2 Years!!

Well, if one year kind of blew my mind, two years is even worse.  I can't believe it has been TWO whole years since you were born and completely changed everything!  Let's get started...

2 year stats - Weight: 30 lbs (74 percentile)  Height: 36 inches (88 percentile)

* You are obsessed with all things sports related!  You love to shout "Hut hut!" and hurl your little football at us.  You always make sure to say "Dribble, dribble, shoot!" before shooting your basketball.  You kick your soccer ball around the living room, use your golf set daily, adore your swimming lessons, and use your biggest ball as a balance ball.  You LOVE to go to sporting events of any sort with Daddy and will happily sit for an hour or two watching football or volleyball or anything, really.

* Everyone has decided that you are going to be an engineer because you spend lots of time trying to (and usually succeeding!) at figuring out how things work.  Window cranks, buttons of all sorts, the computers, you name it.  If you see us do it once, you immediately want to try your hand at it.  We frequently get demands of "Button!  BUTTON!!!" when we're doing laundry or using the microwave or closing the van doors or anything else requiring the use of a button.  :)

* You are also a very resourceful little guy.  I bought you a little fold-up stool so that you could reach the sink for handwashing.  It didn't take you long to figure out that you could take your little stool just about anywhere and use it to reach all sorts of things (including things that we had purposely put out of your reach!).  Now, when we tell you "no" or move something out of reach, you don't waste your time throwing a fit very often.  You just quietly disappear and pretty soon you come back dragging the stool behind you, set it right up, and go about your business of reaching the desired item.

* You have loved brushing your teeth for a couple of months, but that is in total overdrive right now since you got a new electric toothbrush for your birthday.  I'm pretty sure you think we're the worst parents ever because we won't allow you to brush your teeth 10 or 12 times a day.  :)

* You are talking so much and we can usually understand what you're telling us.  If we don't, you just repeat it louder, slower, and with more enunciation as if we're hard of hearing and not that bright.  :)  You still copy everything we say, but more often you come out with words of your own that we had no idea you even knew.

* You remember tiny details from books or experiences and pull them back out at the most random times.  The one that totally amazed me was when we were headed to our big ultrasound and I told you we had to go to the doctor to get the baby checked (my standard answer for any doctor appointments surrounding this pregnancy).  Out of the blue, you grabbed my arm and said, "Baby check?  Poke and bandaid?"  Somehow, you had remembered from my last OB appointment (which had been a month ago and we had not talked about since then!) that I had had some blood drawn and had a "poke" and a bandaid.  Seeing your little brain work amazes us!

* You still love to help us with anything we do.  Some of your favorite things are throwing things out into the recycling bin, getting things into and out of the refrigerator, sweeping, vacuuming, feeding the cats, and unloading the dishwasher.  Your *most* favorite job recently, though, is going downstairs and getting Daddy a beer out of the little fridge.  You bring it up the stairs and go directly to the kitchen to find a can coozie.  Cracks me up every time.  :)

* You just learned how to blow raspberries, so I get at least 10 or 20 zerberts on my neck daily.  You climb up in my chair while I'm on the computer and ambush me.  You do one or two, use my own shirt to wipe the slobber off, and then go right back to it.

There are a million other little things you do right now that I want to write down just so I don't forget someday - running in to go to bed and then popping your head back out the door and saying "I yuh you!", mimicking every step of my getting ready routine (including the headband, doing "pretties", and putting wax in your hair), insisting on reading I Love You So (aka "Way, Way") with each of us every night before bed, constantly wanting to look at or poke or zerbert my belly while repeatedly saying "Baby, baby, baby!", following me around the kitchen saying "Taste, mama?", and your random snorting in place of talking.

We love you so much, buddy. Way, way more than you know (to quote your favorite bedtime book...).  You have turned into such a big guy this year!  It is so fun to see more and more of your personality come out each month - you are independent and sweet and curious and funny and brave and smart.  We love to watch you learn new things and develop new skills and can't wait to see you be a (super awesome!!) big brother in a few months.  Happy, happy birthday, Miles!

18-22 Months

Goodness, I guess late spring and summer were not great for blogging!  It makes me kind of sad that I haven't managed to write down any of the million little ways that you have changed in the last 5 months.  I know that I've already forgotten cute little gestures that you made or "words" that you had for a short time and I hate that.  But, I guess it is what it is and I'll just have to get on to documenting what I can remember...

* You love to play outside!  Playing at the playground, swinging your golf clubs, riding your little bike, helping with the gardens, spraying Daddy with the hose - you are a big fan of all of it! 

* Sometimes in the course of your business, you bump your head or fall down and you immediately make this really exaggerated hurt/sad face, do a little fake cry, and then run to one of us to have a snuggle and a smoochie.  It totally cracks us up, because as soon as the snuggle and/or smoochie has been delivered you are immediately demanding to get back down and go back to whatever it was that "injured" you in the first place.

* You are still a pretty great eater.  You'll eat darn near everything and definitely approve of the ice cream and popsicles that come along with summertime.  You like to pick and bite into cherry tomatoes, but then always spit them back out.  I don't think you really care for the seeds and the texture of the insides.

* Our mini vacation in July seems to have put your excellent sleeping on the fritz and we are doing our best to repair it.  Lately you have been going to bed around 8:00, but you seem to think that waking up between 6:00-7:00 is a good thing.  Unfortunately, Mama is not such a morning person, so we're trying to reset you back to a 8:00-9:00 wake up time...  You're still doing one 1-3 hour afternoon nap.

* You are talking like crazy now!  You usually make an effort to copy at least 1-2 words in most sentences that we say, as well as regularly coming out with all sorts of new words on your own.  A small selection of your words: mama, dada, Greta, moon, home, drink, milk, more, NO!, yes, all done, Graycie, book, ball, eye, nose, neck, shoe, sock, shirt, snack, bye, help, bed, night night, arm, knee, plus lots more that I can't remember right now.  We have to be really careful what comes out of our mouths now, because you WILL repeat it.  When we were on vacation, we were driving in the car and Daddy slammed on the brakes while I wasn't paying attention, so I said, "Jesus!".  Pretty soon you piped up from the back seat with, "Jeez!!"  It was pretty funny, but a good lesson for us, too.  :)

* You now try to sign "I Love You" when you're going to bed or somebody's going bye bye.  You can't quite get your pinky to stay up, but you get the index finger and thumb.  :)

* Sometimes, when I least expect it, you will grab the sides of my face/head, pull my head down, and kiss me on the forehead or the top of my head.  It is so, so sweet and pretty much makes me all mushy inside.

* You are obsessed with brushing your teeth and washing your hands.  I bought you a small stepstool for the bathroom so now you can reach the sink, and I swear you would spend the whole day in there brushing and washing and generally making a giant mess with the water if we would let you! 

* You still love to read and will frequently present books to us with a forceful (but adorable!) demand to read them!

* You have just upgraded us in the last week from Mama and Dada to Mommy and Daddy, with lots of emphasis on the 2nd syllable.  Dad-deeeeeeee!  :)

You have been so much fun this summer, Miles-y.  You make us laugh daily and definitely keep us on our toes!  We love you so much...

16 and 17 Months

Gosh, I really don't know how these months keep slipping by so quickly!

Here's what you've been up to in the last 2 months:

*You are running and climbing all over the place now.  You think it is great fun to climb up in Momma's chair and "work" on the computer or flip the lights on and off.  You also love to climb up on the couch and run back and forth, try to grab the kitties, or just sit and read a book.  Unfortunately, your sense of balance and spatial reasoning aren't always the greatest yet, and you sometimes take a tumble.  It never slows you down too much, though, nothing a little snuggle can't take care of.  :)

*After you started signing "more", we decided to add in a few more signs to see if you would pick them up.  Well, it didn't take you long at all!  Right away you started signing "please", "all done", and "help".  Then a little later, you added "thank you" and "bath".  We're always looking up new ones that we think might be useful to you.

*Just in the last week you started saying some actual words!  Out of the blue came "dada", "mama", "uh-oh", and "buhbye".  I have a feeling we're in for a bit of a word explosion in the coming weeks, but time will tell... You had been saying "kitty" for a couple of weeks, but then stopped.  It will be interesting to see if that word comes back soon.

*You are blowing kisses now and it's SO cute!  As Daddy carries you in to bed, you throw kisses to me over his shoulder the whole way.  :)

*You love studying things and trying to figure out how they work.  You spend lots of time trying to copy what you've seen Momma and Daddy doing.  You are very "helpful" and want to be a part of everything we're doing.  You are especially fond of vacuuming and anything happening in the kitchen.

*You still sleep wonderfully.  We got rid of the Nuk in the last month.  It was surprisingly easy, you just didn't really seem to care much at all.  Bedtime routine is same old, same old.  Nurse, Daddy lays you down between 7:30 and 8:00, sleep until 5:00 or 6:00, nurse, up between 8:00 and 9:00.  You usually take one 1.5-3 hour nap in the afternoon.

*You finally decided you didn't *completely* hate the snow and had fun going out with Daddy and stomping the little piles of melty snow and throwing little snowballs and watching them smash on the concrete.  Hopefully next year when you're a little more stable on your feet you'll enjoy being outdoors in the winter a bit more.

*You love to see Daddy after he comes home from work.  As soon as you hear the garage door open, you run to the door and bang on it and sign "help" until I come over and open the door so you can see Daddy.  You watch him and wait for him to come to the door, then you promptly try to shut it in his face.  :)  Almost every night you and Daddy either do some dancing (which means you kicking one leg out to the side) or play some basketball in the living room.  It has been fun to see you go from having to "slam dunk" the ball every time to get it in the hoop to being able to "shoot" it from a few inches away and still make it.

*You eat anything and everything that crosses your path and most things that cross Momma or Daddy's path, too.  :)  You're getting pretty adept at using silverware, but have no qualms about resorting to your hands if the silverware is too slow.

*Other things you're liking this month: "peanuts" in the sensory table, playing with whatever small appliances you can get your hands on, running over and giving random snuggles in the middle of whatever you're doing (I LOVE this little habit...), going downstairs for any reason, playing Swiffer stick "golf", throwing random toys under/over the baby gate to see how they bounce down the stairs and then frantically signing "help" for us to go and get them, "yelling" at Greta (complete with arm waving and pointing!), and "cheese-ing" for the camera.

"Who me?  Nope, I'm not getting into the cereal..."

Miles-a, you are such a happy, easy baby with such a sweet and funny personality.  We just love watching you learn and change and grow.  We're so lucky to be your Momma and Daddy.  We love you so, so much, sweetness boy.