18 months

Hank is a year and a half old now.
He is not interested in diaper changes or leaving the playground or saying goodbye to his bothers; he shakes his head ridiculously hard, his fine blonde hair swishing furiously back and forth across his forehead.
He throws one hand out in front of his body, sort of like hitting caps lock, screaming NO or STOP.
He has several other gestures which he uses to mean all sorts of serious business - thank you and all done and OUTSIDE!
He uses quite a few words, some of which he even puts together into short sentences.  He talks about socks and buckeyes and MINE.
He finds the bottle of vitamins and holds up his first finger, Vitamin! Just one!
He's able to identify body parts, poking eyeballs and tickling toes and checking on Aunt Kate's injured knee.
He loves pears and apples and berries and bananas, and he carries the stool around at RoRo's to reach the fruit bowl. There are currently five honeycrisp apples lined up on the butcher block, one small bite taken from each.
He frustrates easily and throws top notch tantrums, but he short circuits back to happy pretty quickly.
He loves backpacks.  He points to the empty seat next to him in the van and says backpack, reminding the boys that's where to put theirs on the ride to school.
He imitates a dozen animals, elephants and snakes and cows.
He uses a spoon and brushes his teeth and helps unload the dishwasher.
He doesn't sleep through the night yet.  No one's good at everything, I guess.
He turns switches on and off and opens and closes cabinets, fills and empties buckets, stacks and knocks down blocks, and in general, occupies plenty of time with repetitive practice.
He's very curious but not especially cautious, and insists on doing things like walking up steps without rails and sitting on bar stools without backs just like his brothers.
At the OSU tailgate over the weekend, when he wasn't eating cupcakes or celery or cheese puffs, he used the lid of a veggie tray to slide down the loading ramp of the vehicle next to us. Over and over.
He is full of energy and affection and wonder.
He has generous thighs and glittery eyes and a mama who doesn't mind overlooking a little sleep deprivation, because baby Hank has a way of opening our eyes to so many other good things.