I know I've mentioned here and there what has been up with our little blog star lately, but I wanted to do an official post on his milestones and all that so I have it to look back on some day. Without further ado, an "Ashton State of the Union":
Speech: Coming along every day. We met with our new speech therapist this week and I can tell she is going to be fantastic. She has two young boys and I absolutely think is going to connect really well with our family. Allison mentioned that she is quite happy with Ashton's noun vocabulary and we are now going to focus on verbs. For instance, if he points and says, "Ball!" or "Bird!" we are going to say, "Yes! Balls BOUNCE" or "Birds FLY". This will help his sentences to grow. Right now his longest one to date is "One more cracker please" but usually they are "Mommy up!", "Ashton do it", "Come sit", "Oven hot!", and the ever-popular: "No." Pretty basic sentences but he is good at getting his point across one way or the other. His new thing is saying "Ja" for "Yes" (I guess he IS part German) so I am working on correcting that. Also, counting. Earlier this week he counted: "Onnnne, twoooo...six, seven, eight....six!" and then clapped. I kissed him and told him that was exactly right :) He knows all of his animals, lots of foods and almost every day surprises me with another word. We were reading "Biscuit Gives a Gift" last night and the last page is a christmassy scene by the fireplace. I pointed to the fireplace and said, "This is a..." and he said "Fire! Hot! and then above that on the mantle I said, "What are these?" expecting to answer the question for him but before I could, he said "Stockings!" It always surprises me even though we read the same books over and over, I point out the same things in the pictures and say the same words every time, I guess it shouldn't. But it's always such a treat when my "teaching" pays off and he learns to say things on his own.
Size: At the ENT a couple weeks ago, he weighed 35 pounds and was 3 feet, 2 inches tall. He is now in a size 4T for pajamas! In shirts and pants he is either 2T or 3T (usually 3T) but depends on the brand. He's just super tall for his age. Helps with his basketball. Shoes are an 8.5W.
Food: His next food allergy appointment will be when he is roughly 2.6. Referring to my explanation above you should conclude that this is age "two and a half". He is mostly a good eater, dinnertime can be a little dicey though. I let him choose what he wants and he helps to "cook" it, but often times when I get him in his highchair he has changed his mind completely and refuses what he originally picked. "No!" is heard very frequently during this time. Anyway, what I am always hopeful he will eat is veggies and some protein. What he ends up eating most nights is Kix. Can't win'em all. Fridays nights are pizza and that is usually successful.
Potty training: HAHAHA. No.
Other age-appropriate (more like inappropriate) things: This is tough to admit... butashtonstillgetsan8ozbottleofmilkbeforebed. AHHHH I know, I know. It's just part of our routine after tubby and he drinks it while I am doing his lotions and pajamas before storytime. My goal is to get rid of it on January 1. He also has a very intense relationship with his pacifiers. We are mostly successful in limiting them to when he's in his crib, but if you were to look in there you'd see about six. At bedtime he reaches through the slats and tries them all out before picking the one he wants to go to bed with (they are all EXACTLY the same, by the way) but it's like his Goldilocks routine. The thought of getting rid of those pacis is downright terrifying. I have no idea how we are going to do so and therefore I'm ignoring it.
Toys and entertainment: What does Ashton do for fun? Usually things that I don't want him to do. He loves to climb up on the coffee table and launch himself onto the couch into the pillows. These are called "the slams". He'll do this repeatedly and after each one will laugh, say "One more slam!" and start all over. The slams only happen with close supervision. Playing with his trains is much easier to manage, which he also enjoys. Lastly, he adores "cooking". Both Chera and his daycare have play kitchens and Santa is planning to bring one so he can have his own.
Sleeping: He's usually up between 7:30 and 8 am, goes down for one afternoon nap, usually 1:30-3:30/4 pm and bedtime is at 8 pm.
Are the two's really terrible? No, of course not. They are terrible. One of the things I'm working on is getting Ashton to listen to me. I know he understands but he's an attention seeker and when the tantrums hit, look out. He starts screaming for fruit snacks. He wants the top for his untoasted english muffin. He wants a time out. He doesn't want a time out. He is desperate for his paci. He dumps his toy bucket. He throws himself on the floor. It's not pretty in so, so many ways. I find especially after his daycare days, we come home and he will just sit in the middle of the kitchen and cry. So I hug him and tell him it is so hard to be two and it's okay. I turn on Mickey Mouse and that usually helps to cheer him up - Mickey is his favorite. Which brings me to...
Screentime: Now that Ashton is of TV-watching age, he usually gets one episode (maybe two) of Mickey every day. He also knows how to use the iPad and my iPhone, which is quite scary. But apps are limited usually to weekend mornings when we take him out of his crib and bring him into bed with us so we can keep our eyes shut a little longer.
That about covers it for now. I could write a lot of little one-off stories but I was mainly interested in documenting the highlights (if you can call them that haha). If Ashton were a weather forecast, I guess he'd be "mostly sunny with an outside chance of hail, high winds and short, violent thunderstorms in the early evening".
Which means that overall, it's a pleasant day :)
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