23 months

Last night at Bunco, someone asked me how old Alex is. I answered, "He'll be two in December." Then I realized something. It *IS* December. Whoa. How did that happen? I'm going to have to start singing Fiddler On The Roof songs about children growing up too quickly!

I think I'll skip the paragraphs & just list some of what Alex is up to these days. I'm sure some of these are repeats from last month.

• Alex brings diapers to the diaper pail & throws away trash when asked.
  


• He informs me when his diaper needs to be changed.
  


• Likes to ride horses. It's a good thing we don't go to the mall very often, as this horse is pricy! Grandpa S introduced him to the Meijer 1 cent horse, and he likes it just as well. He rode it again the other day, putting in the penny and pressing the green button all by himself just like Grandpa showed him.
  




• LOVES his little brother like crazy!





• He speaks in funny little "sentences" of 3 or 4 words. He definitely is not a real talker yet, but he gets his point across.
  


• "No" has become a major part of his vocabulary. Sigh.
Attitude. Yeah, he can really have attitude when he feels like it.





• He adds new words to his vocabulary every day, and I just can't keep up. I've kept a word list all along, not knowing when it would be the right time to stop recording his words. When you can't keep up with him, it's time to stop.



• He is still 100% in love with tractors and trucks of all kinds.
  


• He loves to help me "tir, tir, tir" in the kitchen. Tir = stir, but it means that Alex wants to help me cook, bake, etc...even if I'm not stirring. On this day, we made chicken soup. He was all excited to taste a spoonful, but he spit it out & made a funny face when he realized it wasn't a dessert.



• He calls ladybugs and elephants "Whassis, Whassat" even though he knows what they are.
  


• He clearly says, "woof woof" when asked what a doggy says.
  


• He tells EVERYONE "hi!" when we're out shopping. (Unless they say hi first, and then Alex won't say anything.)
  


• The Egg Story - some of you have heard this, but I want to remember it ...We quickly ran into the local grocery store for just a few items the other day. Somehow, Alex knocked over our carton of eggs, and some of them cracked. I figured I'd better pay for them since my kiddo did it. So, we get to the checkout, and Marilyn (who many people think is a pretty cranky lady, and she usually isn't too friendly to people with young children...) is our cashier. I said, "There are broken eggs in there, so could you please bag them separetely? Alex broke them, so we're buying them". Marilyn looks at Alex, and he raises his hand (school-style) and says, "ME!" Now, I've always kind of liked grumpy Miss Marilyn, and I've often purposely chosen her as our cashier, but I've *never* seen her laugh like she did that day. Leave it to Alex...
  


• He is in love with Special K crackers. He'll pull each cracker box out of the pantry one at a time, stare at the pictures, replace the boxes, and ALWAYS choose the Special K crackers. Ritz? No. Graham? No. Triscuit? No. Special K? "Yeah, Mama, Yeah. Crack-uh! Yeah!" Oh, and you must put them in an old margarine tub and sit at the kitchen table while you eat them. Otherwise, they're just not as good.
  


• He will feign sleepiness to get out of eating. He may truly be sleepy, but as soon as I wash him & put away his tray of food, he'll see a cookie and get all excited.



• He pulls the plug when he decides his bathtime is finished. Sometimes he pulls it after 2 minutes; sometimes after 10 minutes.



• He's added Franklin (the turtle) books to his list of favorites.



• He makes monkey sounds when he wants to watch Curious George on TV. If it was up to Alex, Curious George would be on all day, every day. We've had tantrums when I've told him no more George. (I'm allowing him no more than 2 Georges per day, although we broke the rules when he had a fever and croup last week...and I'm paying for it now!)
  


• He's loving Fruit Roll-Ups Simply Fruit (no sugar, just fruit juice to sweeten it) but he doesn't like me to take off the plastic backing...therefore, he sometimes forgets & chews the plastic.



• Other favorite snacks are: homemade cookies, Costco's animal crackers, raisins, fruit of all kinds, crackers & cheese



• He loves to drink juice of all kinds, and he still only drinks milk mixed with kefir/drinkable yogurt (or chocolate milk on occasion). He doesn't like white milk, and he spits it out every time I try.
  


• He thinks that lemonade is an amazing treat, and he's still wishing to try Mama's Coke sometime. Keep wishing, Buddy! ;)



• He's waking between 6:30 and 7 AM, napping for about 45 min to 1 hour, and going to bed at around 8:15 PM. He's excited to go to bed at naptime, and I think he should be napping a little longer, but he canNOT fall back to sleep after he wakes up. Drives me nuts. After almost 2 years, I've learned, though, that I can't force him to sleep. I've tried. I've been so consistent that I drive the family batty. Even so, I've failed. Alex is just not a sleeper...and Mama just has to deal with it.



• He *hates* getting his teeth brushed. He grudgingly lets us brush the bottom teeth, but he'll do everything in his power (which is a LOT!) to keep us from brushing the top teeth. We wonder if it has something to do with the small chip on his front tooth. (That happened when he was about 17 months old.) We've tried every trick, including a fun light-up toothbrush, but nothing works. So, for now, we just hold him down while he screams, and we brush those teeth every night before bed. Poor kid. I feel like an abusive parent, but what else can we do? Hopefully the dentist will have some advice...once he turns two & we choose a dentist.



• He's discovered how to open doorknobs from both sides. (Before, he could open a door that swings away from him, but not one that swings towards him...if that makes any sense.)



• This door-opening skill means that he can now escape from his bedroom. Several mornings in a row, we've woke up to Alex out of his room when he gets up for the day. We don't think that's very safe, and we continue with what we've always done - make him sit on his bed and call, "UP!" I'm trying to decide whether we should get a doorknob cover to keep him from leaving his bedroom.
  


• Yesterday, I was in our bedroom when Alex woke from his nap. I heard him over the monitor. He went from dead-silent to yelling "Tractor!!!!" He dashed out of bed, opened his door, ran down the hallway, and was halfway up to the bonus room before I stopped him. With a guilty look on his face, he returned to his bed and quietly said, "Up?"



• Speaking of the bonus room, Alex can also now open the door to the bonus room, which is his playroom. Since he's very capable on the stairs now, we allow him to play upstairs more often. He'll sometimes let himself upstairs & play independently. Right now, he mostly loves the slide and the little toy trains. He also loves to stand by the window & 'spy on the neighborhood'.
  


• He loves "toos" - the toy tools in his bedroom or the real tools in the garage or at the store. I love to watch him hammering the plastic nails into his workbench. He still uses the wrong end of the hammer, and it's pretty cute!
  


• He likes to play with plastic containers & lids - screw-on lids, pop-off lids, etc. I moved some of our plastic pitchers & containers to cabinets that he can reach.




• He likes to take big rubber balls and hit them with the metal holder for my pizza stone. I don't know why, but this is his newest "sport". Strange child. Creative, though...

I could write more...a lot more! I could add more pictures, too. Naptime just isn't long enough for putting together posts with so much text and pictures. (Moving the photos around is a major pain!) It already takes me several naptimes to put together a post, and I'd like to post this one before he turns 2...and it's approaching all too quickly! :)