This is what I know

wsp -15 months, originally uploaded by Reid Pierce.

Sawyer turned 15 months today. Not that I'm celebrating monthly birthdays anymore. My play-by-play Baby Manual ran out at 12 months, so from here on out we're in a phase I'll refer to in future years simply as "toddlerhood."

Toddlerhood comes complete with temper tantrums. Sawyer's tantrum style actually kind of cracks me up. It's sorta Scarlett O'Hara when she "falls" oh-so-dramatically on the stairs with the ruffles of her skirt still perfectly splayed. When I don't, say, give Sawyer the baby cheese puffs, he lets out an initial wail, sprawls oh-so-dramatically on the floor for a minute and then, when he's feeling thoroughly ignored, pops back up to resume life-as-usual. Unless, of course, he accidentally bangs his head on the floor in the process, which happens sometimes. Then the tears are real; he gets ignored all the same.

Toddlerhood also comes with disobedience. Like today, when he started scampering up the stairs despite my repeated "no's." It was sheer defiance – the narrow-eyed glance over the shoulder just before takeoff. An age-appropriate time-out ensued - one whole eternity of a minute penned up in the crib. After about 45 seconds, the screaming abruptly stopped and I found him playing happily with a toy.

Toddlerhood, in Sawyer's case, comes with being "finicky." My parents swear that for one whole year of my life I ate nothing but hot dogs and peas and for the year following that I mainlined pickles. Sawyer, at the moment, adheres to a strict diet of fruit, dairy and bread-related-products. He doesn't even like pasta! Every day I add to the list of things he won't eat. I see this as my greatest failure to date as a parent, and I beat my self up over it regularly – despite constant reassurance from parents whose kids eat almost everything that my kid will be fine. Just to be sure, I poke at his ribs occasionally to check if they've started showing through the skin. So far, he's still Butterball.

Toddlerhood is good things too, like learning how to use the slide and going up and down it over and over again. And playing Ring Around the Rosie and wanting to fall down when I start singing "ashes, ashes" because, oh, it's just too hard to wait. And then grabbing my hand and forcefully pulling me up to play it again. And being able to stack the little wooden rings on the stick or put the puzzle shapes back in the right spot. And bringing me shoes while waving bye-bye when it's time to go somewhere, especially when I am getting ready to go somewhere alone. And trying to climb into the rocking chair at bedtime because that's where we read books and finally the routine we've been repeating these last 13 months is catching on.

And, more than anything, what I adore about Sawyer at this moment in toddlerhood is that, God bless it, he loves to sleep. He naps twice a day, sometimes for two hour stretches, giving me time to get stuff done around the house. And then he'll sleep for 13 hours at night on top of that. This beautiful birthday Sunday morning, when the house was cold at dawn, he cried out at little. Scott picked up and brought him to the couch, covering them both with a blanket. And they slept there, together, until 9:30 a.m. And I slept too. And it was beautiful.