RL's 2nd Birthday

A week ago today RL officially entered his "twos"...and though they have a reputation for being terrible, I am hoping that with him it'll be terrific. He is definitely showing us that he has ideas of his own, and sometimes that means a fit of frustation with one of his sisters or some other such outburst, but overall he is seeming to be a pretty easygoing little boy. Here are a just a few things about him at 2 that I can remember to record...just a snapshot of a description of him followed by alot of photos!

He talks alot, but is a master of abbreviation. He can whittle a 5 syllable word down to the one syllable that impresses him, and that is all he needs. He has no use for sentences so far, with the one exception being that he loves to sing "Clean up! Clean up!" when asked to do just that (thanks to the nursery ladies at church!). The only other two word combo he uses regularly is "Big truck! Big truck!" which he also sings exactly like he's heard in one of the songs in AG and LL's early music book. And speaking of singing...he loves it, and he can carry a tune pretty well. When he plays with the toy piano he says, "Do! Do!" (as in solfege). Guess he's paying attention to some of the music practices going on around here!

He is still totally hooked on "Ralph" his stinky puppy dog-headed blanket whose brown ear he essentially mauls from the time he is put into is bed until he gets out. We have three of them so they can be washed and he's never without one at naptime or bedtime. I know it's gross, but sometimes the Ralph of the moment smells so bad when I go in to get RL from a nap that I mistake it for a dirty diaper. And I know it's crazy, but I love his wake up snuggles so much that I have almost grown fond of RL's super stinky wake-up face!

He still loves "tains" though his awesome little "wooowooo!" is getting less frequent (sadly:). He had a train cake for his party, as you'll see below.

Often when he sees a man in a book he'll say "DaDa." He also consistently calls the girls' Ken doll "DaDa" in spite of the fact that this Ken wears a fedora and skinny jeans.

He gets so excited when he sees football on TV and starts yelling, "fut! fut!" (Like I said, one syllable. Other balls are "ball", but a football has its own special name).

Most weeks he stays in 3 different nurseries (church, CC and co-op). One of the sweetest things for me is that when I pick him up, he always runs to me and yells, "MA-ma!" with lots of emphasis on the first "ma". Be still my heart.

These first few photos were taken within the few weeks before his birthday.






At his (and LL's) party!









On his birthday, at home...