The Arm

A little boy and his beloved baseball. Cute, right? Not so much.

Jim taught Scott to "throw" when he was about 11 months old. He loved it. So much so that "ball" was one of Tank's first words.

Back then, it was cute. Scott couldn't even walk yet, so we'd sit on the floor in front of our not-yet-very-mobile-baby, and play catch with a big soft squishy plastic ball.

The game consisted of us rolling the ball toward him and Tank "throwing" it back to us. His throw, at the time, consisted of dropping said squishy ball about two inches in front of his body and clapping with glee.

Fast-forward eight or nine months, and the game isn't nearly as cute. The kid has an arm. I mean, seriously, he has an ARM.

Unfortunately, his aim hasn't quite caught up with his strength. Anyone who comes over to our house, consider yourself warned: You are likely to lose an eye, or, at a minimum, have your wine glass shatter in your hand.

You see, we're having a hell of a time teaching Scott what is and is not OK to throw. Nothing is off limits: toys, shoes, stuffed animals, toddler plates, parts to mommy's appliances. You never know when you are going to be in the line of fire or what might be coming at you.

Consider the following conversation, which pretty much takes place daily in our house:

Me: No. NO. Scott, we only throw balls OUTSIDE.

Scott: Nods. Then laughs and whips one of his wooden Thomas the Trains through the air at my face.

So while long term, I am dreaming of pitching scholarships (please, dear God, scholarships!), Scott leading TCU to the College World Series, and eventually seeing my kid in a Diamondbacks uniform, right now, I am hoping to just avoid a broken nose or window.

See what I mean? He's throwing the ball directly AT the photographer.

The Great Communicator

Suddenly, Tank is a talking fool.

When we took him in for his 18 month checkup about three or so weeks ago, our pediatrician asked how many words he knew. I estimated roughly 12 and was surprised when she was so pleased.

"That's wonderful! Most of the time I hear 5 or 6. So if he knows 12 that's really, really good," she said.

I explained to her that he wasn't using all of them with regularity. A couple he repeated once or twice and then we didn't hear them again for days. 

In terms of frequency, Scott's vocabulary consisted of: juice, Elmo (funny how that came in at #2), mama, da-day, bye-bye, no, milk, dog, down, all done, ball, and more. 

Our doctor said that by his two year checkup he'd probably know 150 or 200 words.

No way, was my immediate thought.

But now I can see how its possible - even likely. Words are suddenly pouring out of Scott's mouth. It's as if they've been stored up in his little head for 18 months, waiting for a chance to come out. He's saying "plane" "choo-choo" "poop" and this weekend uttered his first two-syllable words - "anana" (banana) and "bubbles."

He's also starting to pair more them together more frequently. First it was, "oh no nooo!" whenever he dropped something or spilled his juice.

He's said, "bye bye daddy," and when we drove into our garage after a 3 hour roadtrip, he looked at me and said, "bye bye car."

And I can actually - kind of - have a conversation with him at dinner. I offered him more chicken and got a shake of the head and "noo." I offered him yogurt and again got a "nooo." 

When I asked him what he wanted, he hesitated, looked around and then pointed and said, "milk!"

How freakin' cool is that?

I've got SOOO much to say!!!