Look out for that milestone!

Well.

Babies sure change fast, huh? I mean, I know it's a cliche to say that it seems like just last week Jack was crawling and babbling and this week he's walking and talking, using a spoon and holding his own cup, but, in my defense, JUST LAST WEEK he was only crawling and babbling and had no idea that the spoon functioned as a tool of any kind and thought that the best way to get water was to lower his head to the cup and bite like hell on the spout.

I guess that the walking technically started in the middle of last week, and the cup thing was on Saturday, but today was like a milestone EXPLOSION. He started the day when he saw Peter Rabbit on his breakfast plate and told me what a bunny says. (It scrunches up its nose and makes a little huffing noise, in case you were not aware. You have not seen adorable until you've seen a baby do this.) Later, I caught him trying to play with the air conditioner's power cord, and we had a little conversation about that, with me saying, "No, no. Don't touch," and him shaking his finger at it and then confirming with me that he had it right. He followed up by identifying his toes and my toes and his ear and fingers (but not my ear or fingers), and then we spent some time looking out the window, watching the "caaaaaaaaahhhhhhhs" drive by. The mystery of how to get the ball popper to pop was unraveled after lunch. He still knows what an elephant says, and at suppertime, just when I had finished regaling The Husband with all of Jack's accomplishments, he blew my mind by using his spoon to eat applesauce instead of using it to wave at air molecules like he usually does. (I mean that Jack used the spoon, not The Husband. The Husband has been able to use his spoon to eat applesauce for months now.) I think meals are going to be a bit messier for awhile.

Sometime during the past week, he started pointing out all of the clocks in the house. He has always loved himself a good clock - the difference now is that he consistently identifies them as "cok" because he's been practicing the "k" sound for days now. At the In-Laws', Jack knows where the bird with the wings that spin is in the garden, and he knows where the birds are that hang from the chandelier and the china closet door in the dining room. He tweets when he wants to play with them. He also knows which round things with hands and words are clocks and which one is the barometer. Why tell a baby what a barometer is, you say? Well, he asked me. What, I'm supposed to lie and say it's a clock?

Jack's current favorite game is "Where's The Duck?" in which I hide his rubber duckie in some clever spot such as the middle of his bedroom floor and he finds it. Sometimes I can hide it under a blanket, but only if he watches me put it there, and only if I put it close to the blanket's edge. "Where's The Duck?" is so popular, in fact, that it could be used to distract Jack from the fact that his mother whacked his face and head on the door, if such a thing were ever to happen which of course it never would. Ahem. But Jack also enjoys a good round of "Crawling Around On The Floor While Holding Random Household Items Such As A Post-It Or A Tupperware Lid Or A Scrap Of Ripped Up Tissue If I Can Get It." I think he likes the way the different things slide along as he goes.

It's really been an incredible week. Some of the things that he's learned we've been practicing, like what a bunny says, but some of them he seems to have picked up osmotically, like the fingers, or the spoon. I think he asked once me last week what fingers were, but, honestly, I'd been focusing on toes and noses.

Jack is at a stage now where he plays happily by himself when he's awake and when he's tired, he snuggles up to his blanket and says, "Mmmmmmmm!" He gives hugs freely and giggles with abandon. OK, sure, sometimes he shrieks just to hear how it sounds (bad), and he hasn't entirely given up on biting. But I am so in love with him that I want to freeze him here forever, except then I wouldn't find out what he'll be like tomorrow.

Happy eleven month birthday, one day late, Jack. You're pretty awesome.