What's MJ Up To These Days?

It's been an incredible couple of months for MJ and for the rest of us. My friend Alyson, who sees him every few weeks, says it's amazing how much MJ changes during that time and I agree. Here are some of the things he's now doing.

He likes to eat on his own. Whenever he can, MJ prefers to feed himself, using a spoon to eat yogurt, applesauce or cereal, or using his fingers to eat pasta, fruit, bread, crackers, etc. It's hilarious when he jams 3-4 blueberries into his mouth, or a handful of pasta. He usually ends up using his whole hand to shove all of the food into his mouth.


He's not only walking, he's running, going up and down stairs on his own (by holding onto the wall, of course), and taking the 1 step in and our of house on his own, without holding on or having to stoop down.

He's still signing, but he's now preferring to talk. He can say soooo much, including: mama, dada, ceej, yaya, froo (fruit), co (cold), wa (water), fire truck, ca (cow), do (dog), meow (cat), ca (car), truck, key, pho (phone), sit, piwo (pillow), fyower (flower), mi (milk), pa (grandpa), ma (grandma), sandy (short for alexander), one, two, bre (bread), blue (usually referring to blue's clues), up, da (down), outsi (outside), dri dri (drive, drive), shz (shoes).

He can get into his car seat on his own, which saves my back.

He seems to understand nearly everything I tell him, including conditional statements, like, "if you put on your hat, I will let you go outside." I said this tonight and he reached for the hat after initially refusing to wear the hat.

He's definitely blossoming into full toddlerhood. His favorite word is a vehement NO and when he's not happy, he proves to us time and time again just how loud he can be.

He loves music. He will bounce up and down on his legs, and shake his head when we have music on. And when I exercise to Everybody Dance, he sits contentedly on the couch and watches me.

He loves his ladybud pillow pet. Santa gave him a mini pillow pet and he just loves it. He won't take a nap or go to sleep at night without it. He calls her BA, which is short for ladybug. He carries BA around all over the house.  I got a back-up BA just in case we have a BA disaster, although we try very hard to NEVER let BA outside the house.

TimehopeAbe tells me that a year ago today, I posted this on Facebook: "It's been an incredible month for baby MJ milestones. In the last few weeks, he started pulling himself up and down, he is starting to hold his bottle, he is cruising a few steps while holding on to furniture and he's signing "more" and "milk." So fun.