Can we just pause for a moment?

Can we just pause time right here for a moment?

I have never felt like Reagan was growing up too fast.

I looked forward to all the milestones: smiling, crawling, talking, eating finger foods...walking.

And now that he has conquered them all I just want it all to stop.

Or at least slow down a little bit.

 

Just this morning he walked all the way from the kitchen to our couch. 

That is all the way across the house!

Up until last night all he had done was walk short distances, but now he is REALLY walking.

Like he owns the place.

I just want to pause and remember this "toddling" phase. 

How he will take a few steps, and then pause and squat to catch his balance and then continue on.

How he says "uh-oh" EVERY.SINGLE.TIME that he or I drop something.

Which tends to be about 450 times a day.

How he reaches out for us when he is tired or scared or on the rare occasion that he wants to just snuggle.

How he gets SO EXCITED when I bring out a food that he loves...

...and throws a fit when it is something that he doesn't quite love so much.

The other day I made him up a whole plate of his own finger foods, on his own little baby plate, so that he could eat for real like Matt and I.

I had cheese in a section and bread in a section and some fruit in a section.

He was ecstatic! He kept looking down at his little bumblebee plate and then looking at us and smiling.

It is so funny how he understands stuff now. 

Like crazy understands.

What we say, how stuff works, his toys...he understands a lot more than we give him credit for.

 

And how it frustrates him when he can't get it right.

He LOVES those little baby squeezee packets, and he loves to play with the top of them.

He will take it off and put it back on for an hour.

He can get it placed perfectly back on the packet, but can't quite figure out how to twist to make it lock back in place and it makes him so mad!

His dancing!

Every time music comes on and he will start bouncing and shaking his hands up and down.

 

How he talks!

I swear he does.

I mean other than his typical "mama, dada, oh, uh-oh, yeah..."

He will repeat what we say all the time and it sounds exactly like what we had just said.

On more than one occasion while we are out and about he will be talking away...and someone will come up and ask how old he is and make some small talk...and 3 or 4 times in the last few weeks they will say "wow...it seems like he is really talking!"

 

Peek-a-boo ALL.DAY.LONG!

I love how he thinks he is hidden behind something and then will pop out waiting for us to notice.

And how he darts back and forth so quickly that we don't even have time to say peek-a-boo.

I honestly feel like I blinked and he is almost a year old.

I look forward to watching him grow and learn even more, but I LOVE this stage right now and I already feel like it is slipping away...