My little love, I seriously cannot believe you are two years old! I swear it feels like you were just coming home from the hospital, yet still it feels like a lifetime. You are seriously learning new things at lightening speed, and as much as I love it, I am hoping time starts slowing down a bit.
In true boy fashion, YOU.LOVE.CARS! Buses specifically are your thing. And firetrucks… and helicopters… and airplanes.. you even love garbage trucks, and can identify pretty much any type of motorized vehicle, including an excavator (I would be lying if I said I didn’t have to look that one up). As I sit here and type this, you are playing with your wooden cars, sending them down the winding race track your Uncle Matt and Auntie K gifted you for Christmas. For a good hour or two everyday, you walk your helicopter around the house saying “fly, hel-cop, fly!” as you move it up and down through the air. It’s seriously the cutest.
You are such a funny little babe. You love playing hide-n-go-seek, and have honestly made me really nervous at times because I genuinely couldn’t find you (urging you to give up your hiding spot proved rather ineffective). You squeal in excitement when you’re found, and you find it especially hilarious when we tickle your feet as they are sticking out from where you are hiding.
You recently got your first haircut!!!!! The top still hasn’t quite grown in (just like daddy when he was a baby), but the rest was looking pretty scraggly. You were such a champ (a very serious champ)!
You can identify any basic shape, and can even distinguish between a circle and an oval. You have known all your colors for quite some time- black, brown, grey, and white included. In the past few weeks, you have started associating colors with objects; for example, instead of identifying a triangle as just a triangle, you say “green triangle.” We are working on counting, but right now you are pretty set on the following order: 2-5-6-7-8. We have been actively working on letters, but you are definitely not as interested in those. You can identify A, B, E and O, and we are pretty happy with that!
You are a picky eater, but eat cheese and rice like it’s going out of style. You LOVE making smoothies, so we sneak some veggies in that way. You are also my little baker! Yaya gifted me a KitchenAid mixer for Christmas, and you love it more than I do (which is a lot)! We bake 3-4 times a week, at your request (never mind your cousin’s floral apron and hat).
Daddy gives you baths every night, and I always hear lots of singing, splashing, and laughter coming from the bathroom during bath time. I just love that you two have this routine bonding time together! During the day, you are constantly asking “daddy work?” and look around the house for him until he is finally home.
Great Grandma is still pretty much one of your favorite humans alive, and you just love going to see her and Great Grandpa every week! You make them both laugh so much!
Naps and bedtime have gotten much, much easier. For a long time, I was spending 3-4 hours a day (sometimes more) trying to get you to sleep. Naps are a little touch-and-go; some days you’ll nap for 3.5 hours, and other days you refuse to nap at all. For the most part, you will put yourself to sleep as long one of us is laying right next to you on the floor. Hey, it’s progress and I’m more than okay with that. Occasionally you will ask to be rocked, and even though some may think you are “too old” for that, I will take it for as long as I possibly can.
You are an outdoors boy through and through. Whether it’s riding your bike or wagon, splashing in the pool, sandboxing, or pushing your cars in the dirt, being outside is totally your thing!
And lets just talk about the movie, Boss Baby, for a minute: you are O B S E S S E D to say the least. In fact, it’s playing right now for the 3rd time today and at least 87th time this month. Each time it comes on, it’s as if you’ve never seen it before. You will actually sit and watch it the whole way through, which is a pretty monumental feat for a two-year-old.
You are in the 60th percentile for weight and 80th for height; you are tall and skinny(ish)! Your pediatrician says you are perfect, and we think so too. 😉
Daddy took off work on your birthday (and the day after) to spend the whole day/weekend with you!
You woke up on your big day to a room filled with balloons, and in true two-year-old fashion, you were very CRANKY. That quickly changed when we told you that we had another big surprise for you. You walked out of your room to a new train table, which changed your mood pretty fast (thank goodness).
After some playtime on your new toy, we headed out to grab donuts and got you all sugared up for the day.
After breakfast, we headed out to Fossil Rim Wildlife and drove through the tour route feeding the animals. You had so much fun!
We came home and you got to make your first homemade pizza for dinner, and naturally you piled the cheese about a mile high.
You ended the day with 1:1 time with daddy while mama worked on your birthday party. It was a great day celebrating you, but it didn’t stop there; we celebrated with your friends and family over the weekend, and you had such a great time! (I’ll share party details soon!)
We decided that every birthday and Christmas, you would get a special gift in honor of your grandma, Bà Nội, and grandpa in Heaven. This year, your grandparents gifted you a big motorized fire truck, and to say that you loved it would be a huge understatement! It even has sirens and a radio that you love to blast through the neighborhood. I foresee lots of rides to the neighborhood playground in the very near future.
You are so loved on Earth and in Heaven, baby boy, and we are all grateful beyond measure for you!
Of course, we could not let your birthday pass by without some photos with our favorite photographer, Brittany:
Here is a very small fraction of my favorite photos of you this past year:
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Happy 2nd birthday, my love! And one GIANT thank you to all of our family and friends who showered him with so much love on his big day!