21 months

A year and three quarters.

David has very strong opinions. Ask him a yes/no question, and you will receive a definite answer. Do you want crackers for the fifth time today? Yep. Are you trying to carry the ride-on toy up the stairs all by yourself? Yep. Do you want to eat this dinner that we have lovingly and carefully prepared for you? Head shakes no.

For three weeks in August, he ate nothing but tomatoes. Well, he ate other food occasionally, but he was perpetually covered in tomato seeds: on his shirt and his pants, covering his arms and hands and face, in his hair. We are still finding tomato seeds in our carpet.

He takes our hands to lead us places, and wants to help with everything. He unloads silverware from the dishwasher, brings us our shoes, and throws out trash and recycling when we ask him to (and sometimes when we don’t).

David is an excellent traveler. We took a road trip down to Virginia at the end of August, with stops in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, DC, and Maryland. 1250 miles in the car over 12 days, and David took it all in stride. He rode on his first tram, his first bus, his first carousel, and his first elephant. He had a blast playing with the older kids we visited, saw dinosaur skeletons and a space shuttle and sculptures by Rodin and Degas, and through it all managed to sleep through the night and take naps.

He can climb and run. He is still willing to sit in a booster, but he doesn’t really need it. He wants to be carried, and ride in the stroller, and walk next to us holding our hands, and run far ahead to explore. And sometimes he wants all of those at the same time.

He’s 33 and a half pounds of energy, trying desperately to figure out the world, and us, and himself. And he finds the failures very frustrating, because he’s 21 months old. What we see is how much he’s succeeding, and it’s stunning.