Obsessions, Part III... Kaleb

Kaleb.

What a kid.

He's only 9 months old. Or in the words of his wise brother, Evan. He's a half and three quarters.

Believe it or not, a child of this age CAN and DOES have obsessions. Granted, if you ask me again in a month, or even in a few days, those obsessions will have evolved and changed. But anyway. We'll go over his obsessions as of RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

1) Inch. Inch is his rainbow colored worm. His lovey. His comfort object. It's a beanie. We have 4 of them, if you count the one that Grandma has as backup at her house. 5 if you include the teeny beanie Inchie that he has. Now, I have to say, I'm a little irritated by this. Seriously. Aunt Emily bought him a puppy. We love Puppy. We, as in Daddy and Mommy. Kaleb likes Puppy, but he is no Inch. *sigh*. We even bought a back-up of Puppy in preparation of his pending attachment to Puppy.Kaleb has had his pictures taken with Puppy. I just don't think we're going to be able to convince him that Puppy is better than Inch. But anyway. At least Inch is a cute worm.

2) Right now, at this VERY moment, as I type this, his obsession is his brother's drum set. He's pulled the snare drum down 3 times. I finally put it on the ground to prevent him from hurting himself. He carries the drumstick around. I'm trying not to let my mind get the better of me and think that he's going to fall on it and poke his eye out or anything like that. A good mom wouldn't let that happen, right? Oh, Daddy just became the bad man. He took the drumstick away from the big K. Apparently he tried to shove said stick down his throat. But anyway. He likes the drum. And anything else that makes noise when he hits it. Maybe we have a future member of TBDBITL (Look it up in Google, for those of you who just don't get it.)

3) Rolling over and attempting to get away from us when we're trying to change his diaper, his clothes, etc. I can't tell you how many times he's gotten away. Naked. Right this second, and I type this paragraph, Daddy is attempting to put pajamas on K-Bob. It's not going well. There is some foul language going on. But we don't swear in our house. So it's all good. KB's favorite moments include the minute that I'm brave enough to allow him to run au natural.

4) Staying up late, getting up early (unless Mommy has to get up early, then he likes to sleep in to taunt me) and taking ultra-short catnaps at the most inopprotune times. We try to get him to sleep the first couple of hours in his own bed. Usually, that lasts until about 2:30-3:00. Of course, he typically doesn't go to bed until 11:00 or so. Despite the fact that he's incredibly fussy. Like he is RIGHT NOW. At 9:33 at night. Most nights, he'll go until he literally just passes out. Like he did in the picture to the left. On my leg. At around midnight. He made a valiant attempt to keep Mommy and Daddy awake until ungodly hours of the night. But failed. Thank God.

5) Cheerios, Gerber Puffs and Goldfish Crackers. Need I say more? Besides the fact that they're ALL over my kitchen floor, as evident in the picture to the left. We love them. Really. We take them with us everywhere. He's also all about food in general. He loves real green beans. And anything with cinnamon (His wonderful babysitter, Cindy, figured this out). He HATES the Gerber banannas though. Weird, huh? He's also a fan of something called Mum-Mums, which are rice rusks for babies, and the other random Gerber finger foods.

6) His tongue. He loves playing with his tongue, sticking it out, using it to give kisses. Very loving, wet, sloppy kisses. He's been sticking his tongue out at us since he was born. Every portrait session he's had has a picture of him with his tongue sticking out.

7) His favorite books are "Elmo is SO Big!" and "Hand, Hand, Finger, Thumb". I think I can recite both from memory. His eyes get so big and bright when I hold those two books up, though. It's so cute. We're working on "SOOOOO Big" with him. I think he'll get that one soon.

8) Water. He loves playing in the water. Be it the bathtub, his swimming pool, or the cat's water dish. We're learning the word "NO", in conjunction with the latter. But it's funny, and hard to keep a straight face when he gets into it. A few weeks ago, I set up his baby pool and filled it up with ICE COLD water. I figured I would do it the night before, so the next afternoon, it would be warm enough to play in. My mistake. My little munchkin decided to crawl into the pool, FULLY CLOTHED. Someone should really watch him, you know? He had a BALL. When we decided he was blue enough, we took him in the house and straight into the tub for a warm bath. No worries, he turned pink pretty quickly.

9) The toilet bowl brush. I have no idea why. We have to keep it blocked off. He thinks it's pretty neat. Gross, huh? And the toilet paper roll. He likes to un-roll it. And he's flushed the toilet a couple of times. Maybe I should try potty training him, eh?

10) His Baby Einstein exersaucer. Although now that he's walking, he has no interest in sitting in it. He must be outside of it walking around it. I credit this contraption for getting him to the point where he almost says "duck".

11) His wooden baby blocks. He LOVES those things. There are 40 of them. They hurt worse than LEGOs when you walk or trip on them if you're not paying attention. He also likes to eat them.

12) Celery. We like to give him celery sticks to chew gum on. I think they're cool on his gums. We have to keep track of them, though, otherwise he puts them places and it's usually a few days to find.

13) Mommy. Yes, it's true. He's obsessed with me. I'm not ashamed to admit it. My baby loves me, and I'm the center of his world. I love how his eyes light up with I walk into the room. I love the fact that he counts on me for his meals, and that I have the ability to produce milk for him. It's been a long labor of love, and I'm proud to be able to say that I'm close to being able to do so for a year. He loves his Daddy, too, and lights up when he's around. But I think it's just the age that he his. I know that the time will come when my kisses are gross, and life is all about boy-stuff and Daddy will be the awesome one instead of me. So I will enjoy every moment of it while I can!

14) Walking. Lord this baby can walk. Run, almost. He's been crusing the furniture for months. I can't believe he's now walking, and doing it so fast! Since learning how to walk, he's pretty much said good-riddence to crawling. Walking is much more fun! Daddy and I love to take him out and let him loose, especially at Grounds for Thought. I think people stop at least 4-5 times to marvel at the walking baby. Apparently, they aren't supposed to walk when they're this little. But this kid has done everything early, so why should walking be any different?

15) Shoe-strings. He likes to un-tie them. A lot. And then put it in his mouth.

16) Grass, clover, rocks, sticks and anything else "nature-oriented" that he can get into his mouth. Apparently, he's very much like his mommy, as I used to stuff my cheeks with these very things, plus an occassional bug or two. I usually try to clean out his cheeks when we're outside on a regular basis. But I'm sure he's swallowed a thing or two. He also likes to tear apart paper and eat that. His cheeks are stuffed with what I am pretty sure is more clover in this picture to the left, by the way.

17) His brother, Evan. Kaleb has been interested in his brother for a while now, but never as much as he has over the past two months. Now that he is mobile, he's all about Evan. He loves to hug Evan, tackle him, and his brother loves to make him laugh. Evan will make faces at him, and Kaleb will get this goofy belly laugh that just melts you, it's so stinking cute. I love that my boys love each other.

I LOVE this little boy. He is the light of my life, as he is his Daddy's too. He's constantly making me smile, whether its because of his giggle, his sweet, sleeping face, or his sad little, sleepy cry. He's usually a really happy guy, constantly babbling away, wandering around from Daddy, to Mommy, to Magic, and when his favorite brother is here, to Evan. It's hard, at times, to remember a time before he was here!