Anselm turned eighteen months on September the seventh.
My poor little son. His hair is so long that he is consistently mistaken for a girl while we are out. At least, I assume it’s his hair that confuses people; the older boys each have a very short haircut (because summer in Kentucky = ticks, and I wanted to be able to spot them quickly) and even when Anselm is dressed in the same clothes as the older boys, that incongruence of hairstyle makes people automatically assume he’s their little sister. Every. Single. Time.
I am planning on cutting his hair soon. I am just trying to work up the nerve to do it. He’s not exactly a still-sitter.
In fact, Anselm’s gift of moving quickly and silently is somewhat renown in the house. He still doesn’t walk alone, but on the tile or wood floor his bum-scooting is lightning fast; his continuing reluctance to talk means he does it with the stealth of a ninja. This is how Anselm has become the very first child of mine to successfully play in the toilet. And how big brother Ephraim learned that snitching on the Ninja Baby is actually a fairly clever way to remain in Mama’s good graces.
When he’s not quietly getting into mischief, Anselm amuses himself by making his will known with exaggerated shrieks and squeals. I say exaggerated because he is perfectly capable of communicating with words and/or sign language, but prefers not to. This is how Anselm because the very first child of mine to repeatedly hear the phrase “use a WORD, please”.
He does enjoy talking to random people, like the waitress at O’Charley’s or the entire staff at the pediatric dentist. In a similar fashion, he will give kisses to the teacher in Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See, or the monkey on the cover of Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb, but will not kiss Mama when asked. He also will name everyone in the family, but “Mama” is reserved for his favorite blanket. I am choosing to take that as the highest of compliments.
Like the other boys, he has a great love of books and music. The piano is a favorite of Anselm’s, and when I play he scoots from wherever he is in the house and screeches at me until I pick him up and let him play. He touches the keys very delicately and loves to lean way over to each side to play high and low notes. He does not like it if I try to play while he is “playing”.
I say he is reticent to talk, but he really is far more communcative (and properly so, not just with screeching) than I give him credit for. He has also started trying to tell me things in his own special tongue (which I haven’t named yet. Anselmese? Mo-ish?) He’s made huge leaps in the past two months.
Here’s hoping that the next month will bring a burst of new vocabulary, the courage to walk alone, and the willingness to give Mama a kiss for once.