Growing Up

I feel as though my little boy has done some intense growing up in the past week or so.

We spent the better part of last week with my family in Hilton Head, and it was wonderful getting to see so many of my family members spend time with an enjoyable little boy that they don't get to see all that often.  Among the participants in the trip were Todd, Logan, and I, my sister and her hubby, my parents, my grandparents, my aunt & uncle & three cousins (one of whom got married while we were there - the main purpose of our trip), my mom's aunt & cousin & her little girl, and another one of my mom's cousins and her hubby.  A grand total of 20 people!  My parents and sister get to see Logan a fair amount, though definitely not enough if you ask any of us.  The remainder of the family members haven't seen Logan since last July at my sister's wedding in Maryland.  At that point, Logan was only 9 months old and not even walking yet.  He has changed so much, and boy were they pleasantly surprised! I have never fielded so many compliments about someone in my life, and my heart melted just a little with each and every one.  I'm so proud to call this little boy my son - he is a complete joy to be around and quite the comedian!

Todd got to spend an unusually large amount of time with Logan this week as well, since he's usually sleeping for the better part of the day and really only gets a few hours each weekday and some time on the weekends to really enjoy Logan.  He took to his daddy responsibilities so well, and I don't think anyone would have ever believed that he wasn't a stay-at-home dad - he was that wonderful!  It gave me some much needed relaxation time (though I found it hard not to think about my school and classroom 24-7 while I was there, but that's another story altogether) and a chance to sit back and actually watch Logan enjoying himself.  I took tons of pictures that are still on my camera, but I will be posting some of them soon, along with more specific details of our trip.

Todd and I both found ourselves constantly commenting on how much we felt like Logan was growing up in the week we were in Hilton Head. He slept in a big boy bed the whole week, for naps and at night.  I slept with him at night, but he did some time by himself for naps.  I expected him to come home and refuse to sleep in his crib, which luckily did not happen, as we are not quite ready for the big boy bed transition yet (though his bedding did arrive while we were gone).  Logan learned several of our extended family members' names throughout the week and can still remember most of them if we show him a picture.  The number of new vocabulary words he learned amazes me, and I couldn't even begin to count them.  Just to name a few: elevator, hotel, sand, bucket, crab, and beach.  He still asks if we're going to the beach every time we put him in the car - so cute!  He also started stringing longer groups of words together, sometimes four or five words at a time, and I'm thinking we'll be hearing some complete sentences by the end of the summer.  He is starting to use words like hold and feel, often in phrases containing the word it, such as asking to "hold it" or "feel it."  He says things like "turn around," "one time," and "one more" consistently and in the right context.  He suddenly knows the difference between one of something and two of something, and will tell you how many there are.  He told us every time we walked into our hotel room that there were "two beds!"  I think this is particularly amusing because when he counts, he completely skips the number two, yet can always pick out when an object appears in pairs.  Weird!

To get to my point and make a long story even longer, I feel like I suddenly have a full-fledged two year-old on my hands!  I know he won't be two for another few months, but I just can't think of him as a one year-old anymore.  He's changed so much since his first birthday and is much more like a two year-old now than a one year-old, temper tantrums and all.  It's been only three days that I've been home with him alone this summer due to our vacation, but I can already tell that this is going to be the best summer of my life.  My little boy is growing up, and I'm so glad I get to be the one to watch him do it!