Jude Lately (20 months)

He makes it so hard to get a good picture with our DSLR!  As soon as he sees it, he comes running.  Bless him.

- So this is one for the Nature v. Nurture argument: For a while now, Jude loves cars like I love Sonic beverages.  I keep a small supply of Hot Wheels for rainy days, and he's already got access to quite a few cars.  Jude greets each one as if it were its own beautiful Princess Diana engagement ring.  Guided by his slightly cushy hand, "vroom vroom" sounds included, they make tracks all over everything.  The road is me, his own body, the floor, the walls, nothing is off limits.   I maybe would have done this if I were more on top of it, but I had never, not once, shown him how to steer a car around and make an engine noise. And to my knowledge, no one else had either.  He just started doing it one day.  Also in the engine department, whenever we see a big truck drive by, or happen upon a construction site (the Costco parking lot is a doosy), he goes berserk.  I think I'll put this one on Nature.

- Kisses have morphed from open mouthed slobbers to puckers and ! the real thing.  He will often accompany these by a full on hug around the neck and pats our arms or backs.  We are putty.  It's probably the most enchanting thing that's ever happened.  These kisses are also applied liberally to "owies" that may or may not actually be owies.  Jude also is working it with his lady friends Violet and Lyla; yesterday he and Violet had a "I'll come 90, you come 10" kiss on the lips.  Quite the Lothario.

- Jude goes up to kids that are 5 seconds younger than him and, with his most patronizing smile, gives them tickles.  He looks at them afterwards like, "Yeah, I know your life just hit an all-time high.  Don't thank me, I'm just a nice guy trying to increase the world's morale."  He also wants to share his food with everyone (but also assumes everyone wants to return the favor).

- He copies us doing random things that crack us up.  I make green smoothies every morning.  Our blender is not the most efficient item to ever grace a counter top, and I usually have to shake it around, then stop it, open the lid, hack away at chunks with a fork, and then put the lid back on and shake the running blender some more.  Jude is over trying to push all the blender buttons, but he does want to copy cat my shaking the blender and popping the lid off and on.  I'm learning to be more patient with this; sometimes I just wish he'd go play with his toys instead of wanting to follow my every culinary move.
If we are going up the stairs and he stops to lollygag, I'd pat him on the bum a couple of times to remind him of the course we were on.  I guess it had become a somewhat regular thing because last week as we traveled upstairs he stopped, turned, patted himself on the bum, and looked at me like, "We're good?"  There are more copy-cats but I can't think of them at the moment....

- My son has a soft spot for the underdog (it seems).  On a glorious rainy day a couple of weeks ago, I took him to the "playground" (more like germ fest) at the mall to take the place of the watery park.  Jude was playing with a bead maze on the wall next to a couple of other kids his size.  Kid A was getting jealous of the amount of space Kid B was taking up, and he shoved Kid B to the ground.  Jude saw this and then shoved Kid A to the ground.  Was he just joining in the shoving?  Was he protecting Kid B?  We'll never know.  But Kid B's mom happened to be sitting right next to me and was grateful.  Kid A was removed hastily from the playground by a very mortified mother.

- When I sing him songs at bedtime, he'll chime in with the occasional "Waaa waaaa waaaaaa".

So obviously, I kiss him about 73,000 times a day.