My little dude never ceases to amaze me. He’s speaking in whole sentences now. He’s wild and loud and energetic and imaginative. He sees things I miss every day. He reminds me to stop and to dance and howl at the moon. He reminds me that simple things like sentences and peeing on the ‘big boy potty’ are huge achievements and not to be taken lightly. He takes pleasure in new sounds and smells and tastes and sights. And, lucky me, he takes me along for all of those rides. He notices every airplane and bird and ant. Someone taught him the word wheelbarrow and it wasnt me. Or Laura. Or anyone we’ve interrogated. He’s intrigued by belly buttons. And no one says the words jelly and bean quite as perfectly as he does. Mack’s got the perfect gap right between his front teeth and a smile so bright and open it melts everyone around him. He knows football and baseball and golf and hockey and he hounds us for a glimpse of any or all of the above. He likes his bike and his scooter and knows he has to wear his helmut to like them enough to move them. He falls asleep almost every night precisely at 7. He wakes up every day almost precisely at 7. He calls for his moms the second he opens his eyes. The wheels on the bus go round and round and his little arms crank those wheels in the cutest way. He’s an acrobat, a warrior, a ninja, a runner, a jumper, a yeller, a cuddle monster. He’s my boy. He’s 2. He’s home now. I have to go.

Mack knows things and I don’t know who taught him those things.  Words come out of his mouth and I marvel at the fact that they weren’t there yesterday.  We’d gone in search of a baby bunny we’d seen earlier in the evening munching on a hasta.  He spotted a deer and pointed at it, eyes wide, yelling DEER!  DEER MAMA!  He didn’t call them anything before.  Now suddenly they are what they are.  It’s the craziest little evolution.  Every two year old temper tantrum and crying jag and middle of the night interruption is worth it for those crazy, seemingly minor, little surprises.  I honestly had no idea.

I’m not going to spend any time lamenting my crappy blogging follow through. One would hope that the time I’m not spending here I’m spending with my boy. And its true. Sort of.

I woke up one day recently and discovered that my son is a person. He’s not a baby any more. And he’s more than that generic term they give all toddling creatures. He’s more than a toddler. He’s a little guy. A little person. Other people notice it too. Here’s what I know about this little person — he’s funny. He’s a hambone. He likes to stop dead in his tracks when he hears a tune he digs, and then without skipping a beat he bends way over and shakes his badonkadonk like he means business. This boy knows how to GET DOWN.

He like football. I’m not just posturing because its Super Bowl Sunday. He thinks the TV is FOR FOOTBALL. He looks at it when it is not on, tosses his arms up in the air and yells FOOBALLLLLL!!!!!! I actually think that’s my fault. I was the one who tried to cheer him up when he wasn’t feeling well by asking if he wanted to watch football with me. When he said yes I looked at him and yelled ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOOOTBALLLLLL? Apparently he was ready. He’s always ready. He can’t pass a tv in Best Buy without yelling FOOOOBALLLLL! His other mother and I spend days deliberating over how we’ll manage to actually deny the existence of football (and hockey) when he’ old enough to play.

He’s musical. He sings all the time. His vocabulary is somewhat limited. But it doesn’t stop him from singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in perfect pitch. Who knows what his lyrics mean. But I have to say there’s nothing better than waking up to the faint sound of his sweet vocals in the next room. He’s mastering Happy Birthday and the ABC song too.

Yesterday we took kitchen utensils and banged them together like the drummer from Aerosmith. 1-2-3-4!! We yelled, before launching into our drum solo and then giggling hysterically over and over. I called his other mom and asked her not to come home without a drum. He’s been bangin that skin ever since. 1-2-3-4 bababadabadabadaba. It is awesome.

My boy is curious and charming and sweet and mischievious. He’s sneaky and adventurous. He’s fast and loud and bright and emotional. He’s a drama king. He’s precocious. He’s a person. Every day I like him more. I always love him. But every day I like this *person* more.

I can’t wait to see who he’s going to be.

Originally uploaded by cheekymom

Mack helped his moms with yardwork recently and I was amazed at what an adventure our autumn-dead yard turned out to be.

Originally uploaded by cheekymom

Ok, so I figured out my problem with blogging these days is being overly ambitious in the desire to do it and barely ambitious when it comes to execution. My solution is to try to post less narrative, more often. I’m not sure that this is a real solution or just a little sugar pill for me. But I miss my friends in the blogosphere and I miss the conversation. I’ll try anything to get back in the groove. Besides, I’m hoping this blog can be a gift to my little guy some time. I just want him to know I was paying attention. I tried not to miss too much.

In the spirit of paying attention, here’s my buddy on Halloween. He was a dinosaur. The crazy thing is, this was the year of the dinosaur. Everywhere we went there were little green dinosaurs in home-made costumes with big stuffed tails. But, well, I have to say, mine was the cutest.

My boy smiled for the camera for the very first time today. This was immediately after waking up from twelve hours of solid sleep. A full night’s sleep for the first time in months. The night before he was awake and screaming at the top of every 2nd hour. I was ready to pull my hair out. Last night he made it all the way through and I shot straight up at 6am terrified that something was wrong. I dashed to his room, shoved my finger under his nose to make sure he was breathing, and started breathing myself when I knew that he was.

I’m coming to it. I swear. Just give me a minute.

Mack celebrated a year on the planet in July. I gave up blogging a few months back because I was so into him (and work, but mostly him. well, and work.) that I didn’t have anything to give the blog. That and the blog had become such a scattered mess it didn’t seem relevant any more. But life couldn’t go on without me marking time in some way. I’m not the journaling kind. Probably because my parents used my handful of sacred Dear Diary moments to track me and my rebel ways back in the day. That beat the diary right out of me. I haven’t kept a baby book. I don’t know why. I just don’t see the point in trying to retrofit those scrapbooks that say Mommy’s name is and Daddy’s name is in a way that works for our family. And I haven’t had the desire to cut a lock of Mack’s hair yet. Its just too cute. The most logical solution was a new blog. Here it is. Cheekymom.com. My new blog about anything that strikes my fancy. But mostly about Mack and how he’s shaping my world and how we’e trying to shape his. Or at least how we’re trying to give him the tools to see that there are so many shapes available to him.

Pull up a seat and stay awhile. I can’t do this without you.