23 month summary.

Wow. So I really can in good conscience start saying that Forest is ‘almost 2’. What a milestone. He is getting to be such a big boy, but still has his baby moments. Over the past few weeks he’s become such a momma’s boy. I jokingly call him my koala bear because often times he asks me to ‘carry you’ and when I pick him up he locks his arms and legs around my torso and refuses to let me put him down.   

Most of the time it’s sweet, but occasionally I am like ‘you’ve been walking for over a year now and you weigh 30+ lbs so Mommy really needs you to let go!’. But then the adage of ‘one day you’ll pick your children up for the last time’ pops into my brain and haunts me so I let him latch on and tote him around while I do my chores. 

When he’s not being a koala bear he is actually pretty excellent at playing independently. He will play with his train tracks, blocks, colors etc for 45 minutes at a time. The other morning I was able to clean the whole house while he was awake without even turning on the TV for him. He just played with his toys or ‘helped’ me clean the floor. 

Speaking of TV, its been 2 weeks since he’s seen Baby Einstein! I think his cleanse is working because he only asks for it a few times a day rather than 20 gamillion. In fact, he is really only watching TV about twice a week and I give him the choice between Daniel Tiger, Thomas and Friends, Curious George or Sesame Street and he chooses Curious George 9 times out of 10. 

He finds Curious George hilarious which I find hilarious and love to watch him dissolve into a fit of giggles while he watches the monkey’s mischievous antics. Too cute.   

Let’s get on with the summary! 

Favorite Book: Muddypaws. He’s really loving actual story books these days and he loves this tale of a naughty puppy who needs a name. He also ironically likes a book by Nancy Tillman called ‘It’s time to Sleep, my love’. 

Favorite toys: His stuffed animals, specifically his Giraffe, Fox and Monkey. He always brings a stuffie on our walks and car rides and usually can be found toting one around or playing pretend with them. 

He loves to build them houses with his new giant cardboard blocks. He also loves his Brio Train track. 

Both sets of his grandparents are gifting him accessories for his train set for his birthday so I know he will be a happy boy once his birthday gifts are revealed in a month. 

Favorite foods: Smoothies, green beans, edamame, spaghetti, blueberries and Oreos. 

 New Words: Geeze. I’ve totally stopped counting. I’m estimating in the ball park of 600-700. He has a word for almost everything in his immediate environment and is creating longer and longer sentences or putting 2 sentences together. He’s definitely a chatty little guy. 

New Skills: He can consistently count to 10. He is almost spot on if you ask him to count a certain object up to 10 and does so spontaneously all the time. He starting to identify some numbers  as well. The other day at swim, we were standing next to the 3 ft sign and he pointed and said ‘3!’. He also picked out a letter and number on an address sign when we were dropping of our dry cleaning. 

He can identify his name out of a group of words. He can identify the color Orange in addition to blue, red, and pink. He’s getting better at climbing and he runs really fast.  

He can also walk down the stairs without holding on. 

Stats: I really have no clue but I'm guessing 35 inches and around 30 lbs. 

Schedule: Forest’s naptime is consistently about an hour and 10 minutes. This has been an adjustment because before it was quite inconsistent and he had his short nap days but also would throw 2 and 3 hour naps into the mix every once in a while. Now we celebrate if he naps 1.5 hours which is becoming more and more rare. BUT he is sleeping 12 hours at night 95% of the time which is soooooo nice. 

He’s been sleeping through the night since he was about 9 weeks old so I can’t complain, but he was always an 10.5/11 hour sleeper and since he went to bed at 7 this meant he was waking up at 5:30/6 most mornings. Now he sleeps 7-7 most days, but is shaving it off of his naptime. It’s not so bad I guess, especially since he’s getting 13 hours of sleep per day and experts say they need anywhere from 12-14 hours so I feel good about him being right on the money.   

So basically he wakes up at 7, 7:30 breakfast, 11 lunch, 1:00 nap, 2:30ish 2^nd lunch, 5:30 dinner, 7 pm bedtime. His schedule feels so much simpler now that he’s not a baby. I used to obsess about it but now it’s nice to have lots of time between naps and not feel pressure to keep it moving so smoothly. Which probably means that he’s about to throw me a curveball which is always what happens when I feel comfortable and confident about his routine.   

Other Observations: Forest has a huge outgoing personality but still enjoys playing independently and gets overwhelmed if there are too many kiddos around. I’m thinking he may be an ‘ambivert’ (outgoing introvert). His favorite things are water and exploring outdoors. He absolutely loves animals and astonishes us with his knowledge of animal species. I don’t know many 23 months olds (or adults) that know the difference between an otter and a sea lion but you can’t stump Forest! His love for animals transfers to his stuffed animals and you’ll hardly ever see him without a stuffie under his arm. 

That’s about the extent of his softer side. Forest has a funny reputation for ‘needing his personal space’. Some of his friends want to cuddle with him and as they get close you can see him lean away and start to scooch over an inch or so.  He’s cool with high 5s, fist bumps and even a smooch, but he’s certainly not a hugger and will hardy sit still long enough for much cuddle time. We still rock Forest before bedtime, more so for us than for him. It’s one of the only times he will let us hold him, and even then after a few minutes he will let us know it’s time to be put down in his crib. 

We tried potty training right after he turned 22 months and he was actually doing alright with it as long as we watched him closely and got him to the potty when he showed signs of needing to go. 

But it was so much work and after 3 days I felt like he was nowhere near ‘self-initiating’ and didn’t seem to be able to empty his bladder when he went (he’d pee on the potty and then 2 minutes later pee in his undies), which makes me think physically he might not be quite ready. He certainly doesn’t stay dry for 2 hours or wake up dry from naps or bedtime (in fact he wakes up soaking!) so I’m wondering if he’s still a dribbler rather than someone who empties his bladder in one go. 

I’m hoping to reset and start again after he’s 2. Gosh it was way harder than I thought it was gonna be so I’m not looking forward to round 2. Any tips? He still asks to go on the potty sometimes and had no issues with pooping on the potty so I’m a little worried we’ve messed him up for life. I read way too much Freud in grad school... 

My struggles: I think the terrible 2s have officially landed at our house. Forest has ALWAYS had issues with boundaries and testing limits, so now that he’s reached a developmental stage where that trait is heightened it is like WHOA. He gets so frustrated when he can’t do something but then gets even angrier if I try to help him out. Many times I give him the option to listen or I will ‘help him’ and that will get his attention. But many times he ends up going limp noodle on the floor and shrieking like a banshee when I forceably move him. 

He even threw a fit this week at swim class and refused to get into the pool for 10 minutes- all because I tried to hold his hand while we walked into the pool. He just started screaming 'go home! go home!' and bawling his eyes out. Usually the pool is my go to for snapping him out of whatever mood he's in so I was just stunned.

And he’s just wild. I thought this was normal for all boys but he has a lot of boy buddies and none of them have quite the same energy level as him. 

 I feel like he’s that kid. That kid that moms are secretly like ‘thank goodness my kid doesn’t do that’ or ‘I’m sure with my parenting skills he wouldn’t be so out of control’. Ha! I certainly am humble enough to recognize that there are ways I could be a better parent, but Forest’s wild side has been engrained in his nature from the very first day he was born. 

Wide awake and testing out his lungs in the NICU. A true 'Fear of Missing Out' personality if I ever saw one.

My biggest rewards: Forest is just a joyful kid. I remember I wanted to name him ‘Asher’ which means ‘happy’, and when he turned out to have colic I laughed at myself that we almost bestowed such a cheerful name on such a grumpy baby. Certainly a dark and stormy ‘Forest’ was more well suited. And while I still think 'Forest' suits his wild and unrestrained nature perfectly, he certainly could also be labeled a happy guy. You can hear his joyful shrieking laughter for miles. 

We joke that he’s part puppy. When people come over he starts running and jumping and showing off. He cannot control his excitement. My parents used to say their puppy was ‘overcome with joy’ when she would forget her manners and jump on a guest or have a piddle accident on the floor or run figure 8s in the backyard. We love this phrase and think it captures Forest perfectly most of the time. 

He has people wrapped around his finger everywhere he goes. One of the Target check out clerks always runs to whatever aisle we are at to give him a sticker. When we drop him off at the gym daycare the workers are like ‘Where’s Forest’s fireman hat???’ and when we dropped him off at the church nursery the other day they were like ‘Forest we have all your trucks lined up the way you like them!’. He just has that charisma! (We also have super duper workers at church and the gym and it makes me feel awesome to drop him off with people who know him so well.)

He loves to make people laugh and is super silly. It’s so hard not to burst into a giggle when he’s up to his mischievous antics, but he’s so darn cute that I can’t help it. 

One rule at the park is that he can’t go onto the field when they are holding soccer practice. He tests this rule by just walking the permimeter of the field. The other day he lost his footing while doing this and accidentally stepped one foot on the field. He looked at me with all the sincerity in the world and said ‘My shoe. Just my shoe’. I of course started cracking up which meant he repeated the ‘mistake’ 50 times afterward. He’s just funny and now that he’s speaking so much it’s fascinating to see how his little mind works. 

Alright, this post has become a novel. I’ll end for now!