15 Months

Yesterday I got ready for church at my leisure since it was Mother's Day.  (Pronounce the word "leisure" a la Audrey Hepburn in Charade.)  Since we were almost going to be late for church and I didn't know if Jude was ready yet I yelled out as I hurried down the hall, "Where my boys at??"  Jeff ssshed me and when I got downstairs I saw this cute sight -- sweetie pie of my heart.  This hasn't happened in a while.  Mother's Day is clearly exhausting.

Jude is a cheery hoot and holler.  That's what I want to remember most about this age.  He is just fizzing over with high-octane, positive energy and enthusiasm for whatever.  He finds a toy, turns to me, lifts it high above his head so his arm smooshes against his cheek, raises his eyebrows and squishes his lips together as if to tell me, "WHOAH.  Look at what I got!"  He laughs along with us or just on his own.  He kinda sings to himself as he cruises around.  Yesterday in church he sat in the middle of the aisle in the back, looking around at everyone, and every so often lifting both arms in the air in a "Touchdown!" way.  I feel like he's always got his pulse on the tone of a room and whatever that tone is, he wants to psych it up a bit.  He's been saying "yeah," "oooh" and "oh!" for a few weeks.  He gives High 5s.  He moved a pillow from the middle of the floor to the side of the couch so he could climb up onto it and whack the shutters.  He lives life at a rolling boil. He loves his Baby's 1st 100 Words book and after I've pointed to a few things on the page he'll grab my hand to show me what he wants me to show him.  :)  He's still not walking and I am working on it with him.  He's hit all his other milestones when he should and since he's been cruising for 7 months now our pediatrician says he knows HOW to walk, he just needs the GUTS to walk.  Hmmm.  Any tips?  We tried the spoon trick on Saturday but all Jude wanted to do was examine the spoons, not walk while holding onto them.

Anyway we are stoked on him and this age.  He's such a kick.