Two Years Old

Happy Second Birthday, Ace!

I cannot believe that I have a two year old. I am destine to say that phrase indefinitely I'm sure as he continues to rapidly age before my eyes, evermore pointing out that I too am doing the very same thing. It's true, as of today, I have a two year old! Wow! What a year (two of them in fact) it has been. Every day is a joy, even as we begin to explore independence, tantrums, time outs, and 'no'.

Firsts in this 24th month of life: a new illness, a trip to Swasi, more vocabulary and sentences.

Ace is flourishing and is enjoying talking more and more. He's still a very polite little guy and says please most of the time, still often needing the prompt of 'what do you say?' but otherwise very happy to ask nicely after remembering. :)

To date at 2 years old he has 16 teeth, he is only lacking his final set of molars and I feel those are on their way in pretty soon. On the grandparents scale he weighs 21.8lbs with a diaper, at the doctor fully clothed he weighs 23.4lbs. So while he's still skinny according to the doctor's charts he's still ON the chart, so that's great! Height wise we'll know in another few days when we take him in for his 2 year check up.

Ace's last month has been filled with adventure of various kinds. His first long plane trip to Hawaii, where he enjoyed his first trip into the ocean and playing in the waves and sand. He had another overnight with Pop Pop and Gran that he enjoyed immensely and never once cried (in fact when mom came to get him he kinda said hi but was back to roaming around and playing!) He did a great job and his independence and comfort with them is growing and we're all so glad he's at ease with them.

Ace is an outdoor boy. He loves LOVES to play in the water, loves to eat his cereal outside. In fact he will wake up and say "I'm hungry. Cereal? Outside? I eat cereal outside?" It's adorable to see him remember and recall things that he's done only once or twice and to clearly want to do them again (regardless of the weather outside at the time.) :) He loves to go to the park, run around in the backyard, and is even getting more comfortable with the neighborhood kids playing with and/or around him.

Ace knows most of his colors, loves to play with balls, and enjoys doing 'school' with mommy on a regular basis during the week. He knows the letter 'A', 'G', and 'J' and tries to spell out his name 'A-D-N' it's pretty cute to see him learning and soaking up this knowledge. Ace can count to 3. He also can recognize most of the numbers 1-9. He consistently knows: circle, square, triangle, and heart. He also randomly chooses to remember diamond. He LOVES to read. We read at least 5 books a day, minimum.

His current favorite toy is his Tiger that he made for Sabria's 2nd birthday. He traveled with us to Hawaii (a very specific request!) and he went with Ace to the grandparents for his overnight adventure. Tiger sleeps often in his bed, but he's not typically a cuddler of the tiger - just likes to have it near, sometimes uses it as a pillow. He also is very into dinosaurs and loves to 'raaaarrr' as the dinees do. Although just the other day he started to call them 'dineesaurs' so already he's outgrowing the cute words he's developed :( He also enjoys playing with cars, balloons, and balls. He loves to throw balls, kick them, throw them at dad and asks dad to juggle them on a regular basis.

He still absolutely loves the movie Cars. He also loves Toy Story and Madagascar on a frequent basis. He wants to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse nearly every morning and I appreciate that they teach him shapes, colors, and counting.

In the sleep department his naps are doing fine - often an average of 90 minutes sometime after 1pm. Sleeping in the night still continues to involve one wake up session. The process of getting him to sleep reverted drastically back in June for some unknown reason and so that process is starting to slowly become easier again - with him not crying when we leave the room. We are hoping that now he's getting these antibiotics to cure him on being sick that he'll be sleeping better as a result as well. We'll see!

Ace has had quite the adventurous and developmental year. It has been a wonder to watch him expand his world, vocabulary, and love of everything around him. He's such a great joy to our lives and we're so thankful that he's happy, healthy and growing up into a great kid. Good bye to Baby Ace and hello little man! Here's to a great third year, where you get to become a big brother, live in a new state (for a short period of time), and hopefully potty train! ;-) Happy Birthday, Ace!

He's growing so fast... see for yourself! Eighteen Months, One Year Old, Six Months Old, One Month Old