fourteen months

It seems to me that Fry is literally growing before my eyes, with all the accomplishments he's had this month. Suddenly, his head is nearly clearing his baby jail playpen, and I remember very clearly him standing up the first few times and the top of his head barely reached the top!

Fry doesn't walk as much as he runs. He would probably have a lot fewer bruises if he actually looked where he's walking, though! Now he can get up without pulling up on something and likes nothing better than picking up something and running around the downstairs with it. His room has recently transformed into a play space, with a new carpet and fun new toys, including a wooden wagon filled with wooden building blocks that he loves to pull around the room. He has always been clever with shapes, and if he picks up a toy in one hand, he has to have the identical toy in his other, whether it's a car, a ring, a train, or a circular building block. On the other hand, the downstairs is a veritable mine field, so getting out of the playpen still means heavy supervision and lots of "NO"s from me and Stéphane.

We've been seeing big changes at the table, too. More and more, Fry is interested in feeding himself. It started with him controlling my (or Stéphane's) hand holding the spoon, pulling it towards him when he's ready to eat from it, and every once in a while he insists on holding the spoon and getting it in his mouth. We're definitely letting him go at his own pace and marveling at how he'll take an already small piece of food and pick it apart in minuscule pieces before putting it in his mouth.

Fry is still babbling nice and loud in his own language, and we haven't really had an discernible words apart from "papapapapapa" and "mamamamamamama", but we're not bothered. Since he starts going to Nounou's house on Monday, he'll be hearing quite a lot more French than English, and I'm hoping listening to me babble on to him for the last year will be enough. I'm excited and nervous and sad about this next phase of his life, learning to let him go and share him with others.

One last note, my favorite: I've been trying to teach him kisses, since "doing the bise" is such an integral part of life in France. I show him my kissy face a lot, but he quickly responded by putting his finger up to my mouth. Now sometimes he's even stick his finger out, prompting a kiss. It's my favorite part of the day. He may have a little steak of mischief in him, but he's still my sweet boy!