I feel like I am always saying this but it's true: This is the greatest age.
Archer, now twenty-months old, is rich with absurdities. He plays with his hair in the mirror, is obsessed with his belly button and just for fun, likes to run into things. He laughs when he hears other people laughing and poops in the coat closet with the door closed. He insists on sleeping with all of his shoes next to him in his crib. He climbs into the dryer when I'm doing laundry and likes to eat cheerios out of a bowl, next to the dogs when they eat their breakfast and dinner.
He only drinks water. Only eats fruit outside. Only eats the very tippy-tips of asparagus and only in the middle of the night, when he wakes up and decides he'd rather sleep in one of the dog beds.
Instead of saying "hi" he says "how!" He's obsessed with all things the color red, which he hoards in large piles in his bedroom. My red coat, Elmo, his blankie, fire truck, Legos, red-letter magnets. If and when he catches you watching him he gets down on all fours and tilts his head like this:
Every day Archer finds a new object to become obsessed with for the day. Yesterday it was an empty box of soap. Today it's a tube of Neosporin that he insists on carrying with him everywhere. In the stroller. To the park. In his highchair during lunch. Last week's objects of affection included three tampons. It had to be THREE. He also went through a mascara phase where every morning he would find my mascara and run around, hitting the dogs with it like a cane.
He just likes to hold stuff. For dear life.
Yesterday, a little old lady stopped us on our walk. She saw Archer and wanted to say hi.
"Well hello, young man! What do you have there?"
Archer proudly extended his hands. "How!" he said. Three Tampax were in one hand. A flip-flop was in the other.
She smiled and looked up at me. "This is a great age, isn't it?"
"The very best," I said.
***
