Felix's experience with cars is just about zero. We don't own one, so he only gets the occasional taxi ride to and from the airport. But on this last trip, he was given free access and he made the most of it.

Felix is an enthusiastic eater, and difficult to slow down. I appreciate the attempts of his grandparents to teach him to savor his snack, and I'm sure he does too, though obviously it hasn't made a big impact otherwise. Try, try again.

Just classic.

Suddenly and despite your father and I referring to you as the baby most of the time, you have become a little boy. With little boyhood come big changes, though not yet much more hair. You have some hair, and it's getting a very little bit longer, but all in all you have very little of it. What you have more of is teeth. Four molars have come in in two months. Each of them brought with them a fever and two or three days of you being really out of sorts and uncomfortable.

Thank goodness that passes. When you are not out of sorts, you are your usual charming and fun self. Your love for cars (ca) and wheeled things in general has blossomed. Everything from a simple wheeled Duplo piece to your wagons and Bobbycar to tricycles, trucks, and skateboards. You love making everything move, roll and ride - getting behind the wheel. You hop out the stroller and push it for miles if you had the time to do it. Like me, you prefer to be in the drivers seat to being a passenger. You try to make me remove my hands from the handle bars of the bike and replace your own.

You continue to be a model eater and your spoon/fork handling is improving as well. You like to scoop your food up onto the spoon and carefully following the spoon with your free hand pushing the food and spoon into your mouth with your free hand. Perhaps not terribly efficient and certainly quite messy, but I don't mind since your appetite is so good and your diet so varied. Good table manner will soon follow. Your favorite food I think is raisins, which do not require a spoon.

You have a bunch more words that you did in the beginning of the summer. Nana (banana), nay, no, uh (Yes), kij (kijk, look), uh oh, ow, eye, mou (mouth), wa wa (waffles), hi, bye, ca (car), wow, mama, dada, up, out, dow (down). You know all the parts of the face including both of your adorable cheeks. You know that dogs woof, cats meow, owls who who, and cows moo. You think some smalls dogs meow too which offends some dog owns.

You are often humming a little tune, and I've heard you hum the entire ABC song. You have several more dance moves though the Shoulder Shimmy still is a head motion for you. You love the Itsy Bitsy Spider.

You are increasingly fond (to put it all very mildly) of your little Lovie. The sheep neck pillow is your version of my LBP (Little Baby Pillow). You clutch one of its ears or its tail burrow your head in the arch of its body and rest. We only on very rare occasion take Lovie out with us, an overnight trip for example. Upon our return from one such trip, while at the airport, you were so totally tired - it was after all and nearly two hours after your bedtime - you laid down on the floor by the passport control in the airport, clutching, burrowing, ready to collapse wherever we'd allow. You get that from me.

Love,
Mama

I don't really know what to say about this one except that clearly he is a big Moodies fan. Me too.

He is STUBBORN. Probably you guessed this.

That's my boy....

As usual, it's not really obvious what Felix is laughing at so hysterically. He just seems to latch onto random physical tics, or sounds, or such, and they will suddenly strike him as pee-in-your-pants funny, which, under the circumstances, is in no way a problem. Interestingly, the humorous power of these gags is inevitably short-lived: the next day he's as likely as not to look at you as if you're crazy.

The garden is also a somewhat more informal environment, so as long as he keeps his head warm we really don't care what he wears.

Sometimes Felix is bad. And when he is bad, especially when he is bad and KNOWS PERFECTLY WELL he is being bad, then he needs to be punished. But how to do it in a way that convincingly conveys our message? I'll take away his hands, I thought, surely something that will count as punishment for such an active boy.

The first few times it worked beautifully: he noticed, was frustrated, and seemed to realize it was the price he was paying for his mischief. But then he realized that in the end he can always wait me out. I still take away his hands when he's bad, but I do so with a decreasing sense of conviction. New punishment ideas, anyone?

In addition to eating strawberries, sometimes while at the garden we work. Felix, you will not be surprised to hear, is often an obstruction in these endeavors and some tasks are simply impossible with him around (trying to lay an even patio comes to mind), but if you can find a way to harness his energies then the results can be quite good, sometimes even a bit astounding. The load he is pushing here is every bit as heavy as it looks: I put it in that cart because I could hardly carry it myself.

Another garden tip: wear clogs. No joke, it's what the Dutch do, famously so, but less well known is that this is the perfect footwear for the soggy Dutch environment. So we're trying to train Felix. Train him to wear clogs, train him about what's "ouch" and what's not, train him on who's mama and who's dada. I'd say he's about equally good at all three of these things.

Today you turn a year and a half. Time moves both very slowly and very quickly. Last week your new friend Chloe was born and she was so small, which I point out only to reference how much you've grown since you were merely a week old. There are so many things you can do and so many things you have already done. And with everyday you are more and more wonderful. And heavy. Yes, more wonderful and more heavy.

These past two months brought on a bunch of changes in your life which you have taken in stride. Not that it's all been smooth sailing and some has come with quite a bit of heart ache on my part but i guess that's what motherhood is all about. Heartache. And Worry.

You have, after nearly two months, allowed me to leave you at day care without any fuss at all. Thank you. You are near the top of the age range in your group, which I'm not crazy about because that blossoming I was anticipating hasn't really materialized. However, you generally seem to like it there and make a point to peek through the window of the door to the room to wave bye bye to all the kids again after I pick you up. The bike ride home is spent sharing your thoughts on the day which always include lots of gesturing. Last Friday on our ride home you were going on and on pointing and saying things in beats of three as in "put that down" "close the door" "the cat meows".

While you still don't have any words, you are really good with mimicking the beat and the tone of the words and sounds you hear. You father thinks you might have perfect pitch. No words, but you have a great deal of understanding of what is being said around you and to you. You can when asked, for example, bring the dust pan in from the other room. Which convinces me that you can actually "come here Felix" or "don't rattle the gate Felix" when I ask, it's just that you choose not to. What you are bursting with FM is personality and one which is constantly exploring so at times you don't obey. You know, sshhhh, don't tell anyone, I think that's ok. You seem to have a keen sense of when I really mean it or when I merely suggest it.

You love dressing up. You are learning about your shoes and arms through sleeves. You love wearing hats or hoods and your most brightly colored clothing. You respond to other peoples reactions and I think deep down aim to please and to entertain which is perhaps why you love wearing the outfits that garner the most ooohs and ahhhs.

You continue to love books and insist that I point out what the various things on the page are by taking my hand and moving it around the page. Once it's certain to you, like ball, you will point it out yourself each time we turn the page. I get the sense you remember the story and have distinct desires to hear this or that one given a particular mood.

You still have only 8 teeth. You have never had meat for this reason. Although, I'm tempted by now to give you a bite of my hamburger or the roasted chicken. I'm finding the separate meals a bit tedious. Well, the separate meals is perhaps more of a result of your early bed time.

For the past two weeks we've been living at the garden house. I love living there with you. It's small, safe, green, and very cozy. You help with the raking of the grass clipping and filling the bucket with things for the compost. You also enjoy helping me sweep the floors daily. You LOVE plucking the black berries and somehow had a knack for picking the ripe ones, though your lust for eating them is quicker than the ripening process and you have moved on to unripe ones. You know not to get tangled in the prickly vines of the raspberry bush and call for me to pluck a ripe one that is out of reach. You can run the course to the jungle gym in the play ground unassisted which is particularly impressive as many of the bars are set pretty far apart. I also love let you snuggle in bed with us which at home we can't do because of loft.

You are slowly but surely learning the body parts and can fairly reliably point out ears, nose, mouth, eyes. You have added a few moves to your Dancing Felix repetoire and are learning, inspired by Emmett, the shoulder shimmy which you can't at all do you but you try every time I say shoulder shimmy and sometimes also when you hear your last name, Shuldiner.

I don't know FM, there is really so much more. You really all that and I super love you and I really hope I do right by you. And I happen to know that your dad super loves you too because the other day he said he was going to give up eating potato chips since he was worried you would become a junk food freak. FM, if that's not love, I don't know what is.

MMMMMWWWWAAA,
Mama

This short film illustrates one of the keys to living happily in our little garden house for these past six rainy weeks (also key to enjoying a rainy camping trip). The boy, as Talia puts it, is not made of sugar.

The reverse of the Mightygrip!