18 months old!!!

Parker is 18 months old!!!! What happened to my 3 pound 10 ounce tiny preemie?! He's getting SO big (albeit still a bit small for his age) and he's learning new things everyday! We're done with walking and onto running, jumping and climbing! No food has been left undiscovered and devoured! He's a trash can... he'll eat pretty much anything even if he doesn't eat much of it. I love that he's an adventurous eater... very much unlike myself! He loves peas, hot dogs, pizza, buddy fruits, smoothies, corn on the cob, black beans, pasta, rice, french fries, chicken, broccoli, goldfish, grapes, watermelon and even salmon!

Parker has a lot of friends and tends to be a good player. His best friends right now are Brooklyn, Harper, Jett, Ana, Nolan, Lily. They all live in our neighborhood and they have had so much fun together this summer! Recently he's developed some separation anxiety which has proved tricky to take him to church. We got paged out of church a few weeks ago because he wouldn't stop screaming. This past Sunday, Mrs. Janet pushed him around in a stroller the whole service. He'll easily go to and stay with Holly, Anna or my mom but otherwise, he wants his mommy and he'll let you know! His recent love for "baby doll" has helped any separation issues at home and is starting to work in public as well. Hopefully, this separation anxiety phase doesn't last long!

His vocabulary is what is most recently astounding to me! In the last 2 weeks he's gone from speaking random words (mommy, daddy, nana, yummy, ball, dog, bobby, baby, bye bye, beep beep etc) to speaking in sentences. He now says "Thank you," "I want my mommy," "There is my baby," "Where is my bobby?" (sippy cup of milk), "All done," and "Where did it go?". In the last few days, he's also started pointing out body parts. He's best at "nose" at which point he shoves his finger as far up his nose as he can.My favorite of all of his new tricks is praying! It's SOOO sweet! My mom taught him to clasp his hands and pray. In Charleston this week, I put Parker in his high chair with food while I got my plate. He kept yelling "mommy" so I looked over to him and he had his hands clasped ready to pray. I told him he needed to wait or pray by himself so he clasped his hands again mumbled words and started to eat. My heart melted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Parker LOVES to be outside. It's probably our biggest source of whining right now. He wants to be outside 24/7 and it's just too hot for me to spend ALL day outside! If there's water in site... he's in it! He could absolutely care less than he can't swim. Thankfully, mommy and daddy are never too far behind!

He is... simply put, the love of my life... my pride and joy... my heartbeat. I am proud beyond measure and man, do I love that baby boy!