In Your SELF Interest: Two Years

We have a two year old in the house! Complete with oober cute smiles, laughs, and phrases. As well as kicking and screaming tantrums and stubbornness. It amazes me how toddlers can go from totally fine to totally not fine in a matter of seconds (or vice versa). Needless to say, we are completely enamored with him.

How could we not be?

Things to note about our two year old muchacho:

~He no longer refers to his blankie as "gee-kee." It is now blankie. A little bittersweet for us because hearing him say "gee-kee" was pretty cute. He is completely obsessed with that ratty, holey blankie.

~He pretty much potty trained himself a few weeks ago. We weren't planning to push anything with him until after the baby was born, but a few weeks ago he started telling us he needed to go pee-pee and he's been in undies ever since (except nap time and bed time). And when I say "potty trained," I really mean "pee-pee trained." Pooping seems to really cause him anxiety, as he never goes in the potty. He always saves it for nap time or bed time when he has a diaper on...which has made sleeping a bit interesting...we'll figure that one out someday. For now, we are so happy/proud of how well he's done peeing in the potty. Can I just say, his little bum in undies...!! Cutest thing ever.

Trying to convince him to sit on the potty long enough to go poop... has yet to work.

~He has become a clean freak. If he gets something on his hands while eating, he won't continue eating until we wipe off his hands. Or if he spills water...or anything on himself, he immediately starts yelling "towel!" and gets really cranky when he realizes he is still wet.

~He has stopped saying "up" when he wants to be picked up and now says, "hug?" in the sweetest most innocent voice.

~Loves "tuck tuck" (being tucked in to a blanket). At night, he always asks for "tuck tuck?" before going to bed. Also when watching a movie.

~After coming home from our Christmas vacation, he showed 0 interest in sitting in his high chair again. He now sits at the table with us (on top of a few handy dandy dictionaries).

~He loves going to "church!" He thinks nursery is called church so as soon as sacrament meeting is done he starts smiling, hopping, and yelling "church! church!"

~He still loves piling up blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals. Lately his favorite place to do this is at the bottom of the stairs. He finds all the pillows he can upstairs and throws them down. All the while chugging milk like there's no tomorrow (the kid still LOVES milk, he would drink it all day if we'd let him).

~Fire trucks/ambulances/police cars are all called "Wee-ers," like the sound they make. He sometimes says things like, "Oh no, where wee-er?" Which makes us laugh...because we sometimes act like immature 14 year olds.

~His best friend is definitely Flavia. He loves this girl.

~Everything is either a car, or a train, or a bus, or an airplane, or a little boy, or a baby, or some kind of animal. We don't usually make it very far into a meal without some type of personification occurring.

~Just in the last month he has really become interested in "projects." He loves coloring, drawing, stickers, play dough...etc. More than coloring with crayons, he loves pens and blank paper. I can't blame him, a pen just feels so smooth. Who doesn't love using a pen?

~A lot of his vocabulary consists of the second half of words. For example: Cleese (Hercules), corn (popcorn), mae-toe (tomatoe), King (Lion King), cake (pancake), cumber (cucumber)...apparently I can only think of food and movies right now, but you get the idea.

~Still sleeps for about 12-13 hours a night. Goes to bed at 7 and usually wakes up somewhere between 7:15-7:45 a.m. Naps have been sporadic as of late (as I currently listen to him jump up and down in his bed while yelling something about spiders). He's been getting his two year molars...and pooping... so naps have been a bit more unpredictable. At least I'm hoping that his lack of napping can be attributed to those things and that once they pass he will start napping again... one can hope. He has yet to climb out of the crib (I honestly can't imagine him trying. He's not much of a climber), so at least he can be contained for "quiet time" (I need to think of a better name for it since it is the opposite of quiet...) and I can have some sort of "peace."

Basically, we love this little boy to death and can't imagine life without him tugging on us, pulling us down to play with him, asking us to read the same book again and again and again. He is loud and tiring and sensitive and sweet. He's friendly and concerned and overall just a happy happy boy.