One of the great things about visiting the grandparents is that, as a kid, you get all sorts of attention from them. (And the parents think this is great, too!)

Here’s Grandma and Sean going for a spin (while Sean’s parents recline luxuriously nearby):

And here’s Grandpa bouncing Sean to “Hoppe hoppe Reiter” (while Sean’s parents leisurely dine on some afternoon snacks):

Kids love my brother Dan. So I was excited when he came over to my parents’ place while we were visiting. “Hi Dan!” I said in greeting. And Sean repeated me: “HiDan! HiDan! HiDan!” And later, when I mentioned that Uncle Dan was coming over again, Sean said, “HiDan!” And since then, it’s stuck. Dan is now HiDan. And yes, Sean loves HiDan.

Here’s my favorite picture from our vacation:

And Sean and HiDan reading together

And playing out in the yard

Sean turned 18 months at the end of July. In keeping with tradition, we ate cupcakes. In fact, we MADE cupcakes. (Some people are oven-gifted and have baked celebratory confections from the very early days of mom-hood, but this was a first for us.) Sean wasn’t exactly sure what we were doing, but he seemed to enjoy being included in the madness.

First, Sean placed the cupcake paper cups in the cupcake tin. I’m not sure how he decided which cup went where, but he was very deliberate about it. (That’s my brother Dan on the left.)

Next, we mixed the wet ingredients in the mixer. The mixer was quite intriguing.

Mmmm… sugary, buttery goodness…

Sean examines the batter

Sean pours the dry ingredients into the bowl (with a little help)

Grandma scrapes batter off the sides of the bowl

Happy one and a half years, Sean!

Ah, Maine. We spent a lovely two weeks Down East, the first with my parents and the second with Ben’s family. Here we are the first week, when Sean enjoyed helping Grandma in the garden and exploring the paths of these gardens (often at high speed).

Running through the vegetable garden

“What’s Grandma doing?” (Answer: planting lettuce plugs. Also an acceptable answer: digging up worms!)

Sean enjoyed helping water with a perfect Sean-sized metal watering can that Grandma found for him.

And the pitcher steps up to the mound. He winds up. He… (a.k.a. Playing in the flower garden)

Sean can do the sound for just about any animal you ask him about. Our favorite, though, is the rooster.

Sean loves music. And he loves to dance. He has learned to recognize sound systems and always goes over to them to press the biggest button he can find (which is frequently “on” or “play”) to get the music going. A couple months ago, while Sean was busy opening every door he could find, he opened a cabinet in the lobby area of his daycare. In it was a boombox. He pressed the “play” button and out came music! He was thrilled and started dancing ecstatically. For several weeks thereafter, whenever we arrived at or departed daycare, Sean insisted on playing the music and dancing. It was super cute, so I didn’t even mind that much. Ben got it on video one day:

Here’s Sean sporting his birthday suit! It’s so hot here we frequently go out after dinner to “water the garden.” Really it means to splash around in some water.  We strip Sean of his clothes and let him run around our fenced backyard bare-bottomed. (But not shoe-less, as the ground is rocky and sharp, covered in small burrs and scattered pieces of broken glass from previous thoughtless tenants.)

But first, we do actually water the “garden.” Did I mention the ground was rocky? Not so much in the way of soil here. And it never rains, so the ground is parched. So we did a container garden this year. It turns out that there’s not as much sun in this yard as I thought, and so the sun-loving plants we planted aren’t doing so hot. Here Sean waters the pepper. I said, “Let’s go water the pepper.” And literal kid that he is, he made sure to put water on the one small pepper growing on our pepper plant. Maybe a little water even got into the pot…

After the real watering comes the fun: mom chases Sean around with the hose and Sean shrieks with delight when he gets sprayed with water.

And here: our sad little garden. Tomato plant up front gets regularly trimmed by an acrobatic deer that vaults itself around and between the fence and the cliff that backs our yard. We had the beginning of a tomato once, but it suddenly disappeared one night… Two sad pepper plants behind the tomato plant; we may get one tiny pepper from them. Chard in the smaller plant in front; they’ve been growing for several months and that’s as far as they’ve gotten. Basil plant just peeking over the rim on the right. And a few nasturtiums in the middle pot that have all shriveled up and died by now. I think this may be my saddest garden ever, but hey, Sean’s learning about gardening, so a win! (Right?)

And the opposite fashion extreme: here Sean insisted on putting on my T-shirt, having taken it out of my drawer. And he adds a pair of cheap kids sunglasses to finish the look. (Whatever the look is. Judge for yourself.)

Since Sean learned to walk, we have become playground connoisseurs. Sean, in particular, is always eager to explore a new playground. Here we are at Austin’s Zilker Park, one of its best-known. There’s a big fire engine to climb on, which delighted Sean, as well as the standard playground equipment.

Slides are always a hit, and Sean is now really likes tube slides even though he found them scary not too long ago.

Of course, Sean doesn’t always play with the equipment in a way we like…

Did I mention Sean likes slides? Here he is going down one at our nearby Doss Playground. Getting seated at the top of a slide is actually quite a skill. There’s often not much to hold on to to help you sit down and then you’ve got to get your feet out in front. So you can’t sit down too close to the slide, or else you have no room to maneuver your legs. But not to far away, either, because you still have to scoot yourself over to the slide after you sit down. Who knew it was so complex? Sean had trouble at first (months ago), but now he’s mastered all the steps.

Sit.

 Swivel.

 Scoot.

 Slide!

(You’ll notice that he’s also learned to use his feet to control his descent down the slide. Another skill learned by trial and error (and flipping painfully upside down and sideways on the early descents).

Did I mention that he doesn’t always use the equipment the way we like? This is another slide at Doss.

 And down!

And a video:

On Fathers Day we all drove down to the southern Austin to bike on the Veloway; it’s a three-mile paved loop for bicycles only. We’d heard about it and Ben wanted to try it out. We took our Sean bike trailer and biked for a little while before Sean became antsy and wanted to get out. So we got out and took a little walk along a trail, and later came back to our bikes and had a snack. The Veloway was kinda neat; we’d never seen anything like it before.

In the afternoon we went to the Children’s Museum, which Sean enjoys quite a bit.

Here Ben watches Sean play with the big train set. Have I mentioned that Sean likes trains?

There’s also a tunnel to run through:

And lots of ramps for rolling golf balls down:

I knew a long time ago that Sean was listening to everything we said. He’d hear a key word that he knew and repeat it or ask for it. I imagined it sounded to him something like “blah blah blah banana blah blah blah.” And he’d say “ba! ba!” and make the sign for banana.

But more recently I’m realizing the extent of his comprehension of what we’re saying. And it’s amazing. Just yesterday he put a golf ball he was playing with in a paper bag. Then he picked up the paper bag and tried to reach in and grab the golf ball, but his arm wasn’t long enough. He tried several different positions for getting the ball, but still his arm wasn’t long enough. He started getting frustrated. “Sean,” I said, to get his attention. He looked at me. “Turn the bag up-side-down.” And he promptly turned it up-side-down and the ball rolled out, much to his delight. I hadn’t expected that he’d understand what to do with just my words; I was preparing to show him what I meant. He knows the word “bag” and we’ve been working on “turning” his magnetic train cars around when they don’t stick together. And we’ve used the term “up-side-down” before, especially when he stands on his head. But to put that all together and figure out how to apply “turn up-side-down” to a new object — well, I was pretty impressed.

Here’s another example from a month ago: Ben had his guitar out and he and Sean were playing with it together. It was super cute, so I went to get the camera. I tried to be as subtle and quiet as possible, because when Sean sees the camera, he runs to it and wants to see the image on the other side. (That’s something to be said for the old viewfinder cameras — no alluring display.) Well, I wasn’t quite quiet enough, because just as I got set up to take the photo, Sean saw me and ran over. I sighed. There haven’t been as many photos in the past couple months for a reason… But I invited Sean around to my side of the camera and showed him the display: “see, there’s Daddy and his guitar. Let’s take a picture of him.” And <click> we took the picture:

“Now you go over there so I can take a picture of you!” I said, fully not expecting Sean to leave the camera and its alluring display. But he did! He got up and went over to Ben and sat on his lap. He even posed for the camera:

And as soon as I said, “okay, I took the picture,” Sean bounded back over to me to see the picture I took of him. So he understands what a camera does, which must involve several abstract notions. And he understood enough of what I was saying to go have his picture taken. Granted, not the cute candid photo I originally set out to take, but a different kind of cute photo. I’m constantly amazed.