Fletcher - The "Little Guy"

Fletcher is 20 months now and he will be two years old before we know it – hard to believe.

The lil guy is communicating more and more with us each day. He can clearly tell us if he wants juice or noodles or wants to go outside or go to bed or if he wants more of something or when he’s all done. Even though the two-way communicating is going well, sometimes we still need to use the special “decoder” ear to figure out exactly what he’s saying -- context is everything.

Fletcher enjoys playing with any type of car or truck. Grandma, Mommy and Daddy had to even make a late evening run to the toy store to get him a car track to ride his cars on and it was worth it. We can always tell where he’s been in the house because of the trail of cars and lit rooms he leaves behind him – oh, the new fascination of turning on everything electric in the house. Still, all and all, Fletcher's favorite thing is being outside.

A friend told us that we should share the “human” side of parenting, i.e., the not so pleasant. Of course, there are challenging days, but for me most days are good ones and the bad ones seem to fade quickly or end up being humorous after the fact. Like the day when Fletcher took his diaper off and pooped on the kitchen floor while standing right next to us and then stepped in it and smeared it across the floor. There sat the diaper in the next room the “U-shaped” diaper as if he had stepped right out of it. Like fools, we put Fletcher down for his nap without his bottoms on, i.e., the protective barrier that keeps most kids from taking off their diaper, and he woke up crying and all wet cuz he had taken his diaper off AGAIN – all this in a 3 hour span. Oh, the things we learn -- the hard way! Or the day, when Mommy decided Fletcher needed to start walking down the stairs solo (an injured knee and back pain from toting around our 40lber drove this decision) and Fletcher pointed to her and issued an edict “UP” which sounded more like "Woman, you'd better pick me up! Or the days Mommy tries to introduce Fletcher to new foods and they are rejected with all kinds of theatrics -- "no-no," the hand, and spitting. Or the day Fletcher busted Mommy’s lip when he fell on her while he was horseplaying. These things are funny to us now, but when they happened, we had to summons our patience and remember how much we love this little guy.