mr z says "i two yees ode!"

July 16, 2015

mr z says "i two yees ode!"

with hank! keeping the hank tradition going.

my baby boy is 2 years old! i cannot believe it. i look at him and he is such a big boy, but other times he is still my little baby. this past year went by fast, even though the days went by slow. two years old! ahhhhh! i am in the middle of planning a birthday gathering for him. his first birthday party was really for me, haha, but this one i want to be fun for him and his cousins and little friends. so i am planning some fun toddler activity stations and stuff (when i first started this post, it was before his party, but as of now it already happened!). anyway, this boy. i feel like i connected with him so well while he was in utero, i could sense his personality already, and as i watched him grow, 3 months, 9 months, a year and a half, i could see the manifestation of his character and personality, and was very confirmed in my observations of what kind of a kid he is. he was so active in the womb, and somewhat defiant? or headstrong, maybe that is the right word. just by his movements, i could tell. and throughout the first year, he acted with seriousness most of the time, was grumpy other times, surprised me with smiles and belly laughs, but he has always been very sure about what he wants, what he is going to do, who he is and how this is all going to pan out. i remember thinking at every difficult stage, that once ______ happens then things will be easier, once he can sit up, once he can move around, once he can talk. and i kept looking forward to those milestones so that i could feel a little more relaxed, and not have to work so hard at this parenting biz. i still do that sometimes, but i read something that warned parents against that and just enjoy the moment, the time that the child is in now, because it is fleeting. and it's true. but here we are at the two year mark. and it's challenging. i don't like to call it "terrible twos" because that sounds inaccurate but also kind of mean, but this age definitely has its rough spots. probably from around 18 months, z started to promote his opinion more strongly in different ways. he has been learning to explore his independence and he realizes that he has a will that he can (try to) assert. all of these things are normal and i had a really hard time dealing with it, and still do sometimes. while i was still in school, i didn't have time to read up on development and milestones in this age range or how to parent children at this age, so most of the time i was (am) impatient and at a loss of what to do because i just didn't have any tools. after school ended, i read a bunch of info about this stage of development and some ways to work with it, but just knowing that the tantrums he has and the perceived lack of following directions is normal now made me feel better. what makes it all the more difficult is that z is so very active. toys hold his attention for minutes, as well as activities such as coloring, playing with play-do, etc. he likes to move. he wants to be outside. his favorite things are objects that me and hubs use; hair dryer, tools, lawn mower, hose, paint brush, real life things that are real life size and no plastic, brightly colored, miniature sized substitute will do! so we're mostly outside when the weather is decent (and sometimes even when it's not) and try to keep busy with activities. so as he's learning, we're learning, too. along with the challenges, though, are some pretty amazing moments as well. he has a pretty good vocabulary and if he can't find words for what he wants to say, most of the time, he will choose something close enough. for example, one night when we were eating dinner, tacos, hubs took a bite of his taco and some of the filling fell out the bottom into his plate. z saw this and said, "uh oh, baba! your......(thinking for the right words to use)......dinner fell out!" he couldn't think of what to say so he just used the word dinner. haha. he catches on to what we say so quickly and uses new words all the time, as well as stringing together more words to make new sentences. a couple days ago he was playing with his little tool set, sticking the "nails" and "screws" into a piece of wood with holes in it. he was doing a really good job of focusing on this task for quite awhile. then, he stands up, and walks over to me all excited, showed me that he put all the screws and nails into the holes and said, "mama! look what i did! i did it!" it was so freaking adorable. the other day, i asked him if he wanted to share some cheese and crackers with me and he looked up and said "yeaaaaa!" then he pumps his arms up in the air and said "hooooooraaaay!" all the time, he comes up with these new words. i love love love hearing him talk and try to explain something to me, it's the best. he has also become pretty cuddly these days. he loves getting and giving hugs and kisses to/from us. the other day when i was cooking dinner, he came over to me and said "mmmmmaaaahhhh! give me some kisses!" and then kissed me on the cheek, and then gave me a big hug. some of the things he says now that crack me up:

-mama's try = mama try it
-goo-gyver = screwdriver
-ha sum = can i have some
-gake-oooo = thank you
-feeta-pato = sweet potato
-ah bonka knee = i bonked my knee
there are more, but i never remember them when i finally get a chance to sit down and think about it.

last july, right after he turned one, and was just getting the hang of walking

visiting his grama and papa in california last summer

a few things that happened recently that are hilarious:

-z got a little backpack with a handle and wheels from a friend and he just loves it. he wheels it around all over the house, wants to take it with him places, he thinks it's great, anyway he puts the handle over his arm, up on his shoulder and then says, "i go to gool!" (gool=school)
-the other night we took z out to get some frozen yogurt, when we were leaving the house he really wanted to to bring his backpack with him, so we loaded it up in the car to take it with us. we went out, ate our fro-yo, he did not want to leave and kept asking for more. we finally got him into the car and went home. once we got home, we got him out of the car, he grabbed his backpack and then started booking it down the street away from our house. chasing after him, we asked what he was doing. he kept running and shouted back to us "i' go get more ice keeeeem!" it was perfect.
-he found one of his baby toys and really wanted to give it to baby sister, so he kept putting it on my belly and saying "here go baby sister"
-he really likes to play in our cars while they are parked in the driveway. the other day, he was in baba's car just playing around, i had the passenger door open for him, and i sat down on the step a few feet away, i was looking at my phone (probably searching for lighting or a tv stand since that is my obsession these days) and i heard him banging around in the car, then i vaguely heard him calling my name and when i looked up, he had closed the car door and was saying "mama! mama! open the door!" i don't know why, but it just cracked me up.

last august, visiting deception pass

the end of last summer, visiting the zoo with friends

let's see, what else, he is becoming a little bit of a pickier eater than before, if he doesn't want to eat what we cooked, then he will throw it on the floor or try to feed it to baba. his favorite foods these days are a variety of fruits, nuts, raisins, broccoli, fish, french fries, any kind of noodle or pasta, and his favorite thing of all is rice, especially tadiq (crunchy rice). of course, he loves sweets, too, like ice cream and cake and cookies, and he likes chips and pretzels, and we don't deprive him of those things, but he gets them in moderation and for special treats, not all the time. i have always wanted to approach the food thing in a balanced way, because i feel that by completely banning those kinds of treats, it may backfire later, and i have read some articles along the same lines. anyway, he is still a pretty good eater.

october, he really wanted to dress up as nacho libre for halloween!

thanksgiving in california, playing at the park before dinner

christmas day

brushing his teeth like a big boy!

making dough with minoo

some time in late winter, playing at the park in the cold, because this boy has just got to go outside!

we haven't potty trained him yet, my goal was to get started the first week i was free from school, because he had shown that he was really interested, and he had gone pee in his potty chair a couple times before i was done with school, so i thought we would start and it would be the right timing. but then all of a sudden he was not interested. so we keep asking and encouraging, but he keeps saying no. so i guess he's not ready now.

enjoying his favorite gift from us for Ayyam-i-Ha; cake!

learning how to swing on the big kid swings

easter brunch with friends

early spring, riding his "motorcycle"

springtime in the park, of course

we taught him how to say that he's 2 years old, so he tries to hold up just his two fingers and says "i two yees ode!" he's learning so much and all the time he surprises us.

his sleep is pretty good these days, he takes one nap a day, usually between 1.5-2.5 hours, lately he has been going to bed at night later than i like, but i think that's because there has been so much going on as far as visitors and special occasions and stuff goes, but he goes to sleep fairly easy at night. except that i still have to be in the room with him until he does. that's the next thing i want to change, get him to be able to fall asleep on his own without one of us in his room. so we'll see how that goes.

announcing that someone is going to be a big brother

heyyyyyyy

helping baba water the plants, late spring

it'll be interesting to see how this next year goes, what kind of a big brother he will be, and all the new things that z will discover and figure out. i'm excited, but also a little terrified---about the changes that z will undergo, that we as a family will go through and try to figure out, how the addition of our sweet little one will force us to grow in many ways. i have been trying to prepare z for all of this, but how much can you do with such a little guy? i hope that he will be able to roll through all of it with no troubles, and i hope that we can show him enough love and attention, as much as he needs to know that he is still our favorite little boy.

ok sorry, now here's a bunch more pictures that i'm going to flood the rest of this post with: