Paul at 2.5 Years!

It's hard to believe we have a 2.5 year old! I continue to marvel at how the statement "the days are long but the years are short" is. There have been some long days, especially in March/April when he was home with us for 7 weeks and we were also juggling work. I will say those were the hardest 7 weeks since he was born - like way harder than maternity leave because at least during maternity leave, I was solely focused on caring for him. I'm so glad he's back in daycare and that we've all stayed healthy since. I was so anxious about the decision to send him back but it couldn't have gone better and we are alll happier when mom/dad can focus on work and Paul is at school (we tend to call it school instead of daycare since there is a strong curriculum aspect and he learns a ton there).

Growth: He's still very much on the petite side but I worry less about this now that I've accepted that this is his growth curve. Plus Phil and I have more fine bone structures and are just not 'big people' so it makes sense he's smaller. He's 25 lbs and about 35". He wears 18m bottoms and a mix of 18m/24m shirts. He just moved up to size 6 shoes after being in size 5 for soooo long. He definitely gets a lot of use out of his clothes and shoes since he doesn't change sizes very often!

Words: Paul's vocabulary has really exploded since he turned 2. He is talking in sentences more and more and is constantly surprising us with what he knows! When Phil comes back from swim club he will said, "Have a good swim daddy?" which I think is so sweet. Up until a couple of weeks ago, he pronounced garbage as "bargage" which was a really cute mispronunciation. His most used phrases are "oh no!," "no, mommy do it," "need help," "I no want to," "I no like it," and lately has started to say "I dunnoknow??" - it kind of all runs together and sounds very cute when he says it. Obviously the grammar is not correct in some of his sentences but that's just part of language development. He also will say some things in Spanish, like arriba (up) and abajo (down) and a handful of other things. A lot of the times he will say a word or phrase and I'll have to ask Phil what he's saying as it sounds like Spanish but I don't speak much Spanish so can't figure out what he's saying. So it's definitely helpful to have a Spanish speaker in the house, although Phil will say he's lost his fluency.

Likes:

- Taylor Swift! He is a huge Taylor Swift fan! Listening songs from her "Lover" album will often calm him down if he is in a bad mood (like when he fights getting in his car seat - see dislikes below). He will request certain songs - there are about 5 he likes and he knows some of the words/sings along to them.

- Cars, trucks, trains, construction equipment - basically anything that goes. He loved playing with the cars at my parents and also plays with Phil's cars from childhood when we are at my MIL's. He loves to line them up. He's more into the train table Santa got him for Christmas, but he hasn't figured out how to use the tracks. Instead he like to tell me what all the vehicles are and line them up. He's also very into dinosaurs and can identify the stegosaurus, brachiosaurus, t-rex and triceratops.

- Being outside. When he comes home from school every day, he asks to play in the backyard. We don't have much for outdoor toys, but between his trike, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, a golf set, and a ball, he stays entertained. Phil does most of the outdoor play because Paul wants to be chased and I just don't have the energy or the stability to chase him on the steep hill in our backyard! Joan got him a little camping chair that matches our adult ones and he loves to sit in that.

- Reading is still a huge interest for him which makes me so happy. We have a bunch of books on our tv stand in the living room so we end up reading 4-6 books after dinner and then he gets 4 books upstairs in his bedroom at bedtime. He still reads some board books but is more drawn to picture books these days!

After getting laundry situation one Sunday morning, I came upstairs and found him sitting on the couch with his hat on, reading one of his lift-the-flap farm books. There is a farmer's market page at the end and he likes to pretend to eat all the different foods (most of which he'd never eat in real life!)

- Picking out his clothes each day. I did not expect clothes selection to be such a battle! I used to pick out his outfits for the week on Sunday but I had to stop doing that because he refused to wear what I picked out. So now I've learned that I need to give him 2 choices for shirts and I try to talk up one of them "Oooh, do you want to wear the shirt with dinos on it today??"

- He loves Daniel Tiger and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (he loves the Laura Numeroff books so much!). He gets to watch part of a show when eating his breakfast snack on school days. On the weekends he gets to watch about 2 shows during breakfast and then 1 after his nap. To some, this may be too much tv, but I feel like it's a reasonable amount. Each parent has to make a choice they feel good about. We also watch Wheel of Fortune as a family nearly every night. He doesn't sit and watch it and instead he plays or we read books. He loves it when the contestant guesses a letter that isn't in the puzzle. He gets excited, turns to us and says, "no T!!" I do think this show helps w/ him learning his letters. He sings his ABCs in English and Spanish, thanks to school, and he recognizes all of the letters.

Dislikes:

- Mornings. OMG he is not a morning person at all. Even though he is usually awake when we get him up to get ready for school, once we get downstairs he turns into the crabbiest toddler. Whoever got him up needs to get him his milk and cracker (he eats a graham cracker for breakfast - he gets a full breakfast at school at 8:30). He doesn't want to talk to the other parent. I get him ready most of the time and man he is not nice to Phil when we get downstairs! When Phil gets him ready, he doesn't want to talk to me initially, but then he usually won't let Phil put on his show (either Daniel Tiger or If You Give a Mouse a Cookie). He gets to watch part of a show while having his cracker/milk. We laugh over how manic he is in the mornings.

- Getting his teeth brushed. We brush his teeth twice a day and don't let him do it himself because he thinks 5 seconds of brushing is sufficient. I brush his teeth 90% of the time since I tend to get him ready/do bathtime and sing the "brush brush brush your teeth song" twice for the top teeth and twice for the bottom teeth. He knows the song and usually this will calm him down a bit but it's definitely not a fun task.

- Getting in his car seat when we pick him up from school. This can be an epic battle! He will squirm and fight us so hard and say he wants to go back to school. I guess it's good he likes school and doesn't want to go home but it's is stressful when he won't cooperate - especially when we park right in front of school and have an audience of parents. I know they are all thinking 'I've been there' but Phil gets really embarrassed when Paul throws a fit about getting in his car seat.

Eating: Eating has gotten better over the last 6 months but I would still say he is incredibly picky. It drives me nuts when he won't even TRY things! But after making him his own meals for a long time, starting this summer we have him eat what we eat even if we know he likely won't eat it. He also has 2 sides that we know he will like (cottage cheese, yogurt, apple sauce, and/or cauliflower tots). Because he goes to Spanish immersion school, he does best with Latin flavors like tacos and enchiladas. If we make something on the spicy side, we will make a different entree for him. His favorite foods are cottage cheese, crackers of any sort, banana pancakes, and cookies!! We don't let him have cookies all that often but he will often say "have a cookie for Pablo?" or will ask to eat a cookie for dinner. As if that would ever fly! He is terrible about eating vegetables and we can not 'sneak' them into things. If I put diced peppers in something like pasta sauce, he will fish them out of his mouth! There is no tricking this kid! I hope he becomes a more open-minded eater as neither Phil or I are picky! But I keep reminding myself he's only 2. His teachers at school say he is a good eater with the exception of fruit so we don't stress about it too much.

Enjoying some picadillo with rice and beans

Other developments/things we are working on:

- He got his upper 2 year molars but I have no idea when this happened! The bottom ones are supposed to come in first so I've been watching for them. Then last week when I was drying him after his bath I realized the top ones had come in. Whoops! I guess they didn't cause too much trouble since I didn't notice they were coming in. It is really hard to see inside a toddler's mouth, though!

- After our failed attempt at potty training in late March, we haven't tried again. We have the potty out and will ask if he wants to use it occasionally but mostly we are just not focusing on it right now. He'll move to a different room at school next week (the young preschool room!!!) and they really focus on potty training there so we'll start to focus on it at home at that point. Hopefully it goes well as it would be great to have him out of diapers by the time the baby is born!!

- We are working on getting him to do more things for himself like take his shoes off/put them on. Even though he can be independent about some things, he usually just wants us to take his shoes off/undress him. But daycare asked that we worked on getting his shoes on/off. He's getting better at taking them off but can't get them on... but he mostly wears sneakers and they aren't the easiest shoes to get on!

I know the arrival of the baby is going to rock all of our worlds (in a mostly good way, of course!) so I am soaking up this time as a family of 3!