OMG! It's been nearly two weeks since I posted. Whoops. Where did I leave off? Oh, the remaining "twoisms" that I should document at this milestone age.
Stats:
Height: somewhere between 36.5 and 38 inches (Jason's wall measurement and the pediatrician's, respectively - roughly 99th percentile)
Weight: 32.2 pounds (95th percentile)
Shoe size: 7.5
Clothes size: 2T across the board but 3T in pajamas
Teeth: All in but his two year molars
Diapers: still a 5, 6 for overnights
Favorite things: Trains and anything even remotely related to construction vehicles. Dump trucks, bulldozers, cherry pickers, backhoes, excavators, and cement rollers all live in our house. In their toy form, of course.
I guess it's appropriate to begin with his favorite phrase: "TOO too!" Usually while holding something up, this is Ashton's most commonly used
sentence. No one has any idea what it means but he says it ALL the time. He is not saying "choo-choo" because he can
make the "ch" sound and we just know it doesn't mean train. Up until now I've treated
it as a catch-all for "look at this!" but now that he is TWO I'm
pretending he's announcing his age :)
He is showing improvement every week with his speech. He probably says about 20-25 words (still a low count for his age) and he maxes out at three in a row. Most popular right now: "One more....CRACKER!" He says this regardless of whether there are actually crackers around. He has also started to repeat the last sound he hears in a sentence. So if I tell him, "Just a minute please" he'll immediately echo "Pees". On Block Island a couple weeks ago, I said, "No, that's Daddy's beer" and he followed with "bee-er." I do recognize new sounds almost daily but pronunciation is still not great and there is a lot of frustration when he can't communicate what he wants. So we are still in Early Intervention every Wednesday but we are starting to get some cute "little kid moments" that show just how differently they actually see the world. For example, yesterday at the park (where there were previously lots of bees), there were almost none except for a few dead ones (you know, the giant fuzzy kind). We were over in that area and Ashton started pointing excitedly at the ground, "Bee! Bee, help! Help, bee, help!" and it took me a second and then I realized, "Ashton, are you saying the bee needs help because he isn't moving? Does he need to fly?" and he looked right at me and solemnly nodded. Well I had no idea how to handle that one. Add to the list, "Read up on how to tell your children about death." So I told him the bee was sleeping and that it would want us to go on the swings until it woke up. :-/ Another example was when we were at the beach and we were standing at the water's edge with our toes in. I said, "Wow Ashton, do you see the waves?" He looked up at me and then back at the ocean and then reached his little arm out and
started waving. I nearly died laughing, I mean of course he doesn't know that one word can mean two things yet. But it was an unexpected response haha. He has also started to sing - he will repeat exactly if I sing "La la la la" and also has freestyled a couple times although no discernible words or melodies, just as he plays by himself. Like a background soundtrack.
It's also time for "school": Ashton's first day at daycare is today. With Jason's full schedule and me going back to work on Fridays for the year, we needed a set schedule. So, Chera will have him three days and he will go to "school" (which is a home daycare nearby) the other two. I think he is ready to learn some additional independence and how to handle himself in larger groups of children. I found a place I love and actually can't wait to see how he does with the experience. A year from now he will be trotting off to preschool so I am doing my part to get prepared haha. This is not to say I wasn't immensely grateful that Jason did the drop off this morning. I don't think I could have done it and am anxious to see how he is when I pick him up.
We are nowhere near potty training or transitioning from his crib. We are also nowhere near allergy therapy, so for now still avoid eggs, sesame, peanuts and tree nuts.
Also at this stage I'd like to report that the terrible two's are a myth. Alas, they are not. But Ashton's actually pretty good and the only real tantrums I get are when I won't give him a cracker. (I don't know if it's that he truly LOVES crackers, or if it's one of his few real words that gets a response and that's why he uses it all the time, but if I say no, boy, look out. I taped a solid 60 second movie of him crying and stomping at the cabinet where they are kept after I said "We aren't going to have any crackers right now". When I stopped recording he ran over to me, cried "No! No! Nooooo!" and
pushed me! I would have given anything to get that on video. I tried not to laugh :-/ ) He is also super particular about food being whole. If I break off a piece of bagel rather than give him the whole half, or give him a
piece of a cookie instead of the entire thing, it doesn't end well.
Other than that, we still spend most of our free time playing, walking around the block, and generally being outside. Both knees are still in various stages of scabs and when I put him in the tub, I don't know where the dirt ends and the bruises begin, but he's a happy little boy :)
