Arlo at 21 months

Arlo is WAY to close to turning two but for right now he is still our little bitty baby. A 21 month old is still considered an infant right? Okay, good...just checking. He's cute as a button while  ransacking the house one kitchen cabinet at a time.  We are enjoying the busy-ness of an almost two year old showing us a bit more of his personality each day. He's affectionate, snuggly, content & very much my side-kick until Daddy gets home.

21 things about Arlo Benton at 21 months:

1. It's funny to start with saying "at 18 months" after stating this is about Arlo at 21 months but, at 18 months he weighed 23 lbs & was 32 in tall. His thighs are certainly chubbier now.
2. He grosses us out everyday when he dips socks into Bella's water bowl then is spotted sucking on them. He also dips a cup in the bowl if he needs a swig. YUCK! He also can locate a toilet bowl brush at record speed. That's even grosser.
3. Setting the table comes naturally. He comes over to the cabinet where the kids plates are kept & carries over one at a time, stands on his tippy toes & places it on the table. The next one goes just behind it pushing the previous one closer to the middle of the table. He basically makes a plate train with a "I'm so proud of myself mom!" kind of face. It's a tough job for a 1 year old! He is a helpful fellow around the house. He loves to take out the "tash" & make sure everything that even resembles "tash" goes straight in the can!  He has his own min-broom that he screams for after a meal then follows behind us to spread out the crumbs we just swept up.
4. He likes to play games with his siblings. His favorites are Crocodile Dentist and a version of Hot Potato that plays a song that gets faster & faster. When it stops he always yells "Ahhhh!" He's also pretty good at Freeze Dance....he's got awesome moves. Of course he does, he is my child ; )
5. You can always find him behind the one door in the hallway that is closed. He climbs out of his crib & pack n' play & takes off on a mission to play hide & seek or SUPRISE MOM & DAD! We were out on the driveway one afternoon with the big kids while Arlo napped. We heard a sound in the garage, turned around & Arlo was there smiling at us saying "Hi!" We were shocked & thankful that he found us, haha! The big brothers certainly encourage this behavior. They are having a good time being roomies. One evening Arlo kept fussing & fussing so Robby went to check on him & found Anson sitting quietly in the middle of crib while sucking his thumb. We have also found all three boys bouncing like they are on a trampoline but the sweetest was finding Anson & Arlo snuggled and asleep.
   
6. He absolutely loves Bella. His chore every day is to feed her. He will drop everything & run to the laundry room saying "eat eat eat!" He fills the cup, races to the bowl, dumps it in & says "lella, eat!" He then stands really close with his hand on her back leaning around to watch her take each & every bite. He's so mad when we drag him away but at her old age she needs to be able to eat in peace.  He really pays attention to how we talk to Bella & does a fantastic job opening the back door & screaming "Lella!" to get her to come in. He also does a good job telling her no & calling her by patting his legs & doing a kissing sound. If you ask him to call Daddy he does the same thing! He went through a phase where he would copy her movements like yawning or shaking.
   
7. While we are on the subject of dogs I must mention that Arlo loves each and every animal he sees. If we see a dog at the park, he runs as fast as possible to say hello then after we say goodbye he starts yelling "LELLA" & chasing them down the sidewalk. He would follow a squirrel for a mile & squeal while watching him scale a tree to escape the toddler. He likes to look at books that have animals & either makes some sort of sound that is supposed to be the name of the animal or the sound it makes. His favorite book for a LONG time has been From Head to Toe by Eric Carle. It has been a favorite for all of our kids in the 1-3 age range but as they get older they love it even more because they watch their siblings act like the animals. The whole book is simply perfect & easy to follow. It says "a buffalo raises his shoulders, can you do it? I can do it!" Arlo's favorite is the gorilla that thumps his chest. For at least a month he followed me around with the book, beating on his chest & saying "ooo-ooo-ooo!" which was him requesting me to read it. Loved every second of that!
8.  When he wants you to follow him he is serious. He walks up to you, gives you a tug then says "cuh-cuh" waving you along. Then he shows you some cool trick his siblings taught him like jumping onto the couch from the ottoman. When he wants seconds on something he holds his finger up to his mouth & says "moh more" like "one more." Moh-more" is also the sound he says when he sees the mower. blower, vacuum or hair dryer.                     
9. He will sit in his booster seat at the table FOREVER! There is nowhere to contain him safely at certain times of the day so I strap him in, hand him a book that he throws to the ground & he settles on sucking his thumb & rubbing his belly button.
10. Darling Arlo doesn't mind getting his haircut one bit. He doesn't move a millimeter & never makes a sound. It makes the stylist giggle every time.
11. He only says "yes" sometimes & when he does it's in a whisper with a long ssssss sound at the end. The rest of the time he says in his husky little voice, "yeah". We certainly need to work on manners. All I think of when he says that is when I was growing up I spent a lot of time with my friend Laura & her family. Her dad said that there van was the yes van & it stopped if you said "yeah." Haha! Arlo would not be able to live in this home. When I correct him & prompt him to say "Yes Mama" he says "yeah (smile) mama." I will let it slide for now. It's the blue eyes that get me with him.
12. He plays with race cars & trains using all the appropriate sounds & is starting to not be so destructive with the things his brothers work so hard to create. He loves the battery operated train with the light on the front. They build a track, turn the light off & lay on the ground to watch it go round & round.
13. He is a let no crumb go to waste kind of kid with all carbohydrates, all fruit, bell peppers, carrots, cucumbers, nuts & some meats. He loves to eat an open faced peanut butter & jelly with pretzels sticking out of it and a cheese cube on the end. His brothers taught him that. They make their creation then sing Happy Birthday to each other. He loves chocolate chips, oatmeal, peach cobbler, applesauce & ice cream. He is often found in the pantry with a bag of something in his hand scooping the content out & into his mouth like he has never been fed. He follows us around all the time saying "eee-eee-eee" which means eat. 
14. He absolutely loves to sleep. Pretty much anytime you put him in his bed he will go to sleep. He was down to one nap for a long time then went back to happily taking two many days a week. It's so nice though that he survives without a nap & it's not the end of the world! He prefers his Chugga Chugga Choo Choo book, a song while being snuggled chest to chest but like he's sleeping with his knees up so he can rub his belly button. He likes to lean down & give me kisses between the bars of baby prison.
15. He goes bonkers when Robby gets home from work & it's the sweetest thing. Arlo likes his daddy's jeep & points out jeeps when we are driving. We flipped his car seat forward just a couple weeks ago. He's a big fan & we love being able to see his chubby little cheeks.
16. He races up the stairs, to the tub & has his leg over the side while fully clothed if someone even mentions something that sounds like bath. He often bathes with Owen & Anson & they are TROUBLE! It's like 3 shamus performing at Sea World. He gets out & runs full speed down the hall (in the nude) to burst into the girls bathroom. If Eloise is bathing she screams the highest pitched scream you've ever heard. Arlo copies the wretched sound then runs back to his room where we capture him to put a diaper on that little hiney. As far as self care goes, he REALLY like to brush his teeth & let's you know by holding up his finger in front of his mouth & making an electric toothbrush sound.
17. Arlo likes to dig in the dirt, hold bugs, make mud & apparently eat rocks. I found evidence of that in a diaper tonight! He's all boy & learned to hold something such as a pool noodle & say "On guard!" We were cool with the pool noodle but then he advanced to other items such as spatulas, sticks, his baby sized fork which he actually jabbed my arm with, paper towels & even his own finger. The most memorable moment was when Robby & I were cleaning the kitchen & we had left him in his favorite booster seat. The rest of the Fab Five were acting ridiculous & apparently distracting us when Robby calmly said "Is anyone watching the baby?" I turned around to see Arlo with a butter knife pointing it at us saying "ON GUARD!"
18. He's bossy when you get him a cup of water. He starts yelling "I! I!" which means ice. I attribute this to Gigi when she visited in July. She got him saying it....it's cute. We find it really funny that an almost two year old this time around barely frustrates us. I guess four older kids really put it in perspective ; ) He is definitely starting to express his opinion when you do not comply with his demands.
19. He acts like you are leaving him forever when he is dropped off in the nursery on Sunday mornings or at school. He is pitiful! For many weeks he would be found strolling around with a mom. He now survives without tears until one baby is picked up then he thinks we forgot him. It's really sad but it's life little man!
20. He's a really big boys at the park that is confident to climb, swing high & slide down the big slides. He sticks with sliding down feet first on his belly. I'm good with that! He's more chatty but still Arlo language that we understand much better than anyone else. Some cute things he says- "Lolo" for Eloise, "Lala" for water & something that sounds like "Lalo" for Charlotte. He says his name is Bubba. He points at the guitar & says "Papa" for my Dad. "Pitzi" for pizza & "yizard" for lizard. He can also say car, truck, jeep, cho choo, book, read, milk, juice, ouch, go, NO & all sorts of sound combinations. When he had a sleepover with Grammy & Papa a few weeks ago they caught a raccoon in the trap Bob had set up. Josh from Animal Control stopped by two mornings in a row to relocate the raccoons. If you ask him what happened to the raccoons he says "dosh, bye bye."
21. He's just the most darling little person. He melts our hearts every single day. We are always silly & whisper to him when the other kids aren't around "all our kids are cute but you are the cutest!"

Here are some typical Arlo faces-

We are all in love with the baby of the family & agree that we will not allow him to turn TWO in October. Sometimes you want to freeze time (and sometimes you don't) but right now, we do.