Going for TWO!

Dear William,

Happy 2nd birthday to our Little Man! You are two. Two!!! I just can't believe it. You have grown into an adorable, friendly, polite, and personable little guy in these last two years and we are so proud to call you our son.

You are a big guy at two. We just had your two year appointment. Your official weight and height actually surprised me. Well, your height did. You are 27 pounds (38th percentile) and 35.25 inches (76th percentile). Doc was super happy with your stats. She said you are thin and tall (just like your sister). Actually, that's why I was surprised. I didn't think you would be that tall. That is actually the exact same height Kenzie was at this age (though her percentile was higher because she is a girl) and we thought you were a little below that. You definitely hit a growth spurt in the last few weeks though and I was thinking you shot up about an inch or more but wasn't sure... until today. As far as the rest of your appointment,  you rocked it. You weren't initially super excited to be there but you calmed right down once the doc came in and were the perfect patient. She even remarked that she was happy you were so cooperative because 2-year-olds are not always like that. You are the picture of health right now and she was hopeful we won't see her until 2.5 years (meaning you don't get sick prior to that). You had 2 shots, 1 normal vaccine and the flu shot. You cried when they were given to you but recovered quickly and were given a sticker so you were happy with that. You didn't even pull away when you were given the shots. Made it really easy for the nurse and I so we thank you. Afterwards, you kept holding your leg and saying, "Ow... boo boo" so I think you had some pain at the site but I know it shouldn't last too long. It was breaking my heart to hear you say that though. Such a sad little voice. Anyway, back to your size... You wear mostly 24 month or 2T shorts and pants. Honestly, some of those are slightly short but your waist is so tiny, that we don't have a lot of options. Some of your shorts are 3T and those work too.Your shirts are entirely 3T or 4T. You even own one or two XS in children's sizes that you sometimes wear but you are certainly still growing into those. Technically, you probably fit best into 3T most of the time as far as shirts go but we would rather them be slightly big than too small. Your sister wore 2T shirts still some at this age but I was okay with them appearing a bit smaller on her (or fitting exactly) but it looks strange on  you so we tend to keep you in at least a 3T. You wear a 7.5 to 8 in shoes depending on the style and if half sizes are even available. We have pretty much moved to an 8 though.

The last 6 months since my last letter have seen you mostly healthy. However, just a couple of weeks ago you decided to make up for all the good health in the house with a nasty virus. You developed an upper respiratory infection which caused a double ear infection and something called stomatitis which is basically like the virus that causes cold sores in adults but affects mostly children and causes similar sores in your mouth. You had a doozy of a blister on the side of your tongue and were a MESS. You couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, and literally cried for 24 hours straight with the exception of a few minutes of sleep here and there. It was definitely one of the worst sicknesses we have seen around here (but so not as bad as hand, foot, mouth which seemed to just drag on forever.... especially because we had to account for the risk of your passing it back and forth with Kenzie). You literally ate yogurt and applesauce for about 4 days straight. It was sad. You wanted so badly to eat normal food, but you just couldn't. A few days later, Daddy ended up with a blister in his mouth. He didn't cry non-stop but he did tell me how much it hurt so I know you must have been miserable. We are now working through some issues with teeth brushing because it hurt so bad for a few days there because we would accidentally bump your tongue and now you aren't as keen on brushing your teeth as you once were, but you are getting back to normal slowly but surely. You used to love to brush your teeth so we are working on getting back to that. Your sister hasn't been in school most of the last 6 months though too so that might be helping as far as you getting sick. I'm still convinced you will start school and not get sick nearly as often as she did though because you have already had so many viruses. You have been going to church since you were pretty small so between being exposed to other sicknesses there and Kenzie bringing anything and everything home, hopefully you will be good. When you do get sick, you continue to run high fevers typically. Everyone else will have a low grade fever and the same virus will spike you up to 103 or so in a short period of time with you going higher sometimes. It is what it is though. Fevers are actually a good thing and we find that you tend to get better pretty quickly even if others take a while with the same virus so maybe the high fevers help you out. We try to limit the amount of Tylenol we use around here because we know the fevers aren't a bad thing and you tend to deal with the high fevers pretty well. Sometimes you don't even let on that you have one. You can run a low grade fever towards the beginning or end of a sickness and we never really know unless we take your temp for any given reason.

You continue to grow hair like crazy. We have gotten you a few more haircuts in the last 6 months. You always look so cute with your short spiky hair. Such a little man. You also love to have your hair styled. Every morning (just about) you climb up on the stool in the bathroom in front of the mirror and say, "Hair, please." while tapping your head to let me know that you want your hair done. You did develop a pretty icky case of cradle cap about a month ago. Not sure what made that show up again. The lady that cut your hair noticed it and said some people are just more susceptible to it. You may be one of those so we will just have to keep an eye on it. I spent about 15 minutes combing it out of your hair one night during your bath and it seems to have stayed away for now. Speaking of bath time, it definitely remains one of your favorite times of the day. =) Splashing Kenzie (and me or Daddy if we are close enough) remains a highlight.

It seems like you have been teething your 2 year molars for a while. You drool a lot and chew on your hands but other than that, you haven't complained. If your pattern continues to hold, you will likely not see those molars for a couple of months so at least the process doesn't seem to be bothering you.

In proud Mommy news... you are officially potty trained! Yay! Diapers be gone! We use pull-ups for you at naps and nighttime, but other than that, you are entirely out of diapers. You took a few days to get the hang of it and we still have some accidents but you have only been trained for about 3 or 4 weeks. Our accidents tend to be late in the day when you are more tired and after we go out to play. We think that part of what is happening is that you get hot outside and then drink a ton of water when we come in. You will sometimes go potty every 15 minutes for a while and if we don't catch you telling us just one time, you have an accident. You tell us about 99% of the time, but you are still a toddler so once you tell us, we have to act fast because it is likely that you will forget as you get involved playing and then have an accident. We just have to be hyper aware of you telling us but it's all part of the process. We are pretty proud of you. We just thought you were ready since you were giving us every sign in the book and you did really well once we bit the bullet and did it. The only other issue we are having is training you to identify when you need to poop in the potty but we are working on it and I have faith that it won't take too long for you to get it. As a matter of a fact, just yesterday we had your first poop success (took you long enough!) and you were so excited. I'm hoping we can build on that. We have already started phasing out the mini m&m treats and you are doing well with that, so it shouldn't be long before that is all done, as well. The doc was also super excited to see you were potty trained. She said boys aren't usually that early but (like us) she chalks a lot of it up to the whole monkey see, monkey do thing with Kenzie. She said being bladder trained but not bowel is not at all uncommon and that you will get it (just like we know night training works differently and will follow) but she was excited for you (and us) to be out of diapers.

You continue to love food but you are somewhat picky. Definitely more picky than you were a year ago but we know there is an end to this, so we just make sure to continue to serve you what we eat and you make do. You still LOVE salad. Crazy kid. If nothing else, at least I can get you to eat anything in a salad. Sometimes I even sneak your other food into bites of salad to make sure you eat whatever else it is that we are serving that night. Your favorite foods are pizza and french fries (which you call bo byes). The french fry thing has been so crazy sometimes that if we are out to eat and there are french fries, we have to make you eat other food first and we have actually had to remove you from restaurants to calm you down and explain to you that you have to eat whatever else you were given first before you get french fries. You just love them. You continue to chant "pizza" and fist pump any time we are making, ordering, or going to pizza for a meal. You can easily polish off two or more large slices on your own. You also love, love. love fruit. Almost all fruits. Your favorites though are mandarins and grapes. If you could choose your favorite meal ever, it would likely be chicken nuggets, french fries, and mandarins. With some milk thrown in. You continue to like to eat off of my plate frequently. I will sometimes give you bites of my food (you say "bite!" over and over again until you get something usually). You are getting really adept at using your fork and spoon. Yu are also able to drink out of a normal cup sometimes but that is still something you are working on. I think in the next 6 months we should have you on a normal cup at least at meal times. Since you are really good now at opening our pantry cabinet, you constantly bring me food to try to get me to allow you to eat it. You would likely eat all day long if we let you. You are still working on learning to open the fridge but (thankfully) haven't gotten there yet. We are in a lot of trouble when that happens. Instead, you will sometimes stand at the fridge and yell at us to "open door!" and if we do, try to jump in and grab food. Yogurt is usually where you reach first.

Speaking of stabbing and scooping food (and things like coloring), you continue to show a preference for your left hand. We aren't 100% sure yet, of course, that you are indeed left handed, but honestly, if you aren't, I think your Daddy and I will both be surprised due to how you have always favored it even from a very, very young age. We even handed you your tee ball bat the other day and you automatically moved into a left handed batter position. Like instinct. Haha!

As far as physical feats go, you haven't added too much over the last 6 months but you have strengthened the skills you do have. You love to run. Sometimes though instead of running you do this hilarious power walk like thing. It makes us all laugh. You breathe really heavy when you do it too though it's not because you need to. I think you just know it makes us laugh. I should also mention that anytime you do it or run, your cheeks bounce. It is so cute! You love to tip toe around and do it all the time and you like to walk backwards frequently. You have been doing both of those for a long time, but you still really enjoy them. Sometimes you tip toe down the hall and shush me as if you are sneaking up on someone or something. It is hilarious. You can jump with both feet (thought not high yet) and stand on one foot with some help for balance. When you jump with both feet, you love to fall down onto your bottom instead of landing on your feet. It is definitely on purpose though as it is something your sister does frequently when playing and you picked up on it. You stopped doing it so often though when you stopped wearing diapers. I guess you feel it more and aren't as fond of it as you once were.You still don't climb stairs with one foot in front of the other very often. You can, we have seen you do it, but you just choose not to. You sit to go down them or climb to go up most of the time. I think a lot of that is that we don't have stairs so you don't have any practice. You have climbed them and walked up curbs and whatnot normally before though so we know you can do it. You can also climb on just about anything now. At 18 months you couldn't yet get on our couches, but now you jump right up there. You can climb into your booster seat in the kitchen chair and it isn't out of the norm for me to find you on top of random pieces of furniture. The only place you still sometimes have trouble is our bed but it is really high. You can climb on it and we have seen you do it, but you prefer to ask for help up whenever we are close by. You are working on learning to use Kenzie's scooter and are pretty good at pushing yourself forward and backwards on the big wheel or in the big car thing we have. You love to build with blocks. You enjoy the large legos as well as normal blocks. You can do some puzzles, but don't seem to prefer them. You will sit down and do the wood puzzles if Kenzie is also doing them or I sit next to you but you usually don't go out of your way for them. Like your sister, you aren't much into coloring at this age. You will do it, but it isn't your favorite thing. You enjoy sidewalk chalk though and will draw with that any chance you get. You especially love to draw on the side of my car. =(

Your language has experienced another explosion in the last few months. I couldn't count all the words or phrases you have at this point if I wanted to. You use 3-4 word sentences all the time For instance, you asked me "Where Sissy go?" the other day when she left the room. You say things like "Daddy truck big loud". You missed the "and" but you got your point across. My favorite was the other day at dinner when you set your roll down between us and said, "My bread here. This my bread. Don't eat it." with a super serious face. I couldn't help but crack up. (I also didn't eat your roll though I never would have anyway so I'm not sure where you got the idea that I might.) You can identify body parts when we ask as well as name most of them. You can give animal sounds for a ton of animals and name a lot of them when you see pictures. You seem to be able to recognize red and blue sometimes. That is hit or miss so I'm not sure if it's just luck at this point. I think those colors stand out to you because we have red and blue chairs in the playroom and we talk about them and what color they are frequently. I'm not 100% sure yet though if you are translating the colors to other objects. You love to sing songs and can sing along to a lot of the commonly heard songs around here (You Are My Sunshine, the Dolphins fight song, Let It Go, and numerous nursery rhyme songs). You love to do "shows" with your sister and after you "perform" you always bow and say "Thank you! Thank you!" It is so cute. It isn't anything out of the ordinary for you to call me into the playroom during the day, even when Kenzie is at school, and tell me "Sit, Mommy. Do show." then proceed to sing Let It Go or Itsy Bitsy Spider (one of your favorites) as loud as you can and wait for the applause. You crack me up. You are also super polite. You say please and thank you almost all the time. You also learned to say "Bless you" recently when someone sneezes. You say "scuse me" after your burp or pass gas and if someone else does it (doesn't matter who), you often say something along the lines of "Daddy! Poo poo! Stinks!" That is the best. We all laugh every time. Okay, I'm aware that we might be encouraging that behavior.  In true boy fashion, you love to talk about poo poo and stinky things all the time. Oh, and your booty and being naked. It's a bit crazy. You also love to run around naked a lot and exclaim that you are naked. If someone asks you what your name is, you usually say "Will" but sometimes say "Buddy" since we call you that so often. That is, if you answer aloud instead of flashing them that award winning grin you have. You can rote count to 11. Technically, you can get to 13 but you often leave out 12 still.  I don't think you have one-to-one correspondence for anything higher than 3 or so at this point, but you can count. You can also count backwards from 10 sometimes. That is less consistent but because of hearing your sister do it so many times, you can do it most of the time. (It always ends with "Blast off!" as well...) We have learned in the last few weeks that you recognize and understand a ton of location words. For instance, you understand and use words like up, down, back, front, (sometimes) middle, over, under, behind, in front, etc. You can understand when we tell you something is under something else and you tell us things like "Ball on couch." or "Monkey behind bed." You LOVE LOVE LOVE to read. We could read books all day around here. You bring us book after book. Your favorites right now are Little Blue Truck, your lift the flap truck book, and Goodnight Moon. You have started "reading" more of them with us, too. You can recite parts of certain books and tend to do it with us when we read them. Speaking of reading, you really enjoy going to the library. We go to story time every week and you love to sing along and listen to the books being read. You also enjoy picking out new books each week to bring home to read with Sissy. Lately you have been obsessed with train books so we have to try to find you one each week at the library. You love choo choo trains. You can sing part of your ABC's. I admit... I haven't worked on that nearly as often with you as I did your sister. We just don't do it as often but I have no worries that you won't pick it up one of these days. As long as you work on identifying letters and sounds before kindergarten, I'm good. =) I know you will be fine. Your receptive language continues to be great, as well. You can follow 2-3 step directions (given to you all at once) without too many issues. You are starting to develop quite the imagination. I think we are seeing glimpses of imaginative play pretty early but I think that is just another thing that we can attribute to your being the second child and having such an imaginative older sister. She basically makes you play things like restaurant, house, and blocks with her so you are picking up on how to use that little imagination of yours and we love it.

In probably some of the biggest news.... though to others it might not seem this way.... you have seriously developed some independence over the last few months. Just a couple of months ago, you would cry anytime I would leave you somewhere. For instance, church. Oh, church. You were okay after a while when we left you, but you would scream and cry as we tried to check you in and you wanted nothing to do with the entire process. Now, you walk right into the back where Grace Town is and you turn around for your sticker to be put on your back, wave bye, and are off. Lately you have been having a resurgence of crying after you realize I have left you back there, but it isn't anything we can't deal with. Just the fact that you go in on your own now is a win in and of itself. It's just been a bit of a regression in the last couple of weeks but between you being sick off an on and just being a toddler, we know it will pass. Last week, as an attempt to see if you might calm down faster, the people in the back elected to move you up to the 2-year-old class a week early and you loved it. You calmed down and Kenzie told us that she saw you during the movie and music time. She said she sat with you and danced with you. That made us so happy. She said you were smiling and not crying. We were told that you did really well and I'm excited to see you make this transition into something new. You are a social butterfly as well. Constantly making new friends anywhere we go. You carry on conversations with anyone willing to listen. You still sometimes need a translator, but your smile carries you a long way even if you aren't understood. Ahtough, lately you have been playing shy with some people that talk to you. You will hide your face but peek through your fingers and smile at them. You also love to play with the girls next door and the little girl across the street. We are fairly certain you have a crush on the little girl across the street. You LOVE anytime she comes out to play and if you think you see her, you start calling her name. The other day you were hit with a plastic baseball bat in the mouth and were sooooo upset (it was a good amount of blood so I don't blame you) but her grandma walked her out of their house and you immediately calmed down and were excited to see her. We love it. We know that although she is 9 months younger than you, because of how your birthdays fall, you will be in the same grade at school so we are hoping your friendship continues. Though, I don't think her mommy and daddy will be too happy when you guys start learning Morse code to signal to each other with flashlights in the middle of the night from your windows (they face one another across the street) and if you ever try to carry a ladder over there and climb into her window, you are grounded.

Along with that independence came an even bigger win in the sleeping area. You have always been a good napper. You still take 1 nap a day and it usually lasts between 1.5 and 3 hours. I am hoping you keep this nap for a while. Kenzie stopped napping around 2.5 years so please, Little Man. Please. Keep this nap. Night time is where we saw a huge difference. You have been doing really well going to bed but in the last few months, you have started to not only request to go to nap or bed at times, but when you do go, you ask to be covered, handed your Monkey, and say "night night" then go to sleep. You rarely fuss at all anymore. Then, you sleep about 12 hours a night. I'll take it. You are still in your crib and I think you will be there a while too.  You rarely even stand up in it, much less consider climbing out so you can stay for a while. It's nicer to have you contained. Haha! One thing we do think is coming (and might end up speeding up the toddler bed thing inadvertently) is that we know when we travel soon, we think we are going to have you sleep in a bed with one of us. You are almost too big for your pack n play, so we will just go with the flow when we travel but we have a bit of time before we have to cross that bridge.

Your happy place continues to be anywhere outside. We try to go outside and play at least once a day and you love that part of your day. You just enjoy being outside. We have also learned that if you are upset, we can take you outside and you calm down. You love going to parks and this summer, you really got into your element when we would go to the beach. Initially, you had some fear of the water, maybe because it was so loud or rough, but by the end of the summer, you were in love. You would get so excited anytime we packed up to go to the beach. You also loved to play in the sand while we were there. You took swimming lessons this summer and you did GREAT! You can swim a short distance to a wall or steps without any help and can float like a master. You took to it really well and we were so proud of you.

You love your big sister and want to do everything she does. You often run up to her and grab her in a bear hug. Though we are fully aware that sometimes that is only to be able to tackle her and bring her to the ground (in a loving way, of course). You HAVE to say goodnight to her every night even if you don't say goodnight to any of the rest of us. You always want a hug and kiss from her and say "Love you, Sissy" at night. You are pretty sure that she hangs the moon (and she seems to think you are pretty awesome too). I am still loving watching your relationship grow and change some as you get older. I know you are going to be her fiercest supporter and she is going to be yours.

We are so proud of the little guy you have become and continue to grow into. Keep it up, Little Man!

XOXO,
Mommy