A Preview of the Toddler Years

Nicholas has been pretty cranky and not quite himself for much of the past few days. We're not sure if the tooth we've been suspecting is getting ready to come out for weeks is finally bothering him, if he's reacting to the fact that he's hardly seen me in weeks, if he is starting to transition to toddler moods, or if something else is up. Whatever the cause, he has been prone to outbursts of tears. This is new for us.

But we've had some really good playtime today in between outbursts. His two new favorite games are playing ball and knocking down towers.

"Playing ball" consists of sitting and grabbing the plastic ball when you roll it to him, chewing on it for a minute, and then hitting at it making it spin. Alternately, he hits it and then crawls after it, hitting it again, and so on. He also has a variation that resembles soccer, where he kicks it as we walk around.

Knocking down towers is pretty self explanatory, but what is fun is that if he sees you building a tower on the other side of the room, his face lights up and he heads towards you at lightning speed.
Here he is heading towards a tower Joe built:

From 2010 March

And here he is once he got to his goal:

From 2010 March