Some of his new words include: mine (his new favorite word), black, brown, white, yellow, red, chocolate, keys, bath, cow, play-doh, puppy, bird, plane, duck, quack, whoa, wow, butter, bread, milk, juice, Costco (our favorite store), silly, bath, car, train, etc. After speaking for over a year, he has FINALLY learned to say the word YES! Woo hoo!
He's really starting to put together 3-5 words into a sentence and is very interested in possession of things. For example, he'll try on my shoes and say "This is mommy's shoe" or getting into the car he'll say "this is daddy's car" or "this is doggie's ear." He is also quite proficient in telling us what he wants - like "I want to see Pa" - when he wants to skype with my parents, etc. He is VERY interested in cars and spends hours playing with matchbox cars.
He has recently become interested in the difference between dogs and puppies. He has a black lab puppy stuffed animal that he calls his puppy and drags it all over the house and cuddles with it in bed. Our neighbor recently got a new puppy that weighs 2 pounds and brought the puppy over to meet Sam. He was very gentle with the puppy at first, until they decided to let him try holding the puppy - which he promptly dropped onto the grass. Here are a few pics:
He is getting more interested in drawing and less interest in putting crayons/paint/chalk into his mouth. We've taken advantage of some recently warm sunny days and began playing with sidewalk chalk:
Our quest to encourage him to gain more weight continues. We go back to the doctor regularly for weight checks and he continues to lose small amounts of weight, about 2 oz/month. This is not a significant amount of weight to lose, but he should be gaining weight - not losing weight. He's about 90th percentile for height and 10th percentile for weight. Because he has so much energy and is such an active kid, we're not overly concerned but we work to increase high-fat foods into his diet.
His favorite food is butter - and there are certainly nights when all he'll eat for dinner is butter (gross). He also loves Costco's pretzel nuggets stuffed with peanut butter, whole milk yogurt, chicken nuggets, deli turkey, tangerines (his most recent obsession), veggie pancakes, Triscuits, soy hot dogs, granola bars, goldfish, Life cereal, raisins, carrot muffins, turkey bacon, soy sausage, and legumes.
We joke that he is becoming vegetarian - he'll eat any sort of legume, the other night he ate 1/2 a can of black eyed peas for dinner. He loves lima beans, black beans, kidney beans, chick peas, lentils, etc. He also loves string cheese and asks for cheese all day long (which we don't give him all day long). We have unsuccessfully searched grocery stores for high fat string cheese/cheese sticks. The stores look at us like we're crazy asking for high fat string cheese - they're like, um, no, most of ours is low fat. If anyone has suggestions as to where we can buy whole milk string cheese/cheese sticks, PLEASE let me know!
And he of course has a sweet tooth, like his mommy. He recently learned the word chocolate and asks for chocolate at all hours of the day. The other morning he ate a carrot muffin for breakfast and then asked for chocolate at 730am (which he did not get). One a recent warm 70 degree February day, our 8 year old neighbor Kelly gave him his first popsicle which he loved:
He also loves cupcakes and enjoyed them at his friend Eli's birthday party:
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| Eating chocolate cake with friends = happy boy |
Our least favorite new word that Sam has learned is MINE. In classic 2 year old fashion, he thinks that everything is his. My friends and family recently threw a wonderful baby shower for me (since Sam was born the weekend the shower was supposed to have been when I was pregnant with him). My cousin Heather is a renowned cupcake maker and Sam was obsessed with her cupcakes. He had part of a cupcake and then saw the rest of the cupcakes on a table, but he couldn't reach them. He ran across the room and dragged a very heavy wooden kitchen chair across the entire room to climb up on the chair to reach the cupcakes - so we gave him 1/2 of another cupcake, we figured such perseverence should be rewarded. When it was time for Heather to leave, she packed up some cupcakes in a tupperware to bring to her co-workers. Sam was saying his goodbyes and then noticed the cupcakes in the tupperware. He practically threw himself at her, screaming "MINE MINE MINE MINE" trying to go after the cupcakes! He did not get more cucpakes this time.
He also is obsessed with my iphone (so is Brad...and so am I) and is quite proficient at figuring out the apps!
We are very excited that the weather is warming up so we can spend more time outside. With my modified bedrest, I'm allowed to go out a couple times a week on short outings if my blood pressure isn't too high, as long as I stay off my feet. I've learned which parks have benches for me to sit on while I watch him. There are many many parks nearby and he loves going down the slide, climbing, swinging, running, and jumping. Here's a recent picture of him throwing bread to birds at Burke Lake Park.
His sense of humor continues to astound us and he loves to laugh and laugh. Here are a few recent videos of him playing and laughing:
Sam takes corn-popping very seriously!
He loves to dance and sing. His favorite songs with hand motions now include "Head Shoulders Knees & Toes" (he now knows all of his body parts), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, If You're Happy & You Know It, Itsy Bitsy Spider, 1-2 Buckle My Shoe 3-4 Shut The Door, and the ABCs.
He watches 1 television show which we love on PBS called Super Why. He has really learned some letters and the ABCs from this show, we love it (and does Sam!). He recently was quite sick with roseola and we had a scary few days when his fever spiked up to 105.2. It's a horrible feeling to pick up a crying child in the morning and his skin felt like it was on fire. Thank GOODNESS for children's advil! We watched a LOT of Super Why during those few days when we just tried to keep liquids in him and keep him comfortable. The illness came on so suddenly and went away just as fast. It's amazing how quickly toddlers can bounce back!
The dog decided to help with the stress level in our house by eating an entire sock and vomiting it all over the down comforter on the bed. Brad brought the comforter to the dry cleaner's and on the way there realized his brakes were having a problem so his car had to go into the shop. It was a really fun few days (not).
But, thankfully he is fully recovered and back to his usual playful, active, silly, cuddly personality. Calling himself Neal continues to be one of his favorite jokes (as you may remember from this earlier blog post). But when strangers ask him what his name is, he clearly says "Sam" - yet when we ask him,
he loves to joke and say "NEAL." Silly boy.
We know that the next month will bring about many changes in Sam's life, so we are working hard to cherish every day with him as our "only child" and actively thinking of ways to help him transition into his role as a big brother. Can't believe that he will be 2 so soon!
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