Wife Without Borders: 2.25 Years Old

Y’all it has been strangely off putting to not give Forest’s age in months lately. People ask how old he is and I say 2, but because of his height, most people assume he’s closer to 3. I feel like I have to clarify that he’s a ‘new 2’ though all of my instincts just want to blurt out 24/25/26/27 months! A friend referred to him as 2 ½ the other day and I almost lost my OCD marbles.

So now I can at least start saying he’s '2 and a quarter'. You won’t have to suffer through my monthly summaries anymore but about every quarter you can expect an update. Here you go....

Favorite Books: High 5 Magazine by Highlights, Diary of a Wombat, Little Blue Truck's Christmas, If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, and countless others. He's a total bookworm.

Favorite Toys: Play doh, soccer ball, bubble machine, plastic animals, legos and his play barn.

Who let the T-rex in the barn?????

Favorite foods: He’s definitely getting pickier and now that he’s stopped growing so fast I feel like his appetite is dropping off. He loves bacon, cheese, yogurt, carrots, pancakes, apples, grapes, any sort of bean, and spaghetti.

Language: I feel like his language has kind of plateaued recently. He’s basically fluent and has a word for just about everything in his life, and now he is just becoming much more conversational in his communication. His favorite things to talk about are farm animals and TV.

I think his longest sentence so far was ‘I want to watch Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer movie on TV.’#priorities

Cutest sayings: He says 'What happened?' all the time and it's the cutest.

He also calls maple syrup 'mango sauce' for some reason and mixes up the words for 'celery' and 'chocolates'. I'm not sure how he got those wires crossed...

New Skills: Um. Nothing really ‘new’. I feel like he’s just getting much better and proficient at things he was just starting to grasp at 24 months. He knows all of his letters and colors and most of his numbers up to 10. He’s counting really well and very confidently.

Socially he’s developing a lot more. If I tell him to go say hi to a new kid at the park he will march right over and say Hi and tell them to ‘Come on!’ and try to get them to play with him. He’s getting much better at catching a ball but just does not seem interested in playing sports, other than soccer.

He got a scooter and figured it out immediately...and then promptly lost interest.

He still isn’t pedaling his tricycle, I think because he’s gotten so fast at just motoring it with his legs.

His daddy trying to teach him to pedal. "Outta my way daddy. Those pedals just slow me down!"

He can draw an A, O, M, W, and V and is getting much more precise with his drawings.

His balance is pretty good and he loves baby yoga. When he says 'Namaste' I could pretty much explode from cuteness overload.

Other Observations: Forest is a social little guy but still quite shy, especially around adults. He refuses to swim to his swim instructor even though we’ve been swimming with her for the last 8 months. He just clings to me like a koala bear. He's also been having a little resurgence of separation anxiety when I drop him off at church or the gym, but usually does fine once I've left the room.

He is still sooooo high energy but will play by himself for huge chunks of time, so it’s a balance.

He definitely hit the terrible twos and is quite opinionated and moody. I’ve had a couple of embarrassing moments where he has pushed another kids or thrown tantrums in public. Some days are harder than others, but recently things feel like they're getting easier.

He is listening well and responding to instructions and I’m able to curb most of his bad behavior with reminding him of the consequences. Sometimes he just has to push the boundaries and test the limits but I’m pretty sure that’s a 2 year old’s main job.

Stats: I’m not sure but I do know he’s finally over the 30 lb mark. I’m guessing he’s over 37 inches as well. He had a substantial growth spurt just after his 2nd birthday. He’s pretty solidly in 3T clothes in the brands that run small (GAP, Carter’s, POLO, Osh Kosh), but fitting well in 2T at places that run a little large (Gymboree, Next, etc). He’s definitely still hard to buy clothes for because he is so long and so lean. If clothes don’t have a cinchable waist or a functional drawstring, they will just fall right off of him. He's wearing 8.5/9 shoes.

Schedule: For the first time there is some predictability to Forest’s schedule. Unfortunately it is predictable that he will only take an hour nap, but usually sleeps about 11.5-12.5 hours per night. So he’s still averaging about 13 hours per 24 hour period, it’s just distributed a little differently now. He normally wakes up between 6:45/7:30 and then naps from 1-2/2:30 and goes to bed by 7 PM.

The past 2 weeks have been his worst since he was a newborn in terms of sleep. He had Roseola followed by cutting 2 teeth followed by another head cold so he's only slept through the night twice in the past 2 weeks. It's pretty rough but I'm assuming once he's healthy and no longer in pain from teething he will go back to normal.

He’s still getting 4 meals per day at 7:30, 11, 2:30, and 5:30 though he does sometimes snack throughout the morning/early afternoon if we are on the go and don’t have time for a sit down meal.

Teeth: Forest bottom 2 year molars are pretty solidly in and a top molar has also broken the skin. Thay means just one more tooth left and we can put the whole drama that is teething behind us! Unfortunately this means we have to take the paci away soon...Yikes. His teething rash is out of control though!

My struggles: The terrible 2s are certainly a challenge though some days are not that bad at all. It is a bummer that Forest won’t nap longer than an hour, but I feel like I’m starting to adjust to that. The trade off is that he will seriously entertain himself for at least 2 hours a day so I’m able to get more done while he’s awake and when he naps I make sure to do my bible study/edit photos/work on my blog etc so that I feel a bit refreshed once he’s awake from his mini-nap.

Today Forest asked to read books in bed so he stayed quietly in his crib for 30 minutes just flipping through his books.

My biggest rewards: Forest is a total momma’s boy lately. He gives the best snuggles and hugs.

He has a great sense of humor and loves to make us laugh. He is quick with a smile and a laugh and is just so boisterous and fun.

He continues to be independent and is very skilled at entertaining himself.

He is such a sponge these days and is talking and learning so much. I love to see him ‘read’ by pointing out all the letters in a word or reciting the lines he remembers. I was spying on him playing in his playroom and he was reading Karen Katz's 'How Does Baby Feel'. The line is: 'Baby wants milk and crackers. How does baby feel? Hungry!', but his add-lib dialogue went something like this: 'Baby feels hungry. Needs a snack. She's crying! She can't reach the crackers. Oh no!' He's just so stinking adorable I can't handle it sometimes.

Here are his official 2.25 year pictures. We've had a breakthrough in that I can now bribe him with an episode of 'Super Why' to sit still for 20 seconds. However, the agreement that he sit still does not include that he be enthusiastic about doing so. Beggars can't be choosers, I guess.