2 Year Birthday

Our baby boy is two years old!

Born: September 18th, 2011 at 6:20am at 7 lbs 12 oz and 21 inches in height

Now:

Weight: 27 lbs 3 oz

Height: 34 inches

Communication: Robert's vocabulary, sentence structure and question forming has exploded  in the last couple of weeks. Jordan was starting to get worried that maybe his ears needed tubes or something because he wasn't really speaking a whole lot or very clear. And then it happened. He would start saying all kinds of words if we asked him too. And then questions like this "What's that noise?" What are you doing mama/daddy?" "Why?" He still says Lala for Lily and gool for milk. He can say "I want (fill in the blank" It will usually be playdoh, gool, Lala, Dah-yee (Daddy), pool or outside. When he does something we've been working on, he will raise both arms and say "I did it!". One of the cutest things he has been saying is I love you... there is something that melts a mother's heart when her little one says I love you for the first time. It started off by me saying to him "I (pointing to my eye), love (crossing my arms over my chest), you (pointing at him and saying it loud)" He then started finishing the "you" part when I would say "I love..." and now he can say "I love you". Delicious!

Sleeping: Sleeping is not consistently Robert's strong point. But we've settled into a normal sleep schedule for now after a very rough transition to a new house here in Florida. I'll write more about our adjustment later. Right now, he is sleeping from 8:00am - 7:00-8:00am. No night wakings, for the most part, and goes to sleep just fine. Although, we had to start putting him back into footed PJ's with a zipper because Robert would poo in his crib and the play with it.... after this happening 5 times, we went back to one piece, zippered PJ's. 

Eating: Robert eats a good breakfast and lunch although he is very hesitant to try new things. It took me months of putting apples on his plate for him to finally eat them - 4 months later. Even then, he will sometimes chew them up and spit it all out (?!). Since we moved to Florida, he went on a dinner strike. He literally flips out when we put him in his high chair. Since we knew this housing situation was temporary, we have let this go for now. We'll have to be pro-active once we move into the new house and have established a routine. He does love: bananas, granola and yogurt, baby food pouches (?!), apples with peanut butter, pretzels, granola bars, oatmeal, pancakes with syrup and of course the 'norm' kid foods - fruit snacks, mac n cheese, chicken nuggets, etc.

Sibling interaction: Lily and Rob are little play pals. Some days, I swear they fight over almost everything. But thats not most days. In fact, most days, they make believe, color, play doh, read, watch TV and play together. Lily been trying to be his 'interpreter' recently. Rob will say 'I wah tah-core' and Lily will say (until she gets it right) 'Oh, you want popcorn? Sorry, we don't have any.' I've tried to explain if she knows we can't do/eat/have the thing he is asking for then we shouldn't throw it in his face but it's a hard concept to impart :) 

Singing: Robert has recently taken an interest in music and singing. I found this youtube channel called Super Simple Songs and he loves sitting there watching these songs - Old McDonald, 10 Bears in the Bed, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and other classics. Jordan and I sit with him before bed time and sing him songs. Just recently he started asking for 'Swee Har Tee' which is a special song called the Sweet Heart Tree. Jordan's mom sang it to him and now we sing it to both our babies. He will also ask for 'Gone' which is I am a Child of God.

Play time: What does Rob like to play with? The oddest things. Well, they are odd to me. Lily is so much like me and Robert is not as much. He loves fans, of all types. I could tell he loved fans when he was able to crawl and would crawl over to them and play with it over and over again. The love lives on. He loves cell phones, computers, baby monitors, TVs and any other form of technology. He loves to play with his microphone set. He likes his play vacuum and will usually accompany me when I vacuum too. He loves to color, but mostly with a pen on blank paper (not coloring books). He loves to do play doh and no longer eats it :) One of his favorite things is to swim in the pool with his puddle jumper on!

Church: We have church for three hours each Sunday. Rob is way more restless than Lily was during the first 1 hr 15 minute block. After that, they go to nursery or a children's Sunday school program called Primary. We have been working with Robert to stay inside the chapel with us during this first hour and we are making progress! We used to have to take him out because he would scream, fight us, flail like a dying fish and be a distraction to most everyone around us. But once he realized he would have to just sit on our laps when he went out instead of playing, he's changed his game a bit. He does love nursery here in Cape Coral. The nursery is leader is awesome and brings wonderful things for them to do each week. Plus hey have an Elmo kitchen which Rob adores.

Adjustment to Florida: Rob has had the hardest time adjusting to Florida out of all of us. Well, maybe I am having a harder time than him, but that is for another post :) The first six weeks were the worst. Isn't that how it is with every big adjustment (new baby, job, move, etc)? His sleeping was horrible. Like, worse than a newborn for quite awhile until Jordan and I slowly stopped going in every time he cried. He would still wake for hours at night, sometimes crying or talking. He would wake up at 6am after less than 10 hours of sleep. The strangest thing happened when Jordan brought back his crib bumper from Ohio when he traveled back in late August. Once the crib bumper was back on... Rob began to sleep normally. Like 8pm-7ish am. No night waking, no crying, no talking. He missed his crib bumper!!!

He also went on a dinner strike which I mentioned earlier.

Tantrums flared and naughtiness has sky rocketed. This house is not meant for little kids and they know it and hate it. We've adjusted, but man the first while here sucked. 

Since Robert is on strike from dinners, it makes going out to eat nearly impossible. As in, we have vowed to no longer do it until we get this dinner situation under control. He will only behave at Steak n Shake (?!). Everywhere else he screams, cries, flails and won't eat anything. It's embarrassing, defeating and exhausting.

My mantra? It won't always be this way!

And then we move next week and get to re-adjust all over again.... but this time it will be in a permanent house will all of our stuff returning to us!!