Boddler

So when does a little person transition from baby to toddler? I don’t know the answer to this, and lately I’m perplexed. G isn’t quite the warm little bundle (or bunson, as my sister calls her) that she used to be. She moves, she talks, she yanks on everything, she laughs and gets other people to laugh, and she has attitude! And emotion. I sometimes say that she’s just months away from being a teenager.

But she’s not wearing shoes or even eating finger foods yet, nor can she outscoot our cat. She’s still my “littles.”

So I’ve invented a new developmental phase, for those of us baffled parents who are in that venn diagram space between infant and toddler: boddler. Our little wobbly boddlers, with their jagged little fractions of teeth, adorable entonations, rapidly cycling emotional states, and drunken little movements. My friend Gigi calls these the “golden months,” and I must admit I get it. I get that we’re moments away from the treacherous power that comes with being able to walk, climb, and hoist.

Anyone out their with boddler stories to tell?

I know the phase is short and soon I’ll be quietly looking away while my full-fledged toddler has a a full-fledged tantrum in some extremely public place. Soon after, the power of speech will render volume testing and a litany of “why’s” (all absolutely developmentally necessarily and adorably precocious in their own ways). So G’s boddler phase will come and go quickly.

But she’ll always be my baby…