18 Months Old! Where did the last 6 months go?

Here's a sampling of what's going on with Anderson.

• 
  The sweetest thing ever! When we are out and about and Anderson hears another child say the word Mommy, he turns quickly to me, points, and exclaims proudly "My Mommy". To him, I'm the only Mommy in the world and those other kids are just all confused.
• In trying to keep Anderson's baby book up to date, I recently wrote down every word Anderson has said, at least as well as I can remember. He is up to almost 50 if you include the 10 signs that he uses frequently. Some recent new words are: balloon, star, towel, bus, and door. His new signs are "help", "drink" and "cereal". He loves watching his signing DVD and I'm amazed when he starts using a new one.
• Anderson loves spotting and hearing airplanes, trucks, fire trucks, and helicopters. He's a pro at imitating a fire truck's siren.
• Shapes and letters all around! Anderson has always been interested in printed letters and numbers. At the pool this summer, he would be more interested in going and pointing at the letters printed on the side (3 feet 6 inches) rather than being in the water. Lately he's been very interested in ABC books. He will identify the letter 'A' both in pointing and verbally. His favorite little alphabet book is the 'D' book because he can "read" every page on his own. The book is only 3 pages but he proudly exclaims "deer", "dog", and "duck" as we turn the pages. He's a pro at shape sorters and will verbally identify "star" and "circle" as he places them. It's so fun to see him learning through our dialy playing!
• Last night Anderson was determined to take an old, non-working cell phone to bed with him. I obliged, of course, thinking it would do no harm. Boy was he was a busy boy in his crib after the lights went out! I watched him on our video monitor as he proceeded to make pretend phone calls for about 30 minutes. He even shared some airtime with his puppy as he would hold the phone up to the dog's head. Eventually he fell asleep for the night, but this morning he went right back to work making phone calls when he woke giving Mommy an extra 30 minutes in bed before he finally decided his phone calls were over!
• Anderson loves to pretend to go "night night" and then wake up to the excitement of Mommy and Daddy saying "Good Morning!". Recently Daddy put Anderson in his old cradle where Anderson thought it was lots of fun to play "night night good morning".