For fun

I haven't documented much fun lately, so I figured I would brag about my cute kid for a minute. He's been charming all the nurses in the hospital and being very active, all things considered.

Felix started walking for real at about 15 months, which means he's been walking for about a month and a half now. He is finally preferring that over crawling, but really all it took was showing him how much fun it could be (and getting over some serious ear infections that threw his balance out of whack). We made it a game for him to walk between people and he loved it.

When he was about 6 months old, we started making the sign for milk with him. He did it every once in a while, but when he was about a year old he started using it a lot. And it was as if he suddenly knew exactly what it meant and was concerned about us knowing too. We also started making the sign for more and he has finally picked that up. Just this past week he has been saying more words (for the longest time all he would say was "ite", always pointing to lights, but I think it really meant "look" more than anything), experimenting with sounds. Most of the time he will grunt and "talk" through his nose when trying to communicate, but when he's playing, he'll use all sorts of fun sounds.

This week especially he's been saying "momomom" and "dadadad" and we've gotten him to identify us using those sounds. It's really quite fun. We've also gotten him to use the Italian sign for "yummy" just in the past day or two (put a finger to your cheek and kind of twist your hand back and forth). So cute.

Felix likes all food, but we've figured out that he likes salty and spicy things more than sweets. He does still like sugar quite a bit, but it's not his favorite. His favorite thing to eat is actually ice. Here in the hospital they have some kind of little crushed ice and he LOVES sucking on the pieces. He would do it a lot more at home if the ice we had was smaller.

His favorite pastime is identifying borders so he can throw things. For example, if something is downstairs, he'll take it up. If something is upstairs, he'll throw it down. He loves throwing rocks or bark into the grass, and throwing grass or pine cones into the street. He loves playing in dirt and getting it everywhere (he's a boy, of course), and he loves putting anything into his mouth.

More than anything, he hates being still. He will occasionally concentrate on some toy (more often than not, he's putting small toys or pieces into a bottle or container of some sort), but most of the time he wants to be moving around. He's not shy at all so he also loves meeting new people and making new friends.

I sure love that little bugger of mine.