The baby has left the building ...

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Enter tempestuous toddler Dan. He is just a few weeks shy of his first birthday, but it's pretty clear that we no longer have a baby on our hands. He's rocketed into full-blown toddlerhood, complete with tantrums and defiance aplenty. And if this isn't full-blown toddlerhood, but just a warm up, boy, are we in BIG trouble. Because he's smaller than most kids his age, it's easy to still treat him like he's a baby. It's dawning on us that he understands way more than we thought - which is a mixed blessing.

This morning, Dan and I were playing with the shape sorter. I held up a square, gave it to him, showed him which hole matched and he would put it in. Then, on to the circle. When we got to the triangle, I began to sing the triangle song (Cousin Kelley knows about the triangle song, it's her favorite, right Kelley?). The triangle song is from a large stuffed block with shapes on each side that plays a song for each shape. Dan loves it; we tolerate it and often find ourselves singing the different songs. Ugh. Anyhow, as I sang the song, Dan crawled away from our activity. He went straight for the block and pulled it off the shelf. The triangle side was visible from where we had been sitting. He gave me a wide grin as he banged the triangle side and made the song play. His face said, "See, I know what a triangle is, mommy."

Great. Now, son, do you know that we don't want you to throw your cup off your high chair during dinner? Handing it to us or setting it down would be just fine. And sometimes he does. Some nights, however, he looks straight at us and does it anyway. Tonight, we started taking him out of his high chair, putting him on the floor and telling him to pick up his cup. When he did, we put him back in his high chair and continued dinner. We repeated it three times tonight.

Does he know that the CD racks, the stereo, the stairs, the dishwasher and the fridge are off limits? Of course, he does. He just doesn't like to hear the word no. I'm really not looking forward to spending the next two years telling him no and getting angry red-faced screams in response. I was just starting to really enjoy him. Now he has a will of his own. And it's not always in line with what our will for him is. Isn't he going to get weary and discouraged at the constant redirection? I'm afraid he's not to going to like us very much over the next year.

I'm going to really miss my little baby.