What is wrong with you?

Vin turned 18 months on August 9th. We are amazed at all the new things he's doing and saying. He's starting to recognize certain letters and can count to ten on his own and to twenty with a lot of help. Thanks to his Baby Einstein videos he knows a ton of signs most of which Ja and I don't. Sometimes he signs things and I have no idea what he's signing. The other day while watching a video with him I figured out he knows and uses the signs for couch, tree, swing and puzzle. Poor guy, was using all those signs and I thought he was just playing with his hands.

He's also starting to talk very well. Tonight he looked at the sunset and turned to me and said "Sun!" And then he said "Night, night sun". He can tell me when he's hurt, scared, tired, when he has a dirty diaper and wants it changed and what he wants to eat or drink. When he doesn't like somebody and they get in his face he says the them very loudly and abruptly "Bye, bye!" Oh, man talk about embarrassing. But if he likes the person, which he mostly does, then he will fully engage them in conversation.

Yesterday, he came in the kitchen while I was making his lunch with a book in his hand. He asked me to read it to him and I said "Not now". To which he responded, "Now, book!" I said once again, "Not now". And he responded "NOW! NOW! NOW!" I was a bit taken back but responded with the same answer, "Not now." He then threw down the book and walked out of the kitchen in disgust. With which I responded under my breath "Life's tough isn't it."

So those are all the dazzling things our little one and a half year old is doing. All that great stuff and progress and then he goes and proves he's got a long way to go before he's truly a big kid. Last week he decided he was going to "walk" down the front steps by himself. So I turned to see my little guy toppling down the steps. Fortunately, he broke his fall with his face smashing the cement (note the sarcasm). He ended up with a nasty cut on his forehead and a chipped front tooth. Hooray!

Then today I was at the mall making a return at Children's Place. As I was stepping up to the counter Vinnie started coughing. Now, occasionally he will cough to get attention and it sounded like that kind of cough because it was very dramatic. So I told him to cut it out. But he kept going. So I finally turned to him and could tell right away something was wrong. Then he stopped coughing and was chocking. Crap, not this again. I pulled him out of his stroller and started banging him on his back. He then threw up a bit of vile (I know, disgusting) but then went back to chocking. So I hit him on the back again and POP, out came a push pin. Yes, a push stinking pin. I let him run around in the previous store I was in and apparently he found one on the floor and thought it looked tasty. What in the world kiddo? You won't eat carrots but you will eat a push pin? On the up side, when it was all over Vinnie looked up at the Sales Associate who helped us with the chocking mess and said in his sweetest toddler voice "Thank You". She was very touched.