Sweet 16

Dear JEB,

One year ago, you looked like this and everyone was going mad over this photo. I think one of your grandmas actually has this picture framed and displayed TWICE in her house. And we have it too, on top of the piano, because seriously, it's just so YOU. The seriousness just about kills me.

And it is that serious side of you that other people often comment on. Like my new co-workers. As you know, I have recently started working more, and so your pictures have come in handy to show off at work. I showed my fellow teachers the one below, which was back in November of 2005 (SO last year) and someone said, "Oh my goodness, he looks like a senator."

Yes, you can be quite serious at times. Like tonight, for instance, when I refused to let you take your blanky into the bath. This caused a screaming fit which lasted the entirety of the time it took me to bathe you from head to toe. Even the old toothbrush trick didn't work to snap you out of it (you know -- the one where I hand you my toothbrush and let you pretend to brush your teeth?). There you stood in the tub, refusing to sit down -- which is in and of itself a major no-no -- SCREAMING your head off and letting me have it in Goosese. I think you may have even made up some naughty words to say tonight, such was the level of your anger.

Despite your Serious Facade, for the most part you are a Total Goofball. You spend your days navel-gazing, flicking the lights on and off, attempting to use forks & spoons, learning new words, and dancing every chance you get. Whether it's snippets of Swedish pop music from an interview on NPR, Dad's awful heavy metal, or your fun "Buzz Buzz" CD by Laurie Berkner, you are a dancing maniac. In the car, at home, at school, in the store ... you always find a way to move.

You can find numerous body parts on command, but you give special attention to buttons ...

yours, mine, your dad's, anyone who'll lie down on the floor for a while. Buttons are serious bidness around here. They call for an immediate tackle and that thing where you put your mouth on said button and blow ... this results in immeasurable hilarity -- guffawing to be exact. You have this really great hardy har laugh where you actually say, "HAHAHA!" and then immediately repeat whatever comical action inspired the laugh.

Your dad and I spend many hours now just watching you practice and develop your fine motor skills. Of particular interest to watch are your abilities at unscrewing any type of cap (milk cartons, body lotion, etc.) and your proclivity for putting tiny objects into tiny compartments over and over again. You have a Toddler CD Rom which has six different games -- pop the balloon to see a picture, watch the dog dance to familiar nursery rhyme tunes, match an animal with it's sound, etc. -- which you BEG to play every night after dinner. I usually acquiesce since I get such a kick out of this too. When the cow is covered up by three poppable balloons, you start saying, "MOooooo" before I can even move the mouse over to pop the second and third balloons. But the entire time you are watching it, you like to hold an ink pen and take the cap on and off, on and off, occasionally stopping to make some marks on a piece of paper.

Oh, and then there are clocks. The other night we were in my favorite Asian Fusion restaurant (Peter's) and there was a clock on the wall which can only be described as unusual. It was oval shaped with a triangle-rooftop kinda thing ... seems like it had some neon-lights somewhere on it, but no numbers, and scarcely viewable hands .. and still you looked right at it and said CLOCK clear as day. This baffles me. You also think that the produce scale in the grocery store is a clock, but that makes sense. It just blows my mind that you can identify these bizarre-shaped clocks with no numbers or other easily identifiable features. Genius.

I guess your clock obsession is quite appropriate because time is FLYING by and already I am nostalgic for days gone by. Not the days of no sleep, thank you very much, but the days when you were amazed by your hands and feet and when I didn't need a chiropractor after each time I took you on a hike (I'm guessing that you are nearing 25 pounds of solid muscular wiggle worm). What happens to all of those little moments with you ... all of those days of nursing, nursing, nursing & then rolling over & then crawling & then walking (& now running) ... and all of that love?

The only thing I can figure is that it must be compounding like the interest in your little savings account. Happy Sweet 16, Goosey Guy!

Love,

Mama