baby life

Mitch's brother and family came to visit and we all went up to Niagara. We did the Maid of the Mist boat ride which gets you right up to the falls and is supposed to be wonderful, but I wouldn't know because it turns out that big loud waterfalls are not spectacular but frightening to little kids. Frances was crying before we even got on the boat and Clark didn't start until the spray hit us. They furnish you with lovely blue ponchos that are the weight and texture of saran wrap and that was the first thing Clark felt strongly against. And he wouldn't even go to Mitch so I could take a look at the waterfalls--just clung to me screaming mommymommymommy! Ah well. And it turns out the rest of Niagara is Las Vegas and Myrtle Beach all crammed into two blocks. I wasn't expecting that.

And! Clark is a crazy man. Crazy. Nearly 18 months and knows what he wants. I think he's on some developmental cusp right now; he wants to screw the top on his sippy cup or pour milk from his bowl into a plastic jug but he CAN'T--doesn't have the manual dexterity. Then he gets frustrated, puckers his lips, snorts out his nose, and hits something with a big wide swat. If there's nothing nearby to hit, he walks across the room and hits me. And the screaming! Oh my he screams in frustration.

Clark's also trying to talk. He has a few words reliably in his vocabulary and the rest are whole paragraphs of babble. Very cute. The top words are Elmo, Mommy, Daddy, Down, and No, and Mine. The way he says my name melts me into a puddle (Mom-MEE) but interestingly does not always refer to me alone. Sometimes he calls his dad this, or recently his Uncle Kent. It think for him it's not a name so much as a feeling--of comfort, safety, love. Furthermore, he doesn't want me to leave the room. Yes, we've gotten to that stage. He climbs up me, hugs my head, presses his lips against my cheek. It's sweet, but it's also a little overwhelming, though not as overwhelming as it was when Frances did it. (did Frances ever really do it??)