25 months
SPL’s 25th month has been another busy one. We had 2 sets of grandparents out for his birthday and took a quick trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. John had just gotten an iPhone and it was amazing to watch SPL and the phone’s interface for photos (you take your finger and swipe it across the screen and the photo advances to the next one). SPL got it immediately and it entertained him (and kept him awake so he could nap in his bed — more restful sleep) for the trip home.
and the few days after all that excitement, SPL and I flew to Chicago (and John flew to Europe for work) to visit with my college friend Daesman and her family (their daughter is 1 week younger, to the day, than SPL). SPL continues to be a great airplane traveling companion. After spending an hour or so figuring out the airplane seatbelt, armrest, and table, he fell asleep on my lap (we got lucky and had the entire row of 3 seats to ourselves :-). He woke up about 2 hours (and 100+ pages of Harry Potter 7 🙂 later saying a very sweet "Hi Mommy."
Rodney, Daesman, MKH, and Coco (their dog) introduced some new vocabulary to SPL — like "biting trashcans :-)": theirs has a foot pedal and if you’re 2, curious, and not careful, you run the risk of it snapping closed on your fingers (or as Rodney found out from MKH, the pedal can also "bite" your foot).
This month has been full of funny sayings — I’ve been trying to write them all down but I’m sure I missed many:
— "Not right now mommy." He says this most often when I’m singing different songs and he either wants me to fast forward to my next selection or stop singing altogether. Funny kid
— "do it again" (sounds like "do it toucan" when he says it 🙂
— "by myself." He’s picked up pronouns this month too — and says "I" instead of "Sam" now, "you", "me".
— "good times" — he got this cool cow flashlight from his babysitter and we’ve been having a lot of fun with it. It opens its mouth, moos, and turns on a small light inside its mouth after he squeezes its tail. I started saying "good times" after he made it moo/light up and SPL picked it up and made it his own immediately 🙂
— "I am Tiger Woods" — after watching the PGA tournament (just a little bit) on TV.
— and for my Grandpa Mack in Lexington "nudder one, nudder one" (meaning another one :-). (The back story here is he was playing with me one day when I was about SPL’s age and we were watching planes and I kept saying the same phrase, wanting to see more and more planes). SPL uses it mostly when he’s in search of "giants" (meaning the dumpster trashcans :-).
We’ve had another great month swimming and SPL has made a lot of progress. With a push, he can now swim/kick to the steps and pull himself out (still mostly momentum, but the fact he can get himself out is huge :-). He’s also taken the con in the inner tube and loves spinning around as well as directing his own course by kicking (and he often pushes me away and says "by myself." ). He’s also able to hold up his weight during "monkey arms," which is the activity where he holds onto the side and then processes, hand by hand, to the corner where he climbs out ("elbow, elbow, knee, knee") and then jumps in off the side (into my arms). Also, he’s now smiling each time he comes up after going under — before, he had a bit of a discombobulated look on his face.
gardening — he’s grown sweet 100s, heirloom tomatoes, green beans, strawberries, watermelon, and rosemary. we started harvesting around his birthday and have been going strong ever since. We even had a full-sized green bell pepper to pick, which my mom says is a difficult fete :-). And there are two "babies" growing on the plants as I type this. Last year our bells were a bust. And the strawberries looked like they were going to die too, but somehow they pulled through and are producing more strawberries (SPL has picked 2 so far :-).
One of the concepts that SPL has been working on is figuring out the difference between the uses of the word "hot." We emphasize the "hotness" of food (temperature) and SPL knows to blow on it so he can eat it. I mentioned to him, as we got in the car this summer, that it was super hot inside and as he climbed into his carseat, I heard him start puffing with all his might so he could cool it off. I had to laugh :-). He also tried blowing on his salsa eggs the other day :-). Great toddler learning — learn one rule and apply it in every case you can think of to see if it works :-).
As far as language goes, he’s now using 6-8 word sentences on a regular basis, as well as noun+verb+adjective+noun. I credit the birthday house full of guests for this as anytime he’s surrounded by extra family for an extended period, it always results in a discontinuous shift in his language.
Quotes that surprised me:
"should we open it?" present box that arrived one afternoon around his birthday
"want to ask you a question" — I did a double take on this one.
And in a sobering, and funny too, development: SPL has been applying his observations of local teenagers @ the park to his own knowledge of trying out different materials as skateboards in the house (I have a short video of this which I need to post :-). With his dad’s help, he also tried riding our neighbor’s skateboard and with my help, one of Daesman’s friend’s kid’s Razor while we were in Chicago.
This month’s biggest change, however, has been the arrival of the new "big kid bed" and all of the changes that transitioning from a crib to a bed bring — most of which I’ll leave to the ether as I don’t really want to remember them :-). The highlights to remember are SPL putting the bed together with his dad (and using his tools), learning to fall asleep by himself (which has been an ongoing process and is still something we’re working on), and a note to me/John and other parents: don’t get into the business of lying down with your kid so that they can transition to falling asleep in the bed (though it is sweet for the moment :-).
Happy 25th month, SPL!