The Giant

Congratulations, dear. You have given birth ... to a giant.

"I don't think I was pregnant the last 9 months."

We took Hy in to the doctor last Monday for his 18 mo checkup to learn that he is a mere inch short of 3 feet tall.

"That sounds so tall the way you say it."

Of all the kids his age, he is taller than 92% of them. People at the store or on the plane think he's 2.5 years old. Given that most of the people in our church have relatively small children, it makes him look even larger by comparison! And at not-quite 30 pounds, he's also a big boy, but that's quite appropriate for his height.

"And he still has a large melon - cerebral melon." He also has a decent set of teeth now, as you can see, with canines coming in to complete the set.

In the mornings, we give Hy a little devotional. We pray, sing a couple songs from the primary hymnal, and read a Children's Book of Mormon story. He picks the story. Nearly every time Joy does it, he picks the same story: How we got the Book of Mormon.

"And I do it a lot!"

After reading the story, we then take him to the TV (he calls it Tee) to watch the video version. Our best guess for why he picks this story all the time is that the trumpets start playing at the end of the story when you see the finished Book of Mormon sitting there.

"That's his favorite frame."

Hyrum sits when instructed, and is getting better at sitting to watch the TV when we do the scripture video. This is much preferred to his earlier activity of pushing the channel change buttons or adjusting the brightness and contrast while watching something. "The great thing about being able to get him to sit down is getting him to sit in the tub when I ask him to." Mother-hearts everywhere rest easier.

He has a lot of partial words that he's working on. Give us a list, Joy.

"Su - sun. Something like kern for the corn part of popcorn" his favorite nursery song. Gaw for God and Je for Jesus. He loves pointing to the computer to ask to talk to "Po"p and Grandma "Boo." "Boo! Sometimes I'm not sure he's saying Boo because he'll elongate it or whine it: boo-oo. boo-oo. He also says "Ca-ca" for computer," particularly when he wants the computer to play music. He says a very forceful "down" and we've been working on getting him to say "yeah" in addition to "no" at the dinner table. Joy got him a blow-up ball pit for an early Christmas present, and he loves playing with the "ba"lls. Joy comments that we really need to take more pictures of him playing in it.

He can throw things away in the garbage can when we ask and even close the lid afterwards. One of the cuter bits of that is that we usually keep the garbage can facing the wall to discourage him from putting toys in it. Well, when we put the can in the middle of the room so it would be easier for him to throw something away while we practiced, he walked around to the back of the can, opened it from behind, "just as if it was still against the wall."

Hyrum has never been much of a one for hugs, but we have discovered he is very willing to kiss. So instead of asking for hugs and occasionally getting cries, we now ask for kisses each night and sometimes revel in a hug as well. "Yep, we almost always get a kiss." He can also blow kisses, and he kissed a woman in choir he was sitting next to. We may need to work on that one.

"He has jumped for the first time, with both feet." He claps his hands after music or when someone is happy. He still conducts music very well. Tonight he conducted Bach's Toccatta & Fugue in D minor with Leopold Stakowski while watching Disney's Fantasia. Last night he and I did a Tchaikovsky piece that he really enjoyed. It's nice to see him party out to classical as well as Latin pop, rock, and soundtracks with trumpets ... even if it is all my music. "At church, he started conducting before the church conductor did. She said it made her smile." I was watching him, and his timing for the in-coming was Perfect. The organist finished the intro, he waited one beat, and his arms went down. (Laura waited two beats.)