Seth is 17 month old! (a week ago…)

Amanda’s trying to finish a stocking that she is cross-stitching for Seth, so I am writing this post instead. I think her cross-stitching gets more intense and complex every time. She’s been cross-stitching since I met her, and for the last 3 or 4 of these it’s been way beyond a “normal” cross-stitch hobby. I tried one of them like 5 years ago. I spent like 2 hours to get like two inch square or something, and that was for a single color (that cross-stitch is probably buried in basement unfinished somewhere). Hers has like 128 colors and I don’t know, like 200000 stitches or something? You know, like this one hanging in our living room has Jesus tending sheep and stuff. There are trees in the background, and I think the leaves from a tree growing next to where Jesus is sitting has like 7 different colors, and then like the leaves in the trees that are further away in a background has additional 7 different colors and stuff. I am not exaggerating.

Anyway, this is supposed to be about Seth, which is appropriate because this stocking has it being prepared for a long time, I mean like two years. And she doesn’t like work on it few days and leaves it and then comes back several weeks later. She has been most consistent and works on it frequently, like probably few hours every few days. Except for last two months because Andrew told her that the “stocking will not be ready for Christmas, mommy”, so it’s like a competition now and she works on it basically every day. She works on her dissertation every day except Sunday, but every minute she isn’t working on it (codes running, watching our tv show, me giving kids a bath, etc.) she is working on her cross-stitch. Sunday is her marathon day because that’s the only time she can legitimately take a break from her research. So in last two months she spent like 5% of her existence on this stocking. It might be ready, we have three weeks left. I won’t be surprised if she cross-stitches on the way down driving to Texas.

I have to like think hard on how much Seth has grown since a month ago, because a month ago was like Halloween, and I don’t live everyday thinking, “okay it has been a month since the last month of XXday, now what in our lives has changed?” I do have a webpage for when Seth was 16 months old, but I am just too lazy to check what has changed about him since, so I am just going to tell you what he’s been up to, and what he has accomplished IMO. In traditional bullet points,

- Seth won’t stop asking us to read books. The first thing he does when I walk in the front door is to smile, then he grabs the nearest book and goes “baaaa!!” He wants me to put him on my lap and then read on and on and on. Today, I came home at 5:45p and then we read 7 books between then and the dinner at 6:05p. He wants books read within the first few minutes after he wakes up. He loves the library and knows when we drive by and yells if we don’t stop by. And bigger the book, the better it is. We have several books that are like 200 pages long and has like 10 different stories in it. He loves them. It’s also amazing that he can carry them, because he is like 22lbs and these books are at least 5lbs. He is pretty strong. Yesterday he got the blue encyclopedia out and wanted us to read it to him.

- Speaking of being able to carry, the dude is tough. The other day Amanda was working out with weights, and Seth was copying her with the same weight Amanda was working out with. It was 3lbs, but he was like taking steps with Amanda, going along with her workout video. He already does summersaults and constantly climbs and jumps off the couch (on the front AND back side!) I don’t think Amanda has posted on this, but Friday morning I take kids, and often I take them to the park. About four months ago I found out that Seth can climb ladders. He climbs the normal ladder, but he also climbs one of those hanging rope ladders that swings as you try to pull yourself up. And the thing was like 7 feet tall and he did it without being helped. He has no fear because he basically thinks he can do everything Andrew can. Andrew didn’t know how to climb a ladder until he was like 2 and half year old. He is often found carrying (not just pushing but actually lifting it up) wagons for his blocks and cans of soup in both of his hands. He also pushes adult chairs.

- Trucks. Fire trucks. Dump trucks. Tractors. Cars. Taxis. Bus. Bikes. Planes. Mail trucks. He would say “Woooooo~~!!” as he runs and points at any of them and says “FIRE TRUUCK!!” and then we have to correct him that it’s (often) not a fire truck, and it’s one of the things mentioned above. He loves them all.

- We mentioned that he dressed as a red dragon for the Halloween in other posts, but he loves making sounds to pretend that he is scared at things since. Everytime we walk to the area we did trick or treating, he goes “AAAAHHH!!!” and pretend like he is scared. Every time he looks at anything that remotely resembles ghosts or spiders or Halloween decorations (including Christmas decorations at the stores), he goes “AAAHH!!!”.

- He does this low pitch “GRRRRR!! sound” when he seems dragons/lions/tigers/alligators/hippos, etc. The pitch is low, you would think it wasn’t coming from him. It’s identical to MY low pitch sound, and I have no idea how he makes them because his voice is pretty high pitch. He seems to enjoy making this sound and does it often when reading books. Like Andrew, Seth excels in finding these animals and cars in anything that comes to our eyesight. You open a page, and half a second later he growls and then another two seconds later you find a small gorilla drawn on a t-shirt a boy (out of like 40) that’s on the page.

- He eats a lot now. He is still somewhat picky, but he eats x4~5 to what he used to before.

I am tired of typing incoherent sentences so I am going to stop here. I am too tired to revise.