Jo Turns Two!

My baby turned two! Because we've been so sick all week, her birthday photos and update are two days late. This is the story of Jo's life. Being the baby in the family, she has to go along with everything! She's very easy going and puts up being shuffled around when we head to all of Oliver's activities and classes. Joanna hasn't really taken classes herself yet. It seemed so important to get Oliver involved in classes as a little one, but that was because he got almost no socialization with other kids at home. Jo has Oliver. Sometimes, they are best friends. Other times, they aren't. Oliver likes to act as Jo's parent, and, sometimes, Jo just wants him to leave her alone.

Joanna is very talkative and verbal. There would be no possible way to try to keep track of how many words she speaks. Hundreds, if not thousands. She has been speaking in two-word phrases from about 18 months old, and she sings numerous songs like the ABCs and "Hickory Dickory Dock" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." It floors me how verbal she is.

She really, really loves music videos, just like Oliver did. She comes up to us all the time and asks for videos by name, "Monsters? Monster video?" or "Ernie? Elmo? Grover? Sesame Street?" We have to really work at limiting her screen time. Books work well to redirect her. Jo loves all of her Sesame Street books, but her favorite book is called, "Once Upon a Potty."

Speaking of potties, Jo is somewhat potty trained. During the day, at home, I keep her pants off, and she almost always does her business in the potty. She cheers for herself when she goes. She doesn't stay dry over nap time yet. I still have to put her in diapers when we go out. I think she associates having pants on with having a diaper because, if I put her pants on at home, she then has an accident. She toddles up to me and says, "Uh-oh, I had an accident." It's adorable.

Jo gets away with a lot because she's just so funny. She'll walk up to Oliver's bucket of pasta and throw it everywhere while yelling, "IT'S A MESS!" and all I can do is laugh. I feel like we're a lot easier on her than we were with Oliver, but she also lacks all the one-on-one time that Oliver got as a little one. I think that's a big part of the reason that she's not completely potty trained. We always have to go out and do something, and so we stick her in a diaper and head out.

Jo is still babied a lot and carried a lot. She loves to cuddle. One of her favorite ways of asking to cuddle is to walk up to one of us, lift her arms up, and coo, "Oooooh, baby girl!" I know I need to be better about encouraging her to head off on her own and play, but it's hard doing that, knowing she's my last little baby.

A funny trait about Jo is she's very organized. She enjoys putting stuff away, stacking things, and lining stuff up perfectly. She received blocks as a birthday gift from Grandma Judy and Grandpa Larry, and she spends probably an hour a day stacking them and lining them up.

I let my kids choose for themselves what kind of activities they like. For example, Oliver loves baking and all things electric (appliances, tools, etc). Joanna loves nature and spooky things. She loves dirt and rocks. Over Halloween, we got really into stuff like monsters, pumpkins, and spiders. She squeals with glee at a picture of a spider. In fact, when she plays with her foam letters, she gets them all right... but she calls the letter S a "spider." Currently, one of her favorite things to hold around the house is a package of Kraft Mac & Cheese with a picture of a monster on it (from the "Monsters University" movie). She was thrilled every time we went to the grocery store because they had banners of spiders hanging from the ceiling for Halloween.

Animal sounds are another favorite of Jo's. She enjoys picking up each of her stuffed animals and making their sound. The cutest is when she trumpets for the elephant. She's getting into some pretend play now, and she has her stuffed animals help eat her food, and sometimes they give her or each other kisses. As you can tell from the photos above, her fox is still her most beloved treasure. We found the fox after ordering a replacement a few months ago. She's very happy to have her friend with her, especially at nap time.

We still haven't even entertained the idea of switching her to a toddler bed. She's never tried to climb out of her crib, so we'll probably wait until we get relocated and acclimated to a permanent home.

At two years old, here are a list of Jo's likes and dislikes:

Likes
*Her stuffed animal, Box the Fox
*Her book, Once Upon a Potty, with Prudence
*Ernie (from Sesame Street)
*monsters
*pumpkins
*spiders
*rocks
*pine cones
*blocks
*Dad
*baths
*Mom
*Oliver
*helping Oliver push the button on the coffee grinder
*closing the garage door when Grandma Judy leaves in the morning
*getting a treat after she goes potty
*Thomas (the train)
*children's music videos
*seeing other babies around
*stickers
*stuffed animals
*dinosaurs
*candles (even the LED kind)

Dislikes
*Getting food on her hands
*Spilling water/milk on her clothes
*Being told, "No."
*When Oliver plays with her blocks
*Public toilets

Happy Birthday, Sick Jo!

I will have to do a full birthday update for Jo this weekend. Our whole household has been really sick this week. I think this is the sickest we've ever been! Thankfully, we finally seem to be on the upswing tonight. I was much too sick to take photos of Jo today, and she was too crabby from feeling sick to have had any fun with pictures, anyway. Andrew had to come home from work to watch the kids because I could barely move, and he took them outside for a peanut butter and jelly picnic. Then, he and the kids made frosting for cupcakes. Jo was too sick for a sandwich, but she somehow managed a birthday cupcake!

Happy Second Birthday, Joanna!

I Love the Terrible Twos (I Think)

After Joanna's birth, Oliver has become increasingly more independent. He amazes me daily. With that independence comes some feelings of guilt on my part. I'm used to spending almost every waking moment with him. He plays for hours by himself now, and I can't help but wonder if that's OK.

Oliver has always wanted to do things himself. He wants to load the laundry. He wants to start the dish machine. Recently, he's grown bored of some of these activities, but he gets upset if I do them without him. Oh, two year old logic! So, I have to be sneaky when I do chores around the house, or I have to bribe him to help me to avoid tantrums.

When Oliver does have a fit, he is often able to calm down by a quick time out. We have him stand in the corner, and we count to some number. The more severe the tantrum is, the higher we count, but we never count for more than two minutes. This has spawned a love of numbers from our favorite 26 month old. We have not actively taught Oliver numbers like we did letters, but he's picked them up from doing things like helping us use the microwave. Oliver can count up and down to 27 all by himself! He seems to recognize all of the numbers by sight, although he makes mistakes occasionally. He enjoys counting things. If there's a lot of something, he just counts them as 27. If there's a small number of something, he'll count them. He always gets it right if there's 1 or 2 of something, and he almost always gets it right if there are 2 to 6 of something. The kid just loves numbers (like his mama!).

Oliver now "reads" all of his books at night. His memory is amazing. He knows all of the books we regularly read. Unfortunately, he gets upset if I (or Andrew) try to read any books to him. This makes introducing new books nearly impossible. At night, he reads about 6 books to us from memory. Recently, he's started to delay reading them to delay bedtime. It's a struggle because if I try to read to him to move things along, it results in a tantrum!

As for night time, Oliver is still sleeping in his crib. He hasn't tried to climb out yet, but we want to move him to his big boy bed soon to free up the crib for Jo in a few months. Still, it's hard to be motivated to move Oliver when I know it might result in less sleep for Andrew and me. With a baby in the house, every minute of sleep is precious. Oliver does nap in his big boy bed sometimes. When we put him in the big bed for naps, he sleeps about half the time. The other half of the time, he just sits or lays on the bed and plays instead! So, we use the crib for naps a lot, too.

We still don't watch any movies with Oliver, and we rarely let him watch TV. He watches a lot of Sesame Street music videos on the computer, though. He's memorized about three dozen songs and tries to sing along with them. It's the cutest thing ever, and I love listening to the words he sings with the songs. I'm not sure how much I should limit his music video watching. When I need to nurse Jo, I let him watch his videos. After his nap, when he's crabby, I let him watch his videos. In total, he's probably actually watching music videos for 3 hours a day. That's a ton! Considering he's only awake for 12 hours out of the day, it's shocking to me that 1/4 of his awake time is spent watching music videos. There are days I decide that there won't be any video watching at all. He does pretty well with it and will go entertain himself in other ways while I nurse his baby sister. But when he runs off and plays with some electronic toy with blinking lights, I wonder how that can be much better than Sesame Street music videos. So, we only do 1-2 days a week with no videos at all. Sometimes, I think a children's movie might be better than videos because he can learn to follow a plot. But, I'm not exactly sure if he's able to follow a lot of a movie yet anyway. We might introduce a kid's movie soon.

As for letters, I've just started to teach Oliver some of the lower-case letters. And by some, I mean I taught him lower-case "G." I introduced him to lower-case "A" today. Of course, he has no problem recognizing lower-case C, O, P, S and Z on his own.

I've also tried to teach Oliver how to read a little, using capital letters. I think he understands that letters spell words, and he likes to listen to me spell "Oliver" to him. He won't tell me what words are by themselves without a picture to go with them, but I think he will soon. We've been working on "Mom," "Dad," "Oliver," and "Jo."

Oliver's pretend play continues to expand. He pretends to be a dog sometimes, and he absolutely loves playing with all of his stuffed animals. When he uses his pretend kitchen, he adds pretend spices and pretend water.

He's also putting a name to some feelings, which I think is just great. Actually, he really only does it with "mad," although I've been trying to teach him what sad and happy mean, too. He'll tell me when Jo is mad, and he'll tell me when he is mad.

Speaking of Jo, he loves to help his little sister. He tells her, "Good morning!" when she wakes up. When she cries, he yells, "I'm coming, Jo!" He plays with her stinky feet and loves to give her hugs and kisses. He wants me to put her on his lap to hold her all the time. He also wants to help me give her baths. I let him wash her feet, and he will dump small cups of water over her head to rinse the shampoo out.

Oliver wants to do a lot on his own. He'll frequently tell me to stay where I am or wait. He'll also kick me out of his room sometimes so that he can play blocks by himself or "read" by himself.

I get concerned a lot that Oliver doesn't get enough time interacting with others. I try to utilize MOMS Club to get him more exposure to other kids, but being around lots of other kids seems to result in an endless tantrum, so we usually end up leaving.

One final observation about Oliver's stage of development is his shyness. Oliver is very shy with other people around, and if he makes a mistake around other people, he acts humiliated. For example, if he grabs the wrong person's cart at the grocery store or falls on his butt at the bottom of a slide at the park in front of others, he lays down and tries to bury his head like an ostrich. He's just absolutely embarrassed by his mistakes. My brother was like that as a child, so, thankfully, my family understands his behavior and gives him the space and distance he needs in those moments. Strangers, though, often make it worse by huddling over him, asking him if he's OK, or (worst of all) teasing him for it. The worst thing you can do to Oliver is laugh at him. So, we do our best to hide our laughter if Oliver does something cute, like make up the wrong words to songs.

In summation, I actually like Oliver's "Terrible Twos." He's really becoming quite the extraordinary and independent little guy. It's not always fun dealing with the tantrums that come along with it! However, I love being amazed by him on a regular basis. I'm just so proud of the two year old that he's become.

Oliver Turns Two

I can't believe Oliver is two today. His second birthday! Where has the time gone? At two years old, he's full of laughter and mischief. He's goofy and snuggly and just a whirlwind of joy. It's amazing how much these little ones grow and change in two years. Two years ago today, we brought him into this world as a newborn! Amazing.

Here's Oliver's two year update:

Oliver's language has been developing a great deal over the last few weeks. He speaks over 100 words, but he's just started pronouncing many of them properly (or, at least, more properly). Instead of only saying the first syllable of words, Oliver's beginning to emphasize entire words. For example, he's started saying "water" instead of just "wah." I don't think his language has reached a level yet where strangers would be able to understand most of what he says.

Oliver has also just started using two-word phrases. He's not using them all the time, but he's recently started saying some things like, "Flush potty," and, "Push button." He knows all of his capital letters, but he can't say, "K," or "Q." Oliver doesn't sing well yet, but he tries to sing the alphabet song. Unless you're listening for it, you wouldn't be able to discern it from babble. When we play Sesame Street videos for him, he'll try to sing along with some of them, especially "One Fine Face." Oliver excels at understanding language. Andrew and I have to constantly spell words because Oliver picks up on everything we say. He can understand multi-step directions, such as, "Oliver, can you go use the potty, and then we'll get your shoes on and head to the store."

Speaking of using the potty, Oliver is fully potty trained. When he's wearing loose clothing, like sweats, he can take them off himself to sit on his little potty. Otherwise, he comes up to me and tugs at them to indicate to me that I should remove them. Sometimes, he'll say, "Pah," (his current word for potty), and other times he'll say, "Boop" (his current word for poop). Accidents are few and far between during waking hours. I'd estimate he has an accident one to two times a month. He still wears a diaper overnight, and he pees during his naps about 1/4 of the time.

Oliver still sleeps in his crib. We're slowly working on getting him more comfortable with the big boy bed. We now do the nighttime routine (reading books) on his big boy bed. I hope he'll be sleeping on it in a few months or so, and then we can start setting a potty next to it at night for him, too. Unfortunately, he still wakes up a lot around 5am, which makes us hesitate to move him out of the crib. We have to go in to his room, offer him water, and let him know that it's still bed time. Oliver then goes back to bed for another hour or two. I worry he'd just get up and start playing with his toys if he slept in a bed instead of his crib.

As far as fine motor skills go, Oliver has always amazed us. That still continues. He now takes screwdrivers and puts them to screws and tries to unscrew covers on his toys. He's gotten close a couple of times. Oliver is basically obsessed with figuring out how everything works, and he gets very upset if we don't let him do something himself. When I bake with him, Oliver gets to do basically all of the steps, including breaking eggs and spooning in flour to dough. Of course, he doesn't understand risks and dangers yet. If it was up to him, he'd be opening the oven door and turning on the stove top and adding ingredients to pots on the stove. I have to be very observant whenever I'm cooking or baking.

Oliver's gross motor skills are OK. He runs a lot in the house, but he falls a lot when he runs outside on unstable ground. He doesn't jump yet, and he's still not very interested in climbing. He goes down some slides on his butt, but he usually prefers the more stable method of sliding down on his belly. Although he likes sitting on his tricycle, he hasn't figured out how the pedals work yet. He has shown some interest in going up and down the stairs like adults do, but, for the most part, he still climbs up and down on all fours. That's OK by me!

Happily, Oliver's starting to become a little more social with other children. He loves to run up to all the neighborhood kids and watch them play. He watches and laughs and claps for them. At music class, he likes to pick up toys that other kids drop and hand the toys back to them. He doesn't really understand boundaries, though, and he gets confused when other children act possessive over things. For example, one boy had a truck at the park yesterday. Oliver walked up to it. He didn't touch it, but he leaned in to examine it. The truck's owner ran up to it and yelled at Oliver. Oliver seemed confused and upset, which made my heart ache for him. Today at the zoo, there was a button to push at one of the exhibits. Oliver loved pushing the button, but one older child (maybe 7?) yelled at him because he didn't want any other kids pushing the button. This type of behavior makes me sad because Oliver isn't exposed to it very much. He doesn't understand, and all he knows is that someone is yelling at him! Of course, I know Oliver will go through the "mine!" phase, too, so I try to be understanding.

Finally, I want to say that Oliver's favorite thing to do is still help people. He wants to help everyone with everything. He wants to do the laundry. He starts the machine himself (same with the dish machine). When a load is done, he goes upstairs and collects more clothes to wash. He's in charge of doing things like brewing coffee and making smoothies. At Grandpa Larry's and Grandma Judy's, he enjoys cleaning out the lint trap and loading and unloading the dish machine. He likes throwing away everyone's garbage, and he wants to flush the toilet for everyone. He wants to be the one to unlock the cars. Oliver wants to help Daddy get dressed every day and gets his clothes out of the drawers. He also hands him his lunch and closes the door after he leaves for work.

In all, we have an amazing toddler. I really love how active and fun he is, and how he still loves lots of cuddles and affection. Oliver's going to be a great (and very helpful) big brother soon.