Vessel Update

Our Vessel is growing up. It was inevitable. He is now a little over 14 months old. Nobody told me how fast time would go by once I had a kid. Okay, so everybody told me...I just didn't believe them until I experienced it for myself. Lately Vessel has been testing his limits, not to mention my patience. A good example of this is a few days ago when I was loading the dishwasher and he, being the big helper that he is, wanted to participate. I started to load the silverware and he immediately went for it. Yah, sharp knives + kids = boo boo. So I calmly but firmly said "No Vessel, don't touch please." He knows the word "no" and I think he likes to test me to see if I'll actually stop him. So he looked at me in a sly way and then slowly started moving his hand towards the silverware again. I said, "No, that will hurt you. Don't touch." And he stopped his hand before it reached his objective then looked at me to see if I was being serious. He attempted again, so I said "No" and pushed his hand away. He tried to do it several times, always looking at me and testing me and sometimes laughing like its a little game to him. Finally I scooped him up and put him in his playpen in his room and he was none to pleased with that. After several minutes of begging me to come get him, I gave in and brought him back out to the kitchen with me. Thinking he learned his lesson, I set him down on the floor assuming he would play with the toys I brought into the kitchen. But no, he went right for the knives again, and AGAIN I said "NO" and when he slowly started moving his hand toward them (while giggling, mind you) I scooped him up and put him right back in his playpen and shut the door behind me. Now, that really got him going. So, it continued...I go back to get him after a few minutes, assume he realizes the consequences by now, put him on the floor and go back to loading the dishwasher. Any guesses what happened next? Come on, anyone, anyone? Well, you'd be right on the mark if you guessed that he tried to touch the darn silverware once again. That was it. I took him right back to his room, put him in his bed, turned off the light and shut the door. "That will teach him" I thought. I felt like the Grinch waiting for the Whos down in Who-ville to start crying before becoming utterly baffled when they don't. There I was waiting for a burst of howling, but strangely Vessel just piped right down. After feeling a bit guilty, I went and got him just as I was finishing up and put him on the kitchen floor. Out of curiosity I left the dishwasher open to see what he would do. He looked at it, started walking towards it, stopped himself, then turned around and picked up his toy car. Ha! He is learning afterall! It is fabulous to watch him grasp something. I think his receptive language skills are pretty good. Even though he can only say a few words, I know he understands many words that we use when talking to him.
He is really loving books more than ever now, and it is such a sweet thing when he brings a book over to one of us and crawls into our laps to read a story. Another thing he loves is pillows. Whenever I am making the bed I pull off the pillows (all 6 of them) and he laughs and throws himself on top of them over and over again. He hates it when I eventually put them back on the bed. Pillows are seriously one of his favorite things. It's so odd. Also, he is still a big fan of music, and loves to be sung to. He loves it when I play "this little piggy" with his toes. And speaking of music, if he's having a hard time going down for a nap, we can get him to fall asleep to pretty much any music video by Guns N Roses 99.9% of the time. Interesting eh?
Vessel is becoming quite independent. He enjoys feeding himself with a spoon or a fork and he attempts to drink from a cup on a regular basis. One thing that Mike and I have noticed while watching Vessel feed himself is that he always uses his left hand. We've tried to put the spoon in his right hand and he will just switch it back to the left. Maybe he'll be left handed. Who knows, he's still pretty young to know for sure. A really cute thing that he started doing is blowing on his food. He must have seen us do it to our own hot food while sitting at the table with us, and now he blows on all his food, hot or cold. It 's really funny to see him hesitate before putting something into his mouth so he can blow on it first. Also, if he's trying to feed himself with a spoon and the food falls off, he will pick it back up and try to put it back on the spoon before putting it into his mouth. He's just learning lots of new things and it is so fun to watch. I really love this age, but it is also very exhausting. He is constantly getting into something he shouldn't be playing with, even though I feel like we have a pretty baby proof house. About a week ago Vessel wandered off into his bedroom to play. After a few minutes of silence I went to check on him and he had found the big tub of Vaseline sitting among the baby powder, wipes and diapers. He managed to take the lid off and dig both hands into the greasy substance and wiped it all over the carpet, his clothes, his face (it looked like he had tried to eat some of it), and basically anywhere within reaching distance. That was fun to clean up.
Another thing is that Vessel likes to "hide" things from us. I will find his toys in drawers, in the garbage cans, in the bathtub, under the couch, behind my dresser, etc. There are several of his toys missing right now because I suppose he has hidden them in some secret spot unbeknownst to me.
One thing we're working on right now is the whole potty training thing. My grandma gave us a potty training book for Christmas so we are reading it and have some plans in the works. I know that he is still young, but we want to introduce the idea to him and get him a baby "potty" for him to sit on. Obviously it will be unsuccessful until he has control of his bladder and sphincter, and of course he'll have to be ready mentally. We're not going to try to force anything, but I would LOVE for him to be potty trained by age two. So that is our goal as long as he cooperates with us. :)
That's about the gist of what's going on with Vessel these days. Each day brings a new adventure and I'm excited for the many changes to come over the next few months, as tiring and trying as they may be. Kids are great, can I get an amen?