The Brute

Auden has become quite the scrappy young lad. He's always been pretty tough, considering his young age, 1 year and and 2 months now, but he's really going to extremes lately. He pushes people over, loves to engage in a game of tug-of-war with Logan and his blanket, purposely bangs his head into things, and smacks and slaps at anything with such force. He used to gently pat or stroke your face when you told him "gentle, Auden." Not now. He thinks it's amusing to whap anyone, anytime. When he's in his high chair, he rocks himself back and forth so forcefully, we're afraid he's going to give himself a concussion, since his head bangs the back of the chair. Miss Dawn has taken to putting him in the high chair because she's afraid he's going to hurt himself. Yesterday, he nearly turned himself over in the high chair at a restaurant because he pushed himself backward so hard. Seriously, this kid is crazy. I have never felt like tv shows reflect reality accurately until I saw the preview for "Up All Night," which shows a bleary-eyed couple trying to wrestle their child into submission and they attempt to affix a diaper to her. "I don't understand," the mom says. "When did she get stronger than me?!? " That's my life these days. My one-year-old is a brute.

Though he may have a tough-guy image all his own, Auden is also showing signs of being a momma's boy. He's saying Mama! now all of the time, especially around 11:00 when he wakes up for whatever reason. It's cute. Sometimes.

Logan and I had a quite amusing exchange around bedtime the other evening. He had to put on his underwear after his bath, and he said, "Mom, are these my panties?" "Uh, no, Logan. Those are your undies," I replied, thinking it's pretty silly that boys and girls even have different names for their underwear. You can tell he's around little girls for most of the day now. "Why? I like panties better." "They're just undies, Logan. Girls wear panties and boys wear undies." I couldn't ignore the fact that this sounded strikingly like another conversation I'd heard before in Kindergarten Cop."

Today at the park, Logan showed off his Spiderman skills. These swinging platforms are hanging from poles, and you have to step on the platform, then work your way onto the next one by grabbing onto the pole and bringing the platform closer to the one you're currently standing on. Logan couldn't quite read the pole attached to the other platform, so he tried "webbing" it. Pretty funny.