Michael is 15 months old now, and he’s an active, adorable, mischievous, precious toddler.

His language and communication has exploded — he has too many new words to record here. However, he has definitely learned “no”, and uses it exactly as often as you’d imagine a toddler would. He mimics words back to us often, and interacts with “Miss Rachel” whenever we have screen time: clapping and singing and dancing along. His current favorite sound is “VROOM” — he will enthusiastically make it whenever he sees anything with wheels.

His favorite person is still grandpa: whenever we’re at church and he sees my dad in the choir, he shouts GRANDPA over and over and immediately runs over to him. He does the same with DADA. It’s adorable, but makes participating in church services a little difficult — if grandpa or dada are busy (as they often are), his protests usually increase in volume until I drag him out to the narthex.

Even with all the difficulties that come with having a toddler in church, I love watching Michael at church. He has a reverence for holy things that surprises me, given his age. Even if he’s upset or exhausted or fussing, whenever he’s in line for communion and reaches the cup, he immediately settles and is quiet as he receives the Eucharist. Even though he runs around the sanctuary, he stops before he reaches the solea (the platform in front of the iconostasis).

We’ve started weaning: day weaning is basically complete except for a short nursing session before naptime. We were going to wait to start weaning until after Pascha, but Michael went that way naturally with the help of nicely timed distractions from Jake and my parents. Night weaning is a different story…hopefully we’ll have progress to report next month.

Sleep is still abysmal. He’s always moving, always talking, always doing something — getting him to stop and be still enough to sleep is an exhausting wrestling match that we often repeat several times a night. Once in a while he sleeps for a three hour stretch, and we were elated and shocked when he slept from 9 pm to 3 am a few weeks ago. However, that hasn’t happened again. We’re hopeful might weaning will give us a little more sleep.

Being outdoors is Michael’s absolute favorite pastime. Now that the weather has warmed, we’re out in the garden and on our porch every day, soaking in the sunshine and spring. He loves his own set of garden tools (gifts from a dear family friend) and I have to keep a careful watch to make sure he doesn’t behead my plants with his zeal.

If there’s a puddle or standing water or any kind, he will find it. He loves putting rocks in puddles, or trying to climb into the dogs’ water bucket. We’re hoping to get him swimming lessons this summer to continue to foster his love of water.

He’s absolutely fearless — he plays with my parents’ dogs even though Max is twice his size. He loves sitting on my dad’s lap and throwing the ball for them. If left to his own devices, he would explore forever and never come back. I’ve often looked up from my gardening to see him halfway down our driveway to my parents’ house. I’m grateful we’re further back from the street.

Thankfully, he seems to have outgrown his hatred of riding in the car, and will happily play in his car seat without complaint for most drives. Longer drives are still a gamble, but overall our daily errand running is much more enjoyable for both of us.

He remains an adventurous eater: he recently had a bite of my spicy sushi and returned for more. His favorite foods are currently raspberries, mozzarella, grapes, pinto beans, bread of any kind, and blueberries.

I recently knit him a pair of socks from a limited edition self-striping yarn I purchased from a small business: they’re absolutely adorable and a tad bit big for him. However, I didn’t think about the fact they don’t have grips on the bottom…he took one step on our hardwood floor and promptly wiped out with a screech and a glare of betrayal. Good thing I made them large — we’ll have to wait until he’s a little steadier on his feet.

Watching him grow over the past month has been delightful — I look forward to seeing what sixteen months brings us.