Category Archives: Our Kid is Cute

Dear William,

Today, May 8, 2014, you turn 29 months old. You are 38 1/2 inches tall, maybe 38 3/4. It was hard to tell because amidst much laughter while I tried to measure you, you grabbed the yardstick I use to flatten your hair and were waving that around while you flexed your toes like a ballet dancer, up and down you went, and wouldn’t stand still. You weigh 36.1 pounds. You are in 3T bottoms, 4T shirts.

NURSING/FOOD:
You continue to enjoy nursing, as do I. We now like to nurse in our Tula carrier, and at the end of the night when we’re headed upstairs for your bath, as we walk past the carrier hanging on its hook you cry, “Wanna nurse in the carrier? Wanna nurse in the carrier, PLEEEEASE!!” It makes me laugh every time and I know you don’t mean for it to be funny, but it is.

You eat well for a toddler. One of your favorite things is to munch on my mixed nut mix that I take with me to work for snacking. You like to hold each nut up for identification and repeat the name of the nut back to me. Even funnier, I call it “Mommy’s Snackies.” You call it “Mommy’s Makies.”

We were in Michael’s the other day, and they had a bunch of figurines in a wire rack for purchasing. You wanted to look at them, so we did. You pulled out a pig and held it up and said, “She’s nursing her babies.” I also love that whenever you hear a baby crying in the store, you say, “That baby’s hungry! She needs to nurse!”

SLEEP & HEALTH:
Your sleep has been better this month than I can remember in a long time, if somewhat on the short end of things. We continue with our strict wake up from naps at 3:30pm, with a 6 hour wake time, that puts your bedtime at 9:30pm. Wake time is 6:30am and we try to get you down for your nap no later than 1pm. Despite the incredibly hot nights this past month, you’ve been sleeping well. If you do wake in the middle of the night, you usually go back to sleep on your own.

You’ve been waking regularly at 6:30am. Weekdays it works out well, because that’s when I normally go and get you. But on weekends, one of our favorite things we’ve started doing is to nurse and then snuggle and snooze in your bed until one of us wakes and says, “We should wake up and start the day!” Sometimes we doze until 8:15am! That late wake up time messes up your nap schedule for the day, but to me it’s totally worth it to have those snuggles with you.

You are completely potty trained 24/7, there were no accidents this month. I am astounded by your bladder control, you hold your pee longer than anyone I’ve ever known. You are also able to hold it if we ask you to, when you’ve said you need to go.  Usually it’s enough time for us to find a safe place to pull over so you can use your portable potty.  You’ve even awakened from your sleep and requested to go to the restroom. I have to say, though, that I’ve been very meticulous about making sure you go potty before your bath and before your bed. I even make sure, every single night, to warn you that once I offer that last potty of the day, I clearly articulate, “there’s no more potty after this!” And, 90% of the time, you get in your room, turn around and run back and sit on your little toilet.

I also felt you were ready this month to work on your nighttime “falling asleep” routine. Primarily, because I don’t know how much longer you’ll be able to nurse to sleep. More often than not, you are able to, but there are some nights when you just cannot fall asleep. It’s those nights that I’ve worked with you and gently reminded you that, “We’ve nursed. I’ve told you goodnight. I’ve told you that I love you. I’ve told you to sleep tight. Mommy cannot stay in your bed with you.” I stay with you just a couple minutes, and then leave the room. You have enough of an understanding of the English language and the rhythm of our home that this has worked for you, combined with the work that Grandma D. has done with you for your naps, you’ve been able to roll over and peacefully fall asleep.

THINGS YOU DID/PLACES YOU WENT:
Library time on Mondays and Wednesdays
Music Class with Miss Cheryl on Tuesday mornings
04/18 – Kidseum at Bowers Museum
04/20 – Easter egg hunt at Grandma & Grandpa H.’s house
04/30 – introductory swim class at Water Works
05/01 – Toddler Time at Scooter’s Jungle

 

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

How you love to kiss my “beldy” and I love to tell you that’s where you used to live. One of the days we had a nap fail this past month, I thought maybe I could lie next to you and you would sleep. All got quiet and then you scooched down and said, “I kiss your beldy, momma. I kiss your beldy.” There was no way I could be upset with you after that. We just said, “No nap today.”

Nothing gets past you, and it’s sometimes shocking the things you pick up… from watching Peter Rabbit you learned about spanking, and walked around the house with a Hot Wheels track tapping the cat’s butts, saying, “I’m doing lots of spanking!” I think I forgot to mention, back in January, you were shown some Bible pictures depicting the Old Testament, and from that you learned about “killing” with a stick. Thank you, Cain & Abel!  Your father and I were sadly remiss on the pick-up of using those as an immediate learning opportunity, we were too busy giving each other the “What the heck” face… seriously? THAT is what you learned from seemingly benign stories?

You love to sing songs to me, “Jesus Loves Me” is a top favorite. You sing stanzas of various songs, The Mack Song, as you call it, you sing, “Dop is a hallway, I wanna ride it all night long.” It’s actually, “Life is a Highway, I wanna ride it all night long.” haha You also sing (what you call) the Tow Mater song, it’s actually called Behind the Clouds, but you know the first line and last line of the hook — “Behind the clouds the sun is shi-i-ning, there’s a big blue sky, waiting right behind the clouds.”

The way you love to smell things… if we go to Bath & Body Works, you’re just as bad as we are, you want to smell EVERYTHING in the store.

How when we brush your teeth at night, you like to pick the toothpaste. You’ll say, “I want toothpaste, daddy! Please!” And then when he arrives, you say, “I want Cars toothpaste, please? No, no, I want Tinkerbell toothpaste, instead!” We also have some toothpaste in a blue container that I stuck a Red (firetruck from Cars) sticker on. You call it Red’s blue toothpaste, and everytime it makes me laugh when you say that.

 

 

How when we went to the park a couple weeks ago, you were somewhat reluctant to slide down a big slide all by yourself.  Your father started tickling you and was able to pull you out of the starting point.  You got half way down, giggling the whole way, and said big and loud, “DADDY PUSHED ME!!”  Push, pull, same thing in a toddler’s mind, I guess.

You’ve been struggling a lot this month with separation sadness in the mornings when your daddy and I leave for work. It’s terribly sad, and there’s lots of tears and crying and sobbing and begging. As a last ditch effort, as I drive my car out of the garage, you’ve started saying, “I want to go to work?” And you point at your car seat in my car.

There are a million and one things I could tell you, but instead what I do is I get out of my car and give you one last hug before I leave. You wrap your legs around my waist, like a tight rubber band (when did they get so long), and you wrap your arms around my neck, you lean your head on my shoulder where your tears seep into my shirt. You whisper, “I love you, mommy.” And I whisper back, “I love you, too, William.” And I think to myself, that’s really all you’re trying to say, every single time you reach for me, or you want to hold my hand, or you want me to lie down with you, or you want to show me something… I know, I will never be this loved again.

I love you, too, William

Momma

Dear William,

On 04/08/2014, you turned 28 months old, or 2 years 4 months. You are 38.5 inches tall and weigh 35 pounds.

NURSING/FOOD:
Some of your favorite foods this month are broccoli and chicken tortilla soup. You also love cantaloupe and Greek yogurt. You tried lettuce or “leaves” (as you called them) for the first time this month, and actually wanted more.  Brussel sprouts and turkey are also favorites.  And, yeah, Mac-n-Cheese.

Nursing is a constant in our lives, a comforting thing for you.  When upset, you ask to nurse.  Sometimes I forget and am always a little surprised when you ask for it if you’re upset.  This month we tried some new “tricks”… nursing in our Tula carrier  and we figured out how to “snuggle nurse” so we can watch a movie together and nurse. I joke that I am your popcorn. ha  I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to figure out a few other ways to nurse, but I’m glad we have.

MILESTONES:
Potty Trained!
For the last couple of months, you’ve been telling me at random times that you don’t want to wear diapers. In addition, you’ve been waking dry from your sleeps, both overnight and naptimes, and then letting loose about 20 minutes after you wake and flooding your diapers. Since you came down sick on March 12th with a horrible virus (see more under Sleep & Health) that caused blisters in your diaper area, and since I had read the 3-day potty training method book, on Friday, the 14th, I decided to go with it. Since you were sick, and not eating, I was home with you anyway, I immediately implemented the language and ideas set forth in the book. On that first day, I was impressed that you articulated when you were going, but you told me too late. Then you thought that the running to the bathroom part was fun. Then you had to learn that you were in control of it, vs. it being in control of you. The next step was to learn to interpret the feeling of having to go, which would take 4-5 practice runs. The next thing to learn was how to release on command… this part of the skill still takes some concentration on your part. Since the 4th day (March 17th), you’ve not had any accidents. The only issue we’ve had is making sure that you’re aimed right in the toilet so we don’t have “fountain” (as you call it) problems, and that we pay attention to you when you say you have to go, even if you’re in bed or we’re driving on the freeway.

 

Climbing!
You’ve really started getting the hang of climbing with confidence. You’ve climbed before, but always requested help. Now you’re starting to do it on your own, without help. This is an exciting thing and a frustrating thing!  Exciting because it’s a new skill. Frustrating because you now climb out of your bed!

Hanging!
You’ve started to use just your hands and arms to hang from things. The footboard of our sleigh bed, the counter in our mountain cabin, and bars at playgrounds!

 

Forward Facing Car Seat:
In two of the cars you travel in (your father’s car and Grandma D.’s car, we turned your carseat to face forward.  You are still rear facing in my car seat and will be until you reach the limits of the seat.

SLEEP & HEALTH:

On March 12th, you came down with a 102.9°F fever that didn’t respond to Advil or Tylenol. We took you to the doctor who diagnosed you with the Hand Foot Mouth virus. You had blisters inside your mouth, on your tongue, roof of your mouth and throat. They spread on your lips, around your lips and on and in your nose and ears. In addition, they showed up on your feet, between your toes, the bottom of your feet, up your calves and on your thighs. They were in your diaper area, specifically in your butt crack. They were on your hands, between your fingers and on the palm and back of your hands, and up your arms. Itchy and painful. Poor baby!

 

Even now that the blisters have healed, if you have an itch you’ll start to scratch it, then stop and say, “I need anti-itch cream!”  It’s so funny and so sad.

Combined with this illness, you learned a new skill — using the toilet.

As a result of those two things, your sleep has been absolutely awful.  It’s been inconsistent and nuts.  You’ve been waking at night, sometimes staying awake for 2 hours in the middle of the night.  You’ve been refusing your naps. You’ve been either waking super early, like 5 am, then you’ll go back to sleep until we wake you at 8am to maintain a semblance of a schedule or wanting to sleep late.  If you do take a nap, we implement a hard stop at 3:30pm, no matter how awful the night before was.  If we don’t, even if you’re exhausted, you simply cannot sleep until 9:30pm.  Your father and I are exhausted. We have just recently worked out a strategy for dealing with this. That strategy is to just have your father go in and sleep with you. I tried to do that, but then you just want to nurse all night long and neither of us are sleeping if you’re nursing.  I’m beyond grateful that we moved you to a bigger bed so that we CAN do this.

If I do put you in your bed, when I think you’re mostly asleep, before you roll over, you say, “Mommy be rrrriiiiiight here.” It is the sweetest and most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever heard.

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:

Because of your sickness and then potty training, we stayed home a lot this past month.  We canceled a trip to the mountains, but scheduled another one in place of it.  So, on 04/04 – we had our Mountain Getaway for three days.

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:
Parks and playgrounds – You haven’t met a playground or a park that you don’t like. You beg to go to them. You love interacting with the other kids. You adore going down slides. This past month you’ve starting climbing and hanging with confidence (without assistance)!

We went out to dinner with some long-time friends of ours.  You were enthralled with their daughters and one friend has a newborn babe.  You just loved being with everyone and hanging out!

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

When asked “Where did your food go?” You respond, “Down the hatch!”

You took off with some of your father’s dental picks the other night, ran and hid in your bedroom. Upon opening the door, you were intently flossing your teeth with them.

You sing random songs with “do doooo dooo” for the words. One night, for example, you were painting a waterfall in the bathtub and you were singing a song.  Mid-song you stopped and said you were singing the waterfall song. The next morning, you were singing something with “noo nooooo noooo” for the words and your grandma asked you if that were your no song.  You replied, “No.”

You role play with your toys. Your froggy lovey has a high pitched voice.  Eeyore plushes have low voice. They talk to each other, and along with the voice changes, each item when talking moves and wiggles according to your whim.

We went out to dinner one night.  Mid-dinner, you asked, “Where did Rachel go?”   Mystified, I asked you, “Who?”  You replied, “Where did Rachel go?”  After some thought, I vaguely remembered that our waitress had introduced herself when we sat down, and her name was Rachel.

Then, later that night, you were running around before bath time and you said to your father, “I want to climb the ladder?” Your father replied, “No, not right now.”  Without missing a beat, you turned to run away and said, “I go ask mommy.”

Just like mommy does, you like to sit on your “yoga” ball to watch movies.

You love your music, and sing the Hokey Pokey song and put your whole self in and your whole self out.  You love to sit on my lap while I put my makeup on and have me give you some first, but only “after mommy has some.”  You love Tuggy and constantly walk around him asking him to sit on your lap.  An interesting development to this relationship is that now Tug follows YOU around!   You love looking out your window in your room!  You love Eeyore, Lightning, Tow Mater and Froggy.  You love the candle and lotion aisles in stores, and especially smelling all the different scents — Bath and Body Works is kind of a nightmare to navigate with you.  You love to read books and I’m impressed that a couple times through them, you can “read” them to me.  You love to order your own food off of menus at restaurants.

 

I love you, in all your wonderful, observant, detailed silly self.  I love how you watch, listen and learn.  I love the sweetness of your spirit and how kind and gentle you are to the living creatures in your life.

Love always,

Momma

 

Dear William,

On March 8, 2014, you turned 27 months old. You are 38.5 inches tall and weigh 36 pounds. For the first time, you stood on the scale vs. sitting on the baby scale. Always before you’ve wanted to sit on the scale. You are in 3T sizes for shirts, pants and shorts, and 4T for footed sleepers. Your shoe size is 8.5 Wide.

NURSING/FOOD:
When nursing, you love to hum songs to me, usually starting your medley with Wheels on the Bus, and then go to Frosty the Snowman, then the Hello Song. Sometimes you’ll do Trol Old Joe or something else. You love to sing them in a higher pitch and I’ll affirm, “That’s Froggy singing.” If you go to a lower pitch, it’s Eeyore. You grin when I identify the character you’re humming as. I love nursing smiles and giggles.

This month marks 2 years that I’ve been pumping at work. Although experts say I don’t need to anymore, I still like to provide you with breastmilk that you can drink during the day, even if it’s only 3 ounces that my mom can mix with yogurt and fruit. You nurse as much as you want to when I’m home, but my brain still tells me that I’m preserving that relationship by keeping daytime pump sessions while I’m at work.

You have shocked me with your adventuresome spirit this month on the food front. You tried some lettuces from your father’s salad, some spinach from my salad, and you ate carrots and cabbage (as well as potatoes and spiced meat) at the annual St. Patrick’s dinner.  It’s progress, even if you do call them “leaves.”

SLEEP:
You average about 9 hours of sleep overnight.
Naps are hit and miss. You will usually take a 2 hour nap, but some days you are skipping them.
A couple nights you’ve had trouble falling asleep, or you wake in the middle of the night inconsolable. I don’t know if you’ve had a bad dream or if you’re too hot, but lying down with you usally soothes you. It’s hard to set aside my need for sleep or that I don’t seem to have enough time to do things (like prep my stuff for the next day), but once I make peace within myself, I’m then able savor holding you tight and stroking your head and back, for I know these times will pass before I know it.

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:
2/8-2/9 – Mountain Cabin
02/17 – LegoLand with Mommy
02/22 – Ryan’s Birthday party
03/07 – Disneyland/California Adventure with mommy, Grandma D and Cousin Al
03/08 – Green Dinner (St. Patrick’s dinner) at daddy’s church

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:
Bathtime — loves painting and coloring and “washing the germs off” your bath toys
Playgrounds – you love all playgrounds and parks, even ones with only grass. You love to run.
Library Story Time -weekly
Music class – weekly
We did a trial gymnastics class this month

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

We went to Yogurtland one night, and the entire drive there, you were calling it Ice Cream Land and every flavor I pulled out were chocolate (according to you) and you wanted mine, even though yours was the same flavors. I just had yummy toppings, which I didn’t give you even if you wanted them. When we were leaving, there was a car parked out front with a dog in it. The dog was sitting in the driver’s seat like he was waiting for his passengers to come back. You started telling everyone who passed by that “The doggy is waiting for his mommy and daddy!”

One night, after we were done with your bath, we were playing the game of “What do you hear?” while I clipped your nails. You said you heard the cats. Then you heard the radio playing. Then you heard the nails clipping. You were resting your head on my chest and pulled away and said, “What’s that, mommy?” I told you it was my heart. You said, “Wanna hear your heart?” And so you went limp while you listened to my heart beating. When your daddy got home, you asked, “Wanna hear your heart, daddy?” Apparently, according to you, your father’s heart says, “Bom, chuck, dome!” I’m thinking he should get that checked out!

The other day you were trying to get your daddy’s attention, and “Daddy, daddy, daddy!” didn’t work. You then quietly said, “I go poopy.” That immediately got results and your father rushed rushed over and sniffed your butt. ha

You like to run away from us and shout, “Freedom!”

Not only are you obsessed with the Cars movie, but you’re obsessed with the music soundtrack for the movie which I keep in my car. When we went to LegoLand (1 hour drive each way), you wanted to listen to the soundtrack and at the end of each song, you’d turn to me and say, “What’s next? I don’t know! We’ll see!” Drawing out the word next, know and see for emphasis… and then when the new song came on, you’d tell me what it was about… “They’re up on the mountain… seeing the town” or “He’s learning to be nice” or “They’re dancing on new road.” You’re also quite passionate about the Tractor Tippin’ song, which is all instrumental… and you narrate it, “They’re sneaking up on tractors… honk! Vrroooom!” The music roars scary and you yell, “THAT’S FRANK!” And you cover your eyes and giggle. This fascination with music is great for entertainment during nasty traffic jams. Remarkably, within two notes of each song starting, you know which song it is, and you’ll excitedly proclaim, “That’s the No More Pie song!” Or “That’s the Sing Rue song!” Or if you’re looking for a specific song, you’ll say, “That’s not the railroad song!”
(Video of listening to the Tractor Tippin’ song)

I set up an old cell phone as an MP3 player and gave it to you. You handle that thing so gently and stare at it in wonderment. You love having your own tunes and being in control of your music.

You love to help pick out your clothes for the day. I’ll usually give you two options, this shirt or this shirt, and you’ll pick from those two items. For the first time this month, you wanted to wear your McQueen slippers. You’ve always treated them as toys. However, that was evened out a week later by your refusal to put your shoes on because you wanted to look at them instead.

A couple days ago, you were playing in your toy corner, sitting on your chair, rolling your trains around, You turned toward the shutters and said, “Want to open the neighborhood, mommy?” You wanted the shutters opened.

You like to get on your rocking motorcycle and start rocking. You tell us, “I’m going to Big Bear!” or “I’m going to Walmart!” or “I’m going to the post office!”

I love your imaginary play, it’s a great mirror of what we say to you… you roll your trains around and have them converse with each other, “That’s so cool! That’s so amazing! Oh, I can’t do that… you did it!” You also make your Cars toys say the lines from the movie, which boggles my mind.

You like to role play with your characters, “Hi! I’d like raisins and oranges and salad! That’s Froggy.” You’ll say. Then in a low deep voice, with your lips pursed you’ll say, “Hi mommy, want mommy to be Eeyore?” Any variation in the pitch of my voice immediately becomes Eeyore or Froggy talking, and same for you.

There’s a playground we go to at the Spectrum (local mall) and the kids tend to get pushy and shove past other kids when going up the stairs to the slide. If someone starts shoving you, you’ve taken to stopping entirely and turning to them and saying, “Excuse me… excuse me…” If they don’t respond, you tilt your head and get right up in their face to meet their eyes and repeat yourself, “Excuse me!” It’s kind of funny to watch, but I don’t trust those hooligans, so I’m right there to enforce your politeness. ha

There’s a sign just outside of the playground listing all the rules, like, you know, “no pushing.” You think it’s a menu and run up to it and order your dinner. “I want pancakes and yogurt and mac-n-cheese and grapes and chicken. Iced tea, please?” Then you run away to keep playing.

You love to say, “Want Tuggy to get on my lap, please?” And then instruct “Mommy, sit down please.” Then you crawl on my lap and pat your legs and say, “Come here, kitty kitty kitty.

At Denny’s last night, we finished our dinner and as we were leaving, you stopped at every occupied table and said, “Hi!” Once they said hi in return, you said, “How are you?” And they said, “Fine, how are you?” You replied, “I’m running away!” And then ran to the next table on the way and repeated the entire scenario. Thankfully, everyone thought you were cute and not intrusive.

In your music class, they sing the Hokey Pokey song. Now you try to get our cat to do the dance with you and you were seen talking to Tuggy through the stairwell gate and saying, “That’s my right leg. Tuggy put your right leg in.”

We went to Walmart the other night, and as we pulled into the parking lot, your father spotted the Walmart semi-truck driving to the back of the store. He broke all speed records driving through the parking lot (heart attack for me!) to get behind it so we could watch it back into the unloading dock. You were beyond thrilled. After we shopped there, we went across the street to Target and, behold, there was Target’s semi-truck who had arrived minutes before. Out of the darkness of the backseat, we heard you say, “I’m a lucky boy!”

At Disneyland, we had just finished eating some ice cream. You handed me a napkin, which I thanked you for. In response, you said, “I’m so sweet… I’m so precious.” We had a great time at Disneyland and California Adventure Land. You got to see your most favorite characters — Eeyore, Tow Mater and Lightning and, OH MY GOSH, RED! We were also surprised to see the snowman from the movie, Frozen, and got to ride the carousel and pet goats and dance with mice characters. In California Adventure, we rode the tractor ride twice and discovered a heretofore unknown to us ride, Luigi’s Tires. Such a fun time we had! My mom’s cousin, Al, is visiting, and our friend, Sonia, let us into the park (thank you, Sonia). You were obsessed with Al the entire time we were there, even when we split up, you wanted me to call Grandma so you could find out where Al was at.

My mom said the other day she went to the bathroom, when she came out, you were eating something. She asked you what you were eating and, around your mouthful of food you replied, “Grapes.”. Surprised, she said, “Where’d you get those?” You replied, nonchalantly, still eating, “Out of the bag.” In the kitchen, sure enough, there was a bag of grapes on the counter. She said you reminded her of a teenage boy helping himself to snacks. If you disappear into the kitchen and things get quiet, I know you’re probably digging in the fridge trying to help yourself to snacks. We make sure to latch the pantry door, because otherwise, you help yourself to anything within your reach in there, too.

We walked through the bra aisle at Target the other day… at first glance, you said, “Wow! Look at all those nah-nahs! That’s amazing!” Then you started calling it the “belly aisle” because of all the bellies in the pictures. And then you didn’t want to leave the belly aisle. I finally told you we were going to look at daddy bellies. A ruse, for sure, there’s no daddy belly aisles in Target. Now every time we go to Target, the first place you want to go is the belly aisle. Should I mention how you disappeared in your room over the weekend and closed the door? I figured you were in there reading books, so I went up to the door and knocked and gently opened it, since your books are right behind the door. Instead, you opened the door, no books were off the shelves and your shirt was askew. I asked you what you’d been doing and said, “I can see your belly!” You had this look on your face like you’d been caught doing something you shouldn’t and you pulled your shirt down. haha

You noticed that I was wearing glitter nail polish, asked me “What’s on your fingernails, mommy?” I said, “Glitter nail polish.” You held up your hands and looked at your fingernails and said, “William doesn’t have any glitter nail polish.”

We were driving one day, and you said, “Want mommy and daddy to kiss!” When we did, you said, “Want mommy to kiss William?” Then, “Want daddy to kiss William?” Then, “Mommy and daddy kiss again!”

At the Green Dinner event, you ate well and did a lot of running around. You watched the Irish dancers and then did your own version of what they were doing, up and down the side aisle for the entire time they were dancing. Everyone who saw you started laughing, you were definitely a side show for people to watch! (Video of William’s Irish dancing)

I had opened my vitamin sorters to do my vitamin project. I left them there (empty) and you found them and said, “I want to shut them!” You then spent the next five minutes entertained with shutting every single compartment on the sorter. No wonder I feel like I can never get anything done! haha

In response to something I said, your father jokingly said to me, “What do you want me to say? OH MY GOSH, YOU’RE A GODDESS?” I told him that would be a good start. We laughed and moved on in the conversation. About 10 minutes later, out of your mouth came, “Mommy? Oh my gosh, you’re a goddess!”

I tell you, I love you ten times a million. In response, you started saying, “I love you, ten times a William.” Indeed. In numerical sequences we have million, billion, zillion, trillian.  I like to imagine that in the far reaches of the mathematical universe is an undefined value called “William.” Because, yes, I love you ten times a William.

Love,

Mama

Dear William,

On February 8, 2014, you turned 26 months old.

I took you to the doctor this past month for your 2 year appointment. You weighed in at 35 pounds and were 38.5″ tall. The doctor was impressed with your size, and said you were taller than most three year olds and weigh more than most 4 year olds. He was not concerned with your size since you are consistent with your overall growth curve. I had delayed your shots this past year, because every time I wanted to take you in, you seemed be coming down with something… after awhile of this, I finally just decided we would wait until all your teeth were in. Now, here we are, all your teeth are in and we’re playing catch-up. So, this past month you were given your MMR vaccine and a flu shot. I expected side effects, and sure enough, 8 days later you started running a fever of 102°F, a common side effect of the MMR vaccine. It lasted 3 days (the doctor said it would), and then you seemed to be OK, just a bit fussy, cranky and clingy.

LANGUAGE:
You continue to excel in mastering the English language. You fearlessly tackle the pronunciation of most any word and own it with a grin. You eavesdrop on any conversation around you, including those of people in the store, and like to repeat parts of it to us. For this reason, I love to talk to you while we’re nursing, because I know you’ll regurgitate it at some point later. For example, the other day while you were nursing, I was trying to keep you awake, so I told you, “When we’re done nursing, we’re going to Costco to get gas. And THEN we’ll go inside and maybe get some raspberries. We might get some blackberries! And when we’re done shopping, we might get some ICE CREAM!” Sure enough, after we were done nursing, we headed out and when we parked you told me, “We’re going to get raspberries, dude! And blackberries, dude! AND ICE CREAN!!” (You still say “ice-crean.”)

You tell me about your day with Grandma when I get home, that you go to library storytime, and what activity you do.

You are also putting words to your feelings, which kind of boggles our minds. Example: When we were driving around this past weekend, you didn’t want to go back to the cabin for your nap. You told us so, and when we continued on our journey to the cabin, you screeched and then, mid-screech, you stopped and said, “I AM SO ANGRY!”

You correct yourself and make jokes when talking… for example, you will say, “That is red car. No, that’s NOT red car, that’s BLUE car! haha That was funny!”

NURSING/FOOD:
You are doing well with your food. You continue to be willing to try most anything at least once and are curious about what we all have on our plates. One evening I was packing my lunch for the next day, and you wanted to sample my protein snack mix. It was the funniest thing to hear nuts crunching in your head as you sampled my mix and decided you really liked my freeze dried black eyed peas. The cashew you sampled came right back out, though. ha
You continue to enjoy nursing, and request it when you need to be reassured, or if you get hurt, if you are cranky, and when you wake up or for naps or bedtimes. I enjoy the blessing of nursing you. You love to hum your favorite songs to me while we nurse and, oftentimes, I join in the humming just to see you smile.

SLEEP:
Your nighttime sleep is great. You regularly get about 9 hours per night… you just won’t sleep longer than 9 hours at night. Your morning wake time has moved to 6am.
Naps — at least once a week, sometimes twice, you skip your nap.

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:

01/15, 2 year doctor visit
01/18, mini train rides in Costa Mesa
02/01, breakfast with Grace & family
02/02, mommy & son date to California Adventure
02/08 weekend, we went to our family’s mountain cabin

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:
Library story time on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Music class on Tuesdays.
Neighborhood kids, Josh and Melody, Abigail and Connor… and a whole bunch of other kids down the block that you love to play with and use their toys.
You continue to love your Cars and trains. When we’re out to dinner, you put the Cars in the “garage” ( the triangle food advertisers on the tables) or drive them on the window ledge or booth dividers.
Your favorite movie continues to be Cars.  Your second favorite is Frosty the Snowman.
Your favorite song is Trot Old Joe.  You also like to sing Frosty the Snowman, the ABC song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Zoom Zoom Riding in the Car, Working on the Railroad, No More Pie, Jingle Bells and the Hello Song.  You also really like the soundtrack from Cars the movie.

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

How you love to give “character” to your toys, often calling me over to “be” one of them. “Mommy, be Eeyore, please?” You’ll ask. Then you will often involve another set of toys; blocks, for example, and then you will build the blocks and Eeyore is supposed to knock them over.

How, for the first time this month you said, “Mommy, watch this!”  You came running in the kitchen with a beaten up box and a car and you showed me how the box acted as a ramp and the car rolled back and forth on it because it was bowed in.

How you love to help us and one of the chores you’ve taken on is to take our empty water bottles and put them in the recycle can, which is inside a lower cabinet. Sometimes, in the interest of cleaning speedily, your father and I will put them in the fruit bowl which sits on the counter above… apparently we do this more often than I thought, because last week, you took our empties (ha ha, empties) and promptly walked over and put them in the fruit bowl and walked away.

How you love shapes, and you’re very “into” drawing shapes (with a little help from me). You adore your chalk board on the fridge and your bath crayons, and really like to draw houses and neighborhoods. One of your favorite YouTube videos is a train that teaches the various shapes.

You really like houses and cottages. We purchased on clearance a Little People’s Santa’s cottage at Toys R Us last weekend. It has a bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and office, and the first thing you do when playing with it is to make sure Santa goes in the bathroom and you stick him on the toilet and tell me he’s going potty.  ha

How you take initiative and will put your toys away when you’re ready to move on to the next thing, singing “BOM BOM” as you do so (that’s what they do in music class). You also will clean up with a paper towel after you spill something.

How you love to go outside and run around, or just play with your toys outside.

How you are now articulating that you understand the schedule changes of weekends and weekdays. On weekday mornings, you now say, “Grandma D. is coming… grandma’s not here yet. Mommy and daddy go to work.”

How you love to choose if you want to go in back carry or front carry with our Tula carrier, and then you giggle and dance and move around, or sometimes you just snuggle in and lay your head on me.

How we met your father in Walmart one night and you were singing, quite loudly, a medley of all the songs you know. We wandered over to the toothbrush section and that’s how your father found us, by following the sound of your songs. What was even sweeter is that every person we passed grinned at you, and you grinned right back at them, singing your solo to your audience.

How we went for a walk over the weeked in the mountains looking for snow. The first day there, your father took you for a walk and you guys found some snow deep in the forest in shade. The next day I took you for a walk, but it had been warm and there was no snow to be found, as it had all melted. Suddenly you started yelling, “Santa! Where are you Santa? Santa will fix the snow! Frosty!? Where’s Frosty?”

As I write this closing paragraph, we are currently at our mountain cabin for the weekend. I’m listening to you run in the living room, your feet making a rapid fire sound as if you’re running on top of a drum. I close my eyes and just listen… I hear your feet, I hear you jump, I hear you laugh. How do I put into words how much these things mean to me?

Love you forever,
Momma