Letter to our 2 year 1 month old

Dear William,

On 01/08/2014, you turned 25 months old.

On 12/28, you came down with your first stomach flu. You woke an hour after you’d been asleep, so I sent your father in to tend you. In response, you puked on his arm and your sheets, we cleaned up, changed your bedding, I nursed you and then the next round, you puked on my arm and your sheets, and the next round you puked all over your father. The following round, despite having puked in a bucket, you puked on a pillow I was using and it just went on and on and on, much like our washing machine did that night. If you nursed, you could keep it down. If you drank water, you puked it (and everything else, including mommy’s milk) right back up. You finally passed out while nursing at 1:30am. Puking again in your sleep at 4am. Then, later that day, it turned into diarrhea… with cloth diapers. That’s a load of fun right there. In desperation, we bought a small pack of disposable diapers to use until you’re feeling better, because I’d just start to rinse out the diapers and you’d be behind me starting to puke. It seriously took me 4 hours to get 2 diapers rinsed out because of that. Then you seemed to be feeling better, but the next day the puking started again, this time in conjunction with the diarrhea. And your father came down with it, too.  You lost 3.5 pounds as a result of this sickness, which equated to 10% of your body weight.  As of today, you are still a pound shy of where you were last month… stomach flu is no joke.

It also impacted you, mentally, because now you’ll finish nursing and ask “Do you need to puke?”  Or the other night,  you said, “I can puke on the Christmas tree?  I can puke in the tunnel?  I can puke on the cat?  I can puke on the chair?”  Each greeted with a “Nooooooo, puke in your bucket!”  And then you grinned.  You didn’t need to puke, you were just playing a game.

      

In response to transitions that you don’t want to do (i.e., going upstairs, changing your diaper, leaving to go to the store) or if your toys don’t cooperate with you, you’ve taken to screaming. We do gradual transitions with lots of discussion beforehand, so I’m not sure what to do or to continue to do to teach you that this is not an acceptable thing to do. Mostly I implement the technique of telling you to “stop it and use your words” or “use your nice voice” and “to say I’m sorry.” You do say I’m sorry, but then scream again when told you still can’t do or have something, followed by an automatic “I’m sorry.” I’m kind of at my wits end with this one. The frustrating part of it for me is, you have such an immense vocabulary, you know how to tell me what’s wrong, but instead you’re screaming, as if it’s more automatic than verbalizing. Thinking that maybe this is a necessary part of your development, I’ve told you scream into Froggy… this is helping sometimes, but you don’t always have Froggy. Since I know this is a phase, I’m just sticking to being consistent and praying it passes quickly.

We let you watch some Christmas movies this year… hands down your favorite Christmas movie is Frosty the Snowman. We attempted to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, but barely into the movie the head elf yells at one of the other elves, and you didn’t like that… you immediately requested to see Frosty. Your favorite movie of all time, though, is Cars… the original, not Cars 2. Anything and everything comes to a standstill when watching Cars. You are also an incredibly sweet snuggle bug, and love to be held and cuddled when watching movies. We were watching Santa Claus is coming to town and you walked up to the screen and started lifting your knee and said, “Climbing into the movie!”

You loved having us home with you over the Christmas holiday, and we loved being able to spend that time with you. We had Christmas morning at our house, just the three of us. Then, after your nap, we went to your Grandpa and Grandma H.’s house for the evening meal. Your Grandma H. started a new tradition of letting you put baby Jesus into the nativity scene; it was very sweet. You love nativity scenes, and name the wise men, Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and the angel… I’m so glad that one of my favorite nativity scenes, and one I purchased about 5 years ago, is a Little People set and totally kid friendly!  You also managed to add your own decorations to our tree this year, a ladybug and gecko.  Also, not pictured is your Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater Christmas ornaments.

You have loved all the Christmas decorations… especially our Mr. Christmas collection, which includes an animated train that blows steam, an animated clock that has elves singing every hour, an animated advent calendar that plays a song and yields a tiny toy, an animated Christmas tree with a train that goes around it. We went Christmas light looking many times in December, we saw so many lights and decorations… as we’d drive down the street, you were heard to say, “Looking for more lights…. we’re looking!” We put you in your red wagon and wheeled around Grandma D.’s condo complex, and you had a grand time, singing “Jingle Bells” and looking around at lights. So much fun stuff that comes with Christmastime!
  

STATS/TEETH:
You finally have all your teeth!

You are 38.5 inches tall (growth spurt this month, anyone?) and weigh in at 33 pounds 12 ounces. For clothing, you’re wearing size 5T in feeted pajamas (for the height), and size 3T in pants and shorts. You’re mostly in 4T for shirts, because of your broad shoulders.

THINGS YOU SAY:
You still say “Lightming” instead of Lightning.
“Ice crean” is still ice cream.
You still interchange the “you” and “me” pronouns, and truly that is kind of a hard concept to teach. We’re working on it, though, and sometimes you get it right.
You say “OK” a lot as a result. You’ll say, “Do you want to go outside?” And then I’ll ask, “You want to go outside?” And you say, “OK.”

NURSING/FOOD:
You had some rough times this month with vomiting due to your stomach flu. You nursed your way through it and it was such a relief to be able to provide you with that nourishment, especially since it was the only thing that would stay down. Once you started feeling better, your appetite returned in a huge way. This past week you’ve been eating anything and everything that crosses your path. it’s nice to see you eating, even though I know this is a short-lived thing… it’s nice to know you do like to eat, despite the times you prefer to eat just air. One thing that is consistent from last year? You love gingerbread… love it. Your father put gingerbread in your stocking this year, and it was a huge hit.  http://youtu.be/rPyN4aH0gaM

You and I made gingerbread cookies together for the first time, and it was one of those things I’ve always wanted to do with my own child, and now I have — making gingerbread cookies with my little boy! I loved involving you in this holiday tradition… and it was the cutest thing ever, when I put the first batch in the oven to bake, you whispered, “You can taste it?” I looked over and you had pulled some of the unbaked dough from the counter and were stealthily attempting to get it to your mouth, thinking I would forbid you because I had told you we had to wait to eat it. Well, everyone knows, eating cookie dough is a reward of baking… and so I told you it was OK. Because it is OK, that little bit of raw dough won’t hurt anyone.

SLEEP:
Overall your sleep has been good this month. Good solid naps, 2 or 3 hours in length. You have a day here and there that you refuse your nap, but you’re mostly OK through the day. We just get you to bed earlier than usual and you sleep well at night. Your night sleep has been solid, although, after your sickness, you’ve had some early wake times, but I’m thinking they’re either as a result of being hungry (seriously, you’ve been ravenous), or cold (you messed up the thermostat dial on your space heater).

A few times this month, when Grandma D. has put you down for you nap, you will horse around in there and look out the window.  She busts you, though, she goes out and checks to see if the shutters are open or not.  If they are, she goes in and closes them and checks you for poop… sure enough, the last couple times this has happened, you’ve had a nap thieving poop waiting in your diaper.

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:
12/09 – Christmas Music Together Class with Miss Elena
12/14 — we had your 2 year birthday party at your Grandpa & Grandma H.’s home. It was smaller than last year’s party, but still well-attended. Especially given our last minute planning for it.
12/21 – another hair cut for you
12/25 – Christmas at Grandpa and Grandma H.’s home
12/28 – LegoLand
12/28 – your first stomach flu
01/01 – still recovering from your sickness
01/05 – trip to IKEA
01/06 – Library story time started up again
01/07 – Music Class with Miss Cheryl started up again

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:

This past month, we introduced bath paints and bath crayons to you and you love painting and coloring the sides of the bath tub. Although, mostly you seem enamored with having various colors of paints in your palette. More blue? More red? More yellow? More green? You’ll ask, but then not use them to paint.

You still love, love, love chalk and using it on our fridge chalkboard.  You also walk around with a piece of chalk and ask if you can color various things.  “I can color the car? I can color the cat?  I can color the table?  I can color the chair?”  One victim of your “coloring” was my sorter folder… I still haven’t erased it, because it was the cutest surprise to find.

You really enjoy driving your cars and trains on the edges of shelves and tables.  Apparently, the shutters are fair game for driving things on, too.  When we go out to eat, the triangular tent cards on the table are “garages” according to you, and the cars get to park in them while we eat.

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

Back in October we went to Michael’s and they had a Halloween section. There were some scary things in one of the aisles and to distract you, I said, “Uh oh, That’s a scary aisle… I feel a kiss coming on.” For the next month, everytime I would say, “Uh oh” You would respond with, “That’s a scary aisle! I feel a kiss coming on!” Now you’ve started to say, “Where’d the scary aisle go?” And the conversation has been shortened to me saying, “Uh oh!” And you responding, “I feel a kiss coming on!” while leaning your face to me to kiss.

How when you give someone a hug, you walk up to them and lean in… they have to put their arms around you and you just stand there.

When nursing, the way you put your hand up and press it on my shoulder, draping Froggy like a blanket.

When you’re in your bath, your father goes down and cleans up the toys. You listen to him doing that and then say, “Daddy’s playing with my cars.”

The way you ask so sweetly, “Mommy sleep with me?” if you can’t fall asleep on your own.

How you love to read your books, and you paraphrase what’s happening on the page by the pictures you see.  You particularly love the Cars book we found for $1 at the used bookstore.  You search for the part about tractor tipping and Frank, you talk about tractor tipping and then say, “Here comes Frank!  Go fast over the field! Frank’s gonna get you!”  and then skip to the end where Lightning helps the King finish the race and you say, “Lightning helped him!”  You also really love the book Grandma H. got you for Christmas, about a little blue truck going to the city… you love to say “beep” when the blue text comes up (it says beep!) and paraphrase the whole story as we turn the pages, before I can even read it!

So many changes have happened this year, one thing that has stayed the same is that we are continuing to nurse.  Having a third Christmas of nursing snuggles is something I looked forward to, and I can’ t help but compare how last year, you would moan loudly while nursing… it was so comical.  This year, you hum loudly. Simultaneously to latching you start humming various songs… Wheels on the Bus, Trot Old Joe, Jingle Bells, Riding in the Car… all of these are in your repertoire of songs.  Sometimes I hum along, sometimes I will start humming the song and let you finish it.  And sometimes I’ll sing the words to the song and stop suddenly, and it’s the funniest thing to me that you will wait a couple seconds and then unlatch to sing the next line of it, and the latch again.

My funny little bug-a-boo.

Love you forever,

Momma