Mil.........k.

Mr. Bub is growing like a weed. I'm pretty sure he gets taller, faster and much more mischievous by the hour. Which is all fine and good — for the most part, we're keeping up. I attribute this to our excellent parenting skills and also to Baby Gap's adjustable waist pants. Without which we'd be up a creek, since he is longer than he is wide and only gets taller and skinnier every day.

While I'm amazed by his physical achievements of late, the verbal ones have blown me away. I was in Cleveland last weekend for what, two days? Somehow in that incredibly short amount of time he managed to learn all sorts of new things.

He learned how to say "milk" and "book" – both of which have a long wait between the first part of the word and the k. As in Mil.......k! Boo.......k!

He pointed to a door and said "door!" He pointed to my nose and said "nose!" He pointed to my phone and said "baby!" (Don't worry, it makes sense. My screen saver is a photo of baby Calvin.)

He put two words together at dinner on Monday night: "More milk!" (Hoping to add a "please" to that phrase shortly.)

He's started using "yes" and "no" appropriately.

He's begun attempting just about every word we ask him to say — which he wasn't doing a week ago.

And finally, during my incredibly moving rendition of the ABCs Sunday night, he started making hand motions. So I went back and started again....and he did them again. I think they must be teaching him to sign the alphabet at school, because I have no other explanation for that. Unless he was just waving wildly at me to shut up...?

I'll admit to feeling pretty put out over being the second person to witness these milestones (if you can even call them that). I believe my exact response was "WHY IS HE DOING ALL THESE NEW THINGS WITHOUT ME I WAS ONLY GONE FOR TWO DAYS I CAN'T BELIEVE I MISSED IT NOT FAIR NOT FAIR!" To which Nate coolly replied, "Really? You haven't seen any of that before? He's been doing it for a while now."

It's true, what they say. Mom puts in all the work and gets none of the glory.

(I kid, Nate. You're an amazing hands-on dad and have clearly imparted great wisdom on our child. Perhaps I should leave town more often. Say, two weeks from now?)

It's been really fun to witness these changes in our sweet little boy. Never thought I'd say this (and I'm sure I'll retract this statement within the next month), but I'm loving loving life with a toddler. I'm not loving the tantrums and biting issues (I jinxed myself yesterday, btw — but it was minor and didn't require an incident report. His teacher said things are going much better.), but this is definitely my favorite phase of parenting so far.

I say that about every phase, of course...