How did Liam get to be fifteen months old? Well, I know how he got here literally — it’s called time, and it has this interesting aging effect — but figuratively, there’s been such a stunning amount of growth and development that it seems as if it can’t possibly fit into a year and a quarter.

He’s walking everywhere. He’s even working on running. He stands for ages, just looking around. The only time Liam crawls is if he’s already on the floor and what he wants is a couple of feet away. He really needs to work on the getting up on his feet from sitting, though; at the moment he pulls himself up on pant legs, tables, chairs, cupboards, or whatever’s close. He’s awesome at bending down to pick things up, though, and crouching down and then getting back up.

Liam doesn’t shut up. He’s got lots to say, and he says it. Then again, there are times when you’d expect him to babble on and he’s completely silent, not that it usually lasts long. It’s funny to hear him babble away and to recognise a word here and there — blah blah blah blah cat blah blah car blah blah blah Mama blah blah blah blah duck. Blah? Hat. Blah blah book blah. It really makes you wonder what he thinks he’s saying, because he’s got a whole range of facial expressions to go along with the conversation.

Rice Krispies and milk are now his favourite breakfast. He likes to pick up the bowl, tip it towards him, and drink the milk at the end. Sometimes he tries to do this mid-bowl, and ends up with Rice Krispies all over his face. He finds this amusing. He’s tried to do this once or twice with a plate of dinner and ended up with macaroni and cheese all over his lap, which is not as amusing. There are days when he picks all the broccoli out of his dinner to eat it first, and days where he picks it out to lay it carefully on his tray so that he can eat the rest of his dinner without it. Tomorrow, we try raisins as snacks. Raisin Bran didn’t go over so well for breakfast, but if he likes raisins alone he may be okay with the cereal dry as a snack with extra raisins mixed in. Some days he eats like a small horse, other days he has a couple of bites of each meal and is done. He’s definitely developed the toddler appetite.

He has learned how to splash correctly in the bath. Correctly is, of course, with open hands in order to create as much of a water spray as possible. He giggles like a loon while he does it. Liam giggles like a loon at lot of the time, actually. It seems to be his default sound. It’s a riot to see him wander down the hall, a little wooden car in each hand, elbows bent so the cars are up around shoulder level, as he goes “heh heh, heh heh heh, heh heh heh heh”. Actually, he has two default sounds: the loony giggle and the “vvvvvvvvvv” sound that he uses when he pushes cars or trains around, which is a lot of the time. He makes his car sound even if he’s just wandering around with a car in his hand. He loves his wooden cars and engines, loves them to bits; he holds them up for me to kiss them sometimes, and he holds them in the palm of his hand and strokes them gently. He also loves his Little People fire truck and school bus. He lifts them up on to the chesterfield so that he can play with them next to people sitting there. And he gets so excited about books. He brings them to everyone, partly to show them, partly so they can be happy too, partly so they can turn pages and “read” it to him, although he can do that perfectly well on his own and will go ahead and do it if you take too long. One of the best ideas we ever had for the car trip was to bring books with us.

Liam is developing an appreciation for the ludicrous. If you put a basket upside-down on your head like a hat and look at him, he’ll look back at you with a half-smile to see if you’re serious. Then he’ll chortle and chortle, because hey, you’re sitting there with a basket on your head, and it’s silly, because that’s not where baskets go. Lately he’s started doing ludicrous things to see what our reaction is, like holding a sippy cup on top of his own head, or putting one of his engines in a snack dish of Cheerios. He’ll watch to see if we look, and then he’ll laugh that loony laugh, because it’s silly. And then we laugh too, because that loony giggle is so infectious.

He’s learned to stand on toys to be taller and touch things just out of reach. And he can climb up on to the chesterfield if he gets the angle just right, without a toy to give him a step up. We got him a little table and chairs, and they’re a bit big for him yet. But he knows the table is his play table, and he drives his cars on it. His toys are in baskets under it. He threw the chairs around a bit, so we put them away. They hurt when he knocked them over onto our feet, so we could just imagine what they felt like when he dropped them on his own. Plus they were rather loud when they tipped over.

Twelve teeth. Twelve. He likes to brush them. Or, more accurately, he likes to chew on the brush because it feels funny. He wears size 18-24 months, fits 2x tops, around size 4.5 shoes, and can put his arms into the sleeves of his cardigan if you hold it for him.

When we’re out shopping Liam will point over our shoulders and say “car”, and we’ll reflexively start telling him that there’s no car there before one of us takes a closer look and sees a wheel embroidered on the corner of a towel, a picture of a racing car on a poster across the store, a motorcycle on someone’s t-shirt. We’re learning to see things from his point of view, and not to make assumptions about our surroundings. Everything is new, everything is exciting. Liam is so intense. He throws himself into life with such enthusiasm that it’s no wonder he gets cranky if he hasn’t napped enough. He’s such a terrific kid.