18 month old & 18 weeks along

My sweet toddler's emotional life is becoming more complex by the day. He's woken up the last couple of mornings ready to go...usually he is content to cuddle up and sleep in. He's up for playing outdoors with the neighbor kids in leaf piles, and then to go down the slide by himself. But then, if you don't let him wave his spoon around trying to get his food out of his bowl on his own, he might just become inconsolable and refuse to eat at all.

He is very definitive in which sesame street YouTube clips he likes or doesn't like. He makes snap judgements on new videos we play. His attention span for these is under four minutes each but up to an hour total for quiet time in lieu of napping.

He took well to the ten year old girl (family of friends) today and let himself lead and be lead to play with new toys, and in separate rooms from where we were. If he doesn't have time to warm up, he's started wrapping his arms around a parent's or grandma's leg for security when in an uncertain situation.

I had made a rough guess that he had 30 spoken words at the 18 month check-up but then I hear others, like 'bubbles.'

I think that the very fact of hearing two languages keeps his mind busier and is stimulating in itself. He is adapting well to understand that two languages are spoken: that the routines and objects don't change, but different words and expressions are used. What could be confusing and frustrating is accepted as just how it is. Every object has at least two names.

Meanwhile, daddy felt kicking tonight for the first time of this new one due in April. We've begun the negotiation of the boy names again. (Our girl name was decided before we were married, and the boy name we decided on was the first one we both liked).

Talking to my friend who is having her first due a week after me in April, I have this odd sense of both being experienced but knowing I'll be sucked in again to that newborn 24/7 immersion, that haze of frequent feedings & restless sleep, that joint honeymoon/nightmare, postpartum recovery/postpartum euphoric state, to last up to six months.