Tonight as Nathan was getting ready for bed, he refused to let Dan sit down with him to read books. Instead, he got in his chair, picked up The Snowy Day, and opened it, saying, “Snowy Day. Nathan Sandler reading.” And proceeded to look through it “all by myself.”

So I guess we’re done parenting now. Good time to have another one!

We’re in Houston for the holidays and it occurred to us to count how many words Nate really has. Experts seem to vary on the subject of how many words the average 18-month-old has, but the average seems to be around 10–20.

Nathan has 200. Seriously. The full list follows:

airplane all-done animal apple applesauce arm arrow baby bag ball banana bat bath-time bean bear beep-beep belly-button big big-kid bird blocks blue boo-boo book boom bottle box boy bread breathe brown bubbles bunny bus butterfly bye camel car cat caterpillar chanukah cheese chicken chip clock cookie cooking cool corn couch cracker cricket crocodile cup did-it dinner dino dog down duck eat egg fish french-fry fruit get-down girl glasses go good grape green guy happy hat head heart hello help hi high hippo home honk-honk hot house hurt juice keys kitchen knee ladder lights me meat medicine mess milk money monkey moon more mouth muffin music my night nine no noodle octopus oh-no out ow park peacock pee people pickle piggy pillow plate play please poo-poo potato pretty puppy purple puzzle raining raisin read red rhino rice ring rocket roll round-and-round shark shoes sit-down sky snake snow spoon star thank-you tickle train truck tub tunnel turkey turtle two uh-oh up walking walrus water whale window work wow zoo

He also says (regularly) the following proper names (including some of his famously awesome nicknames):

Mama, Dada, Nathan (as “Nay-nay” or “Nay-kuh”), Grandma (as “Ma-mi”), Grandpa (as “Pa-pa”), Kelly (also, “Kiki”), Bel, Marty, Daniel, Emily (as “Animal”), Sarah (as “Rah-rah”), Courtney (as “Cookie”), Maya, Priya, Andy, Albert, P.J., Elmo.

We’ve all been busy moving in to a new house, starting new jobs and new schools, and adjusting to life in a new city. It’s kind of exhausting!

There are more new photos of The Boy (and, occasionally, his parents) over on my Flickr page. Here are a few to get you started:

Finally, Nathan has some tricks he’d like to show you:

So, you know, we threw a party to mark the occasion. Like you do.

A tradition around here—of which I was unaware until my niece Emily’s first birthday, a little over three years ago—is to give the baby a slice of birthday cake (or, in Emily’s case, a whole baby-sized cake to herself) to do with as s/he will. It is, in principle, a horrifying spectacle, but when it’s your kid it’s actually pretty cute. (Also: props to Nate for being more fastidious than any of us thought possible.)

A few more pictures from the birthday are over on Flickr as usual.

As you may know, I have been steadfastly enforcing a strict “no haircuts” policy for The Boy; this course of action has been consistently supported by Grandma Makulski, but on some level I think we’ve both always known it couldn’t go on forever.

So: for his first birthday, a first haircut.

Nathan had his last day at Rice Children’s Campus last week. It was a sad day all around. We will miss the wonderful teachers there. We’ve found a great daycare for him in Massachusetts, too, but this will have a special place in our hearts as the first one. His teachers were so thoughtful, and they made him a memory scrapbook of pictures of his class. Dad took last day pictures, too (warning: Mom and teachers openly crying).

Nate will have his first birthday next Monday! We’ll have cake this weekend, so stay tuned for pictures and possibly video of that.

Nate’s favorite pastime these days is reading (which will surprise none of you who knows his mother). Here he is at his new table, paging through one of his favorite books:

We’ll try to stay on top of updates, particularly as we wind up Nathan’s first year on the planet and get ready to move to Boston. In fact, Erin and I leave tomorrow morning for a weeklong trip to check out day cares and apartments in the Somerville/Medford area; I’ll also be interviewing for a job at a company you’ve heard of—and maybe already work for. (Nate will be sitting this one out, choosing instead to stay with his doting grandparents Makulski.) Wish us (all) luck!

We’ve gotten hints that we haven’t been uploading enough photos recently, so here’s a big batch of the cutest boy. In fact, Nathan’s so cute, he stops traffic and brings it back around for a second look! We were out at dinner the other night, and an older woman started making googly eyes at Nate — not an uncommon occurrence. She asked how old he was, called him “darling,” and said he was “too cute for TV,” even. But more impressive was that, after her friends joined her for dinner, she came back over and said, “I told my friend she just had to see this little guy! He’s too cute to be believed!”

The other new link is some video of Nathan wrestling with his dad and thoroughly enjoying himself. He’s putting all his moves to good use, laughing all the way.

In addition to that, Nate’s been working on teeth (we’re up to 7!) and starting some real food, not just the whipped stuff out of jars. Favorites: avocado, tortillas, beef. Good thing we’ve been hitting Chuy’s about once a week.

Fig. 1: Head-butting.

Fig. 2: Hair-pulling.

Fig. 3: Eye-gouging.

Fig. 3: Make-up hugging.