. I know this will become more apparent in the next few months, but as we test the waters, here are some observations about our little bear.

He loves other kids. Whether he's hanging out with the duck, or my other friends' kids (we went to the SF Zoo with Carrie and her two gorgeous littles, almost 4 year old Kelly and 2 year old Christopher), he has nothing but affection to give and constantly wants to hug and kiss them. He has been in a share care with another little girl for several months and is so in love with her. Even if a kid is not so nice, like today at the park, when a kid kicked sand in his face, he seems to go, well, that's okay. I won't hold it against you. He is very easy going that way.

Transitions, however, are tough for him. Since we had the IKEA moment a few weeks ago, Avi's preferred method of communicating when he's having a hard time is to scream bloody murder. It's really hard to figure out how to deal with it. But Leeor, having read our friend Dr. Sears already (I have to get to it next) found a great solution. Avi wanted to push some random stroller at the park. Not yet walking, but really eager to walk with support, he loves pushing things in front of him to help him out. We didn't want him pushing random stroller so we offered him our stroller. He didn't want it. We tried redirecting him to no avail. We took him away from the stroller and he started the screaming thing. We started to leave but then Leeor suggested we stay but try to get him into someting else and talk to him about it. He was all over it. It was great to be together. Avi happily played with other stuff, and then Leeor told him we'd be leaving soon. Leeor took him around to say goodbye to all the things at the park he'd played with. We left without incident. It was amazing, considering I'd just had another one of those episodes with Avi this morning at Whole Foods, when I took him from his position pushing the cart to put him into the car. It appears daddy has the touch. I've never been one for transitions, myself, so go figure.

Avi is very cautious, very methodical and purposeful. He seems to think about things quite a lot. He has a lot to say and is eager to chat with us. We swear he says several things but can't be sure, like agua, cat, and of course mama and dada. I love him so much. He is also very, very intense. I asked my mom this morning if I ever had big screaming episodes like that. Nope. I just think Avi, like all of us, has big feelings and difficulty working them out sometimes. Hello, because he's not quite one! He also seems like he is going through a tremendous amount in his development. I feel like we are going through it with him.

I also keep thinking about last year at this time. It's when I started blogging. I remember that I put an outgoing message on my cell phone voicemail telling people that I hadn't had my baby yet and didn't really feel like talking about it. The memory makes me laugh now; I was so pregnant! So hormonal! But I remember quite vividly how eager I was to meet my little Avi. I can't believe it's almost been a year since that momentous day when he was born.