Biophilliac Mommy: 20 Month Old Meo

Today my Meo turned 21 months old, only three months away from being two. In many ways, I can't believe that time is even approaching, but in some ways I totally can. That is because he is starting to act like a crazy, wild, and yes, sometimes naughty, two year old. But he's also still my sweet, loving baby boy, as I'm sure he'll always will be. Since this was such a big month for him, it will be easiest and most efficient to address some highlights in bullet form:

He loves the moon. One night, I heard Robbie and Meo howling like wolves in the bathtub. They were doing this for a good 5-10 minutes. After a while, Robbie stopped and asked Meo, "What are we howling at?" Meo proceeded to speak in a very soft (and somewhat creepy) voice and replied "The moon. The moon". I think the whole moon craze started when early on in the month I noticed you could see the moon very clearly from the sky light in his bedroom window. I wasn't sure if I ever pointed the moon out to him before, so I called him over and showed him. He got very excited about this, and hasn't stopped looking for and talking about the moon since. There was a few days (the days surrounding the full moon in fact), that Meo was waking up at 2 in the morning to run over to the window and talk about the moon for an hour or so. He also looks for it during the day time and actually has managed to find it which is pretty cool. This kid loves the moon.
He also fell in love with rocks this month. Whenever we go outside, he spends most of his time collecting rocks, and giving them to me as presents. This means I don't get in a lot of exercise because we walk at a snail's pace (there sure are a lot of rocks out there), but its fun to see how enthusiastic he is about rock gathering. Because of his love of rocks, he learned one of his first phrases, "big rock". He tends to call all rocks "big rocks" (even the pebbles) so we've been working on "little rock", but its still pretty awesome that he is on his way to speaking in sentences.
His verbal communication skills have really taken off. I've completely lost track of all the words he knows, and he learns at least a dozen new ones each day. It's been amazing to behold. As I mentioned already, he's even picked up on phrases. He says things like "Hey Mama!" and "Hey Dada" and "Hey Theta, Hey Pi!". He also says things like "good book" and "red car". Another cool thing is he responds to questions with "yes" and "no" now. What a life changing skill! This has opened up a whole new world for us. Fortunately, Meo says "yes" to lots of thing rather than "no" like a lot of toddlers his age, which saves Mommy and Daddy lots of headaches. Sometimes when he wants things now, like to go outside for example, he will walk up the door and say "yes" anticipating that we will ask him if he wants to go outside. Along those same lines, he says "no" when he no longer wants things. Like at dinner time, when he is done drinking he will hand us his cup and say "no". This is way of not throwing things on the floor when he's down with them which is a relief to us. One last cute thing he does verbally that I'll mention is he calls for the cats when the get outside or when it's time for them to eat a meal. It's super cute.
He can count to three. Well, he usually says "two, three", but if he is repeating us he is capable of saying one as well. He especially likes counting to three because we do in before we are about to do anything exciting to him, like tickle or toss him on the bed. So usually he counts "two, three!" in anticipation of something fun about to happen.
My boy can sing! Before this month, he would repeat the things we would sing, usually in tune, as long as the were simple things like "do, re, do" or "la la la". But since we've been taking our new Music Together class, and we have been learning a lot of the songs we sing in class at home and listening to them in the car, he has started to sing along. Now its not always him echoing the words in the songs (which he still does as well), but now he will sing in time with us or the song, anticipating the notes. It still amazes me whenever he does it. I love to hear him sing, and I can tell it brings him great pleasure to have gained this amazing new skill.
He is mastering going down one or two steps the proper way. Whenever he is around a short staircase, or comes across some thick cushions he can practice on, he goes right to it not unlike a machine. He becomes very dedicated to practicing skills he enjoys learning. He will go up and down steps for hours if he is uninterrupted. We are thinking one day he will be a great musician, because that's the sort of dedication and ability to cope with mundane repetition you need to thrive.
Meo has grown! He has almost doubled the number of teeth he had in a two week period going from 5 to 9. His head has grown; the size 4-5T hat I bought him for the summer already doesn't fit him when it was big on him last month (I may have shrunk it a bit, but I tested unwashed ones in the store and those didn't really fit either). He pretty comfortably fits in size 2T clothing, and we had to buy him bigger sneakers (no in a 6.5 wide).
He loves swinging. One of our neighbors, who has three kids aged 3, 4 and 5 has some toys their kids grew out of and offered to give us stuff they are no longer use. So far we've inherited two infant/toddler outdoor swings, and Meo absolutely loves it. He will swing for an hour at a time, perhaps more, squealing with delight all the while.
He's really into falling into things. Like he will run up to us and dive into our arms, or he will sit on his bed and fall backwards; things like that. He thinks its hilarious.
The boy loves whales.
Recognizes himself in photos and in the mirror and says, "Hi Meo". (I think this started this month, possibly earlier though).

And here are some of his favorite things this month:

Books:

Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud by Lynn Plourde
Baby Beluga, Raffi Songs to Read
Waiting for Baby (he calls this one "Baby!") by Rachel Fuller
The Mixed up Chameleon by Eric Carle
The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson
Sweet Dreams Pooh by Kathleen Zoehfeld (he asks for this one by name, "Pooh book!")

Toys:

Cars, trucks, planes and trains
Balls
LEGO animals
Gobo (one of his Fraggles)
His push popper toy
Big stuffed caterpillar
Clackity Alligator

Foods:

Crackers
Organic fruit and vegetable pouches
Cereal bars
Grapes
Clementines
Bagels with cream cheese
Blueberry milk
Cheese
Yogurt covered raisins

Here are some photos of our little family this month: