Austin, you big 2.25-er you. It's amazing how much can change in just three months. You seem so much bigger than you did at two, and your vocabulary/communication has increased dramatically. You definitely like things your own way and hands-down your favorite words is "me-self", but you're also kind and funny and make me smile every single day. We love you little man.
Stats: 18 month pants, 2T shirts, (18 month onsies are too small, 18 month shirts still fit okay but we've transitioned to 2T, mostly, and 2T pants drown him). Four teeth plus two molars on the bottom, plus 4.5 teeth and two molars on the top = a total of 12.5 teeth. I can never decide what color his eyes are, not really blue, not brown, and not the traditional hazel. Kind of a rich grey. I love them.
There are so many fun things to remember about this age and sometimes it's frustrating because I know I'll never be able to record all of them. You can only say "he's learning so many words" over so many blog posts before you realize that the phrase is pretty meaningless. Because knowing so many words at 2 is so different than knowing so many words at 2.25 and it's hard to adequately measure the level of vocabulary - but it's such a huge part of our life, the increased level of communication. Like a door that's just starting to swing open and soon it will be wide open, but the first glimpse at that future is so exciting. Exciting, but hard to measure. *sigh* I guess what I'm trying to say is that I love this age and I want to remember everything, but the few things that I've jotted down in my planner and the few things I remember will have to suffice.
--Fall was super fun with this boy. He liked all the fun fall activities that we did and was old enough to really be involved.
--He's transitioned from liking to take "selfie" pictures of himself, to only being willing to take pictures with us with the rear-facing camera so he can see himself. If try to take a picture of him, he points at the camera and says "I see it! I see it!" until you flip the view around so that he can see himself while taking the picture. This is why the majority of photos that I have of him are of him not looking at the camera, or of a selfie picture with him.
--Austin loves fixing things. Whenever a toy runs out of batteries, he goes to the drawer where we keep the screwdrivers and pulls one out, then comes over to the toy to "fix it" and replace the batteries. He's started pulling out the screwdriver, crawling under the coffee table and using the screwdriver to "fix" the screws underneath (crawling out afterward and declaring "I fix it!"). He loves tape measurers (we're getting him one for Christmas and I'm so excited - I just know he's going to love it).
--He likes to turn Pip, our robotic vacuum on. He knows that all the toys have to be picked up before we can let Pip go, and he's easily my best cleaning helper when he's motivated by turning on the vaccuum. He puts all the balls away where they are supposed to go, the cars in their own bin, and pretty much everything else in their assigned spots.
--He's also super silly and makes me laugh.
--When he's going down for a nap, or when we've put him in his crib at bedtime, he asks us to lay with him. ("lay with me") We lay on the floor by his crib and hold his hand by putting an arm through the slats and resting it by him. (I saw we, because both David and I take turns doing this.) It's so sweet that it's hard not to do it every time he asks.
--Sometimes he still feels like my baby, mostly when he's sleeping. (Sleeping in the car = so sweet). Sometimes I even slip and still call him "baby", like "are you ready to go, baby?" but Lydia always corrects me and reminds me that Austin isn't a baby anymore and that we have a new baby now. (At least, we'll have a new baby soon, but we definitely talk about our new baby in the present tense.) Austin asks to "see the baby" all the time (wanting me to pull my shirt up so he can see my belly), and frequently will point to his own tummy and say "my baby - in here!"
--One of the things that he says that I love so much is that he'll give a direction or say something, and then at the end he clarifies with what he's talking about. I'm having a hard time coming up with a really good example, but he'll say, "Right here. Cup.", meaning - please put my cup right here. Or maybe even "I push this? Button.", meaning, can I push this button? But it's definitely not "I push this button? It's the question "I push this?" followed by what he's talking about, button. It's just a cute thing that I'm sure is a developmental milestone in learning how to structure a sentence - but I really love it.
--He loves Lydia. Like adores her. Only occasionally does he purposefully try to bug her. Most of the time he focuses on playing with her, sharing with her, and trying to be just like her.
--The pacifier. It's turning into a thing. We've been doing pretty good about just letting him have it at naps and bedtime. Except also when he's really sad because he fell down and bumped his head, or when we're driving in the car and he's sad, or when we're at church and he's crying/throwing a fit, or when he goes and gets it from his bed with his pillow and blanket and says "I lay down" on the couch. (And then keeps it in after he's done laying on the couch in 2.7 seconds.) *sigh* He knows how to work the system. (Plus, he really does call it "my pass-eh-fi-ya and it's darling.) But it's becoming a problem due to the fits he throws when we won't let him have it. I keep saying that it's time to take it away - but then he'll wake up at night crying unconsolably and I'll have to do is wait until he's calm enough to stick the pacifier back in his mouth and he lays down and falls asleep instantly and my resolve disappears. The end.
--I don't have a good picture of this, but he still loves babies. I do a lot of babysitting, and his favorite thing is to sit by the baby and love on them. (Which sometimes looks more like forcing them to take a pacifier when they don't want one, but also looks like sitting and holding their hand or trying to give them a bottle.)
--Lydia's been taking a gymnastics class on Monday mornings, and sometimes we go and run errands during that time, just Austin and I. But when we do stay, he is a trooper to hang out in the little viewing area. We double-love it when David comes to watch with us.
--He's doing SO much better with nursery. It's amazing the difference that him just going happily to nursery makes to our church lives. Also, he cleans up pretty nice. Handsome boy.
--He likes to color, and paint, and do all sorts of creative things. More than Lydia did, I think.
--He loves to play "tacos". He says "I wanna do tacos." Which means "I want my dad to roll me up in a blanket like a taco and then spin me out onto the floor, over and over again."
--He likes lotion, and hand sanitizer, and gel, and makeup, and chapstick. He likes to put it in his hair/on his body. Lotion and gel go into his hair- and he's pretty good about knowing where the other things go (chapstick for lips, eyeshadow for eyes, etc...)
--Annnnndddd, deodorant. Every day, David put on his deodorant and every day, Austin takes "his" deodorant and puts it on, too. (Really, David has an older/extra deodorant that Austin has claimed as his own.) Usually it goes on his tummy (because his shirt is usually still on), but he's getting good at putting it under his arms. (I realize I probably don't need 5 photos of this - but come on. It's kind of darling.)
--He's sleeping in a crib, and really - he's a great sleeper. He goes down for bed right at seven (sometimes staying up a little later, but almost always super quiet in his bed until he falls asleep). He takes a nap most days around 1:30 (although, starting to be a little more hit and miss on whether he really sleeps or not). However, this is the problem: he also usually has a bowel movement around 1:30 - and he does not like to go poop in his diaper when he's in his crib. His solution? Take off his jammies and his diaper and poop directly into his bed smearing it all around his crib (I spared you the only picture that I've taken of this - after the first time it happened I stopped photographing it). This is not malicious. It's just a hard stage of life that we're in because none of us are ready for him to be out of a crib. It's hard, because he really does need the nap, and if I pop my head in a thousand times to make sure that he's still got his pajamas on - he'll never fall asleep. Enter....
--Video Baby Monitor! We've talked about getting a video baby monitor for a while, especially when baby #3 comes along. The fact that Austin takes off his jammies just expedited our purchase. Now I can keep track of when he's quiet but not actually sleeping and when he needs to sit on the potty before he can fall asleep.
--(Austin's still showing interest in the toilet, he sits on it frequently and goes both pee and poop - but I haven't done any semblance of potty training. I just let him sit when he asks to, and almost always he'll either pee or poop while sitting. He's probably more ready for it than I am.)
--(Austin's still showing interest in the toilet, he sits on it frequently and goes both pee and poop - but I haven't done any semblance of potty training. I just let him sit when he asks to, and almost always he'll either pee or poop while sitting. He's probably more ready for it than I am.)
--He pretty much lives in his footie-jammies. He just loves them and I rarely fight the battle to get him out of them. Not that he stays in one pair the whole day, he regularly rotates through at least three pairs of them. He takes off his old ones, brings me a new pair and says "New footie-jammies?" They keep him warm, and he's really darling in them, and I'd like to be in my pajamas all day, too - so unless we're going out somewhere (and even sometimes then I just let him wear his jammies) we just stay comfy and cozy all day.
--Also, he gets pretty much whatever he wants. He wakes up pretty early in the morning, which means that often he gets to see David before he goes to work. One morning I was packing cheetos for David's lunch and Austin desperately wanted them, so after David left - we ended up back in bed cuddling with a bag of cheetos. I try to resist and keep him healthy (and not spoiled) but he's just got me wrapped around his finger.
--He gets really sad sometimes. It's very dramatic.
--He sleeps in his carseat (and in his bed) with his arms above his head and I love it.
--He loves the garbage truck. We watch for it out the window all day long on Garbage day. The weeks when it's a recycling day as well are the best because the garbage truck comes twice on our side of the road and twice on the other side.
--He's inquisitive, likes playing in the water, and apparently can climb onto the counter and into the sink in the kitchen if he really wants to. (He usually plays with water in the bathroom sink, or he fills up his cup with water from the fridge, but when he gets something into his head that he wants to do - he makes it happen.)
--I wish I was better at explaining this, but Austin's started doing the funniest thing. He'll lay down on his tummy and push himself around on the ground. Sometimes he pulls himself forward, sometimes he pushes himself backward. He'll make circles around the island or scoot by the table. It is so funny. he keeps his tummy to the ground and his legs extended behind him doing all of the moving with just his arms. We laugh every time.
--Things that he says that I love:
-I help!
-I do it, me-self.
-"both" (he says this all the time, most of the time meaning that he wants both of what I'm letting him choose from - but sometimes it also means that he wants food in both of his hands)
-"You took my boogies!" (said in an accusatory voice and accompanied with a very sad cry after wiping his nose)
-"I pay a game?" (while holding my cell phone, meaning he wants to watch PBS kids)
-"I be quiet? Shhh..." (whispered to me with his finger to his mouth after asking to go upstairs while a baby that I'm babysitting is sleeping. If only he really knew how to be quiet!)
-"Just one?" (holding up one finger, in a whispered voice like he's asking a secret question - usually in response to me telling him that he can't have some sort of treat.)
--First thing in the morning he says "Food. Food! Ogurt. Cheeos. I want food!"
--"So funny." (he knows when things are funny and tells us about it.)
Most of these things are just short clips of his conversation. He says 6-word sentences and is pretty good as being able to explain what he wants. If I don't understand the word that he's saying, sometimes he get frustrated, but he just says it over and over again and will grab my hand and take me to show me until I understand.
This picture below seems to be the perfect picture to capture this little boy at this age. In his new footie-jammies - grinning. I just love him.
We all love you Austin. You're such a special part of our family!
