18 month milestone

"Hi...I'm one-and-a-half now!"

A much belated post marking the fact that Deven hit the 18-month mark last month (August 8th, to be exact).  In my defense, we've been busy traveling and being sick (and in Sameer's case, doing both at the same time), so only now getting around to reflecting on what a fun little guy Deven is becoming.  Of course, we were also late in scheduling his 18-month check-up, so it ended up happening well after the fact.  For posterity, here were his stats:

• Weight: 24 lbs 9 oz (29th percentile)
• Height: 34 in (87th percentile...but I think that was a pretty generous measure)
• Head circumference: 48.6 cm (70th percentile)

He is nearly exactly in line with where Sonia was when she was his age, although I think he is a little bit lower on a percentile basis on the weight, no doubt due to the fact he never sits still.

And along those lines, before I blink and discover that he is suddenly 4 years old, I did want to note a few of our favorite (and not so favorite) habits Deven has these days:

• Above all else, Deven is the least lazy toddler you have ever met.  His first love is being outside, and in the morning he will often bring you his shoes as a not so subtle hint that he would like to leave the house.  As he gets bigger / stronger, he has also taken to grabbing your hand and dragging you to the door and pointing.  Once outside, he runs with abandon throughout the yard and (alas) into the street.  Yes, we have added a gate to our front fence.  And, yes, Deven figured out how to open it within (literally) minutes, but at least it slows him down slightly as he makes his way to the street.
• The only time Deven is content to sit still is when he is allowed to play with an iPhone, which is his second love (second only to getting to go outside).  I admit with no smugness that we are bad parents, and Deven shows a remarkable dexterity with the iPhone for an 18-month-old because he gets a lot of practice.  Originally, his favorite games were the "talking" games where you say something and some animated figure repeats it back to you (cat, dog, hippo, etc.).  He has now graduated on to Super Why, Dora, and Word World (clearly influenced by his sister's TV preferences).  He also enjoys making accidental phone calls (including calling Sameer's CEO, who was traveling in the UK at the time where it was the middle of the night) and deleting applications off of the phone entirely.  Feature request to Apple:  please user test your next UI with toddlers so that you don't make the delete mode be activated by holding down your finger on a button (although I have to say that the fact that Deven can actually navigate the phone easily to find his favorite games is a testament to Apple's UI design, and again our neglectful parenting).
• Deven remains a super happy kid, much more of a laugher than his sister, and on a daily basis he can be heard cracking up because someone is tickling him, or throwing a stuffed animal on the floor (why this is funny remains a mystery), or chasing him around the house.  It is maybe the best sound in the whole world.
• While Deven is a great laugher, he is not a great talker. He has at most a few words ("mama", "ball", "dada" when the mood strikes him), which he uses with some regularity, but just when you think it can officially count as talking, he will call 5 other people "mama" just to mess with you.  We vacillate between acting like it is no big deal and freaking out and calling speech therapists. Our pediatrician said that he should be talking more, but that it was not uncommon for second children (especially boys) to talk later. Essentially, it's a combination of you / his sibling being able to anticipate his needs (thus decreasing the need for him to talk), and also that you spend less time actively teaching him words because you are just trying to juggle life and two kids (reference the earlier comment about being a bad parent). Net, net -- he is definitely making progress on this front, and we are trying to remain relaxed veteran parents, but we are taking him into the speech folks early next month as a hedge.
• While not a great talker, Deven is a fantastic eater.  Without hesitation he will eat any type of food you hand to him, completely trusting that he will like it.  This is in stark contrast to his sister who has been known to reject even the most appealing of food (french fries, strawberries, candy) because it looks "dirty".  While we are still (alas) in the habit of making Sonia her own food at dinner time, Deven can be counted on to just eat what we are eating.  He will also drink milk at any temperature (again, in contrast to his sister who had to be weaned off of heated milk degree by degree over the span of months). 
• Deven has several favorite pastimes -- he loves all toys that involve wheels (planes, trains, automobiles), which seems like such a stereotypical "boy" thing but is unquestionably true.  We got a large lego set for home, part of which had wheels you could add to legos to build cars, and Deven has just carried the wheels around the house ever since (largely ignoring the rest of the legos).  He also loves climbing.  He has figured out he can carry the stepping stool that Sonia uses to wash her hands in the bathroom sink to any place in the house, and in doing so get a step up on being able to climb on to higher things.  His latest trick is climbing onto the piano bench and then pounding out a few "songs" much to his merriment and our pained smiles.  Not sure we have Mozart on our hands, but A for effort.
• Deven is also a very social toddler for his age (another function of being a second kid).  Whenever bigger kids come over to play, he wants to be included, and especially enjoys playing the role of "the monster" who is "chasing" Sonia and whatever unwitting victim has come to our house for a playdate.  While Sonia would wake up in the morning and be content to play in her crib by herself, Deven starts crying immediately and wants to be with someone else every waking minute.  Needless to say, I think he has inherited his father's extroverted nature.  Perhaps relatedly, it is very hard to read Deven a book as he will actively try to close it the entire time you are reading it (cross reference Sameer's renown "inability" to read).
• Last, but not least, Deven really loves his sister. He usually wakes up before her in the morning, and one of his favorite things to do is "go wake sissy" (which he is allowed to do only after it is an appropriate time for Sonia to wake up, which sadly is usually well after when Deven gets up).  He runs to her room, flings open the door, and immediately crawls up on the bed and attempts to snuggle in next to her.  This usually is met with complaints ("Deven is stepping on my hair!").  But, for all of her "complaining" about Deven constantly trying to sit where she is sitting or play with whatever she is playing with, you can see from the photo below (where she is receiving an impromptu hug from her little brother) that it is pretty nice to be so loved.  

I have this photo set as the background on my iPhone and it makes me happy every time I see it.  What a huge change in our lives it has been to have Deven...happy half birthday, little guy!