Two and Three-Quarters!

A lot has changed in our lives since the last summary I posted 3 months ago. Not only have we moved but Jonathan is working a crazy schedule and Forest has made many developmental leaps as well. He goes through spurts where he is really hard to handle and his ‘terrible-two’ flag is flying high. But for the most part, things continue to get easier as he gets older. 

He is becoming even more independent and it’s easy for me to drink a hot cup of coffee or take a shower while he entertains himself. 

I’m learning to avoid the big triggers for power struggles and tantrums, though some days are just a mess no matter what. What can I expect from a kid who is not only 2 years old but has just had his whole life turned around? I know he misses his buddies and his daddy and just doesn't have the ability to articulate those things yet. I’ve been praying so hard that God gives me patience and stamina as I know that even 28 days solo with an ‘easy’ child would still be rough. Twenty-eight days alone with my strong willed ball of energy and fearlessness will take some supernatural support! 

Here’s just a snapshot of his day to day life right now . 

Favorite Book: Caps for Sale, Goodnight Train (for bedtime), and his ‘Eli Book’ which is a little book with photos and captions of F and one of his besties that Eli’s mom made for Forest as a going away gift. 

Favorite TV show/Movie: He doesn’t watch much tv because I feel like it's one of his major 'tantrum-triggers', but there is nothing in this world he'd rather be doing than watching TV. He's quite obsessive and talks/asks about watching movies all day long.  Cars is for sure his favorite movie. He’s obsessed with Lightning McQueen and Mater. 

He also loves Daniel Tiger and Curious George but honestly anything that PBS Kids or Disney puts out is bound to grab his attention. We took him to his first movie when Finding Dory came out. He did great and loved going to the ‘movie gator’ to see it. 

Favorite Toys: Puzzles!!! This kid is a whiz at puzzles and he loves jigsaw puzzles the best, especially if they feature cars on them. He still loves his train tracks and trains and cars in general. He spends the majority of his time just driving his cars and trains all over the house. 

Favorite foods: Bacon! 

He’s obsessed with bacon and he’s come to associate it with Jonathan so when Jon is home in the mornings he immediately asks: ‘Can we make bacon?!?!’. He also loves pineapples, broccoli and spaghetti but he’s turning out to be a pretty good eater in general. He’s fairly adventurous and eats foods that I didn’t even try until college (sushi, thai, etc). 

Language development: He continues to speak clearer and produces more and more complex sentences every day. He still slurs a little if he’s overly excited or speaking to someone he doesn't know well but he’s spitting out words like ‘humidity’ and ‘adventures’ like it’s no big thing. The other day he needed to use the bathroom and asked ‘Could you please give me some privacy?’ just as clear as a bell. 

Cutest sayings: Could you please give me some privacy? Ha! Also if we are using the bathroom together in a public stall and I take my turn he will say ‘You do not have a penis. I have a penis. Daddy has a penis. LIKE ME’. And he will kind of beat his chest when he says ‘like me’. I’ve heard some giggles from the stall next to me a time or two. Oh geeze. You really gotta be careful about the things you say privately because they will get repeated in public! 

Another cute thing he says is that people are ‘good friends’. Like he will say ‘Ryan is a good friend. He has a green tractor at his house.’ #priorities #realfriendshavetractors 

He will also say ‘Lightning McQueen and Mater are good friends!’ etc, etc. He is also fond of making 'captain obvious' comments, like the other day in the church parking lot he said: 'There's a truck! There's another truck! There are a lot of trucks in Texas!'  

Gosh, there are just SOOOOOOO many cute things they say at this age. I could seriously go on and on. Maybe I’ll do a post just with the funny and random things Forest says. 

New Skills: He is killing it on his balance bike and Jon and I have to jog along side him to keep up now. 

He can come up for a breath or two while swimming, though as my dad says ‘he’s more motivated than he is capable’ when he comes to swimming. The boy scares me half to death in the pool but every day he gets more and more skilled and our hope is that by next summer he will pretty proficient. 

He knows his left from right. He solidly knows his lower case letters in addition to his upper case letters (knew those at 2 years) and is reading/recognizing/spelling more words. 

Stats: Height 39.5 inches (96%) Weight 34 lbs (88%). He can still wear some 3T clothes but is moving into 4T, especially for pants. Luckily it’s summer so he’s been able to continue wearing his 3T shorts that we bought him. He wears a 9.5 shoe. 

Schedule: Gosh I hate to publish this. Sleep is like fight club. When its good, you just should never talk about it because it’ll go haywire on you. Forest has just gone through an epic growth spurt which always leads to big sleeps. This may not seem great to people whose kids always sleep awesomely, but compared to other 'babywise' kids, F has always been bottom of the barrel in terms of sleep totals. 

So right now he’s going to sleep at 7:30 pm and waking up between 7/7:30. For a kid who has habitually woken at 6 AM nearly his entire life, this feels like a dream world. He naps around 12:30 and normally sleeps 1 hour and 10 minutes but anywhere between 1-2 hours is normal. He rarely naps longer than 2 hours but has done so twice in the past week with his most recent growth spurt. I can’t believe some people’s kids sleep that well all the time. What a luxury!  But I am super grateful he sleeps as well as he does because I know it could be MUCH worse and it makes those growth spurts totally worth the crankiness that accompanies them (hungry+tired= meltdown city). BUT the other day he slept in til 8:15 and therefore didn't need a nap at all so I'm not sure what's going on with him!

Other Observations: I’m still amazed by his attention span. He can sit and do an activity for an hour, no problem (as long as it’s something that interests him.) 

He is still very shy and wary of adults. Also, he’s a little chatter box but if you ask him a question he will instantly go mute. I think he’s just a bit introverted but at times it comes off as anti-social. He just loves playing by himself. Sometimes I’ll go sit in his playroom with him and he’ll say ‘No mom! You go downstairs. I’m just playing by myself!’ Everytime I pick him up from church or the gym daycare he is always happily playing with toys by himself and the other weekend we took him to a 2 year old’s birthday party and he spent the whole time playing with ride on toys in the driveway vs interacting with the other kiddos. 

He's certainly capable of age-appropriate interaction with his peers but he definitely gravitates towards independent activities. Unless he spots another tot with a car! Then he'll mosey right on over and strike up a conversation and challenge them to a race. Ha!

Well it's been a physically and developmentally transformative few months, but I definitely feel like the pace at which he's reaching new milestones or clothing sizes has definitely slowed down considerably. We'll see how much he changes before the big 3rd birthday in a few months!