Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six Months

December 09, 2013

Seth,

My, how time flies. It’s already been two months, and a busy two months at that. Right after our big trip to Colorado for you birthday, we moved into a new house. You and Molly both love having a backyard in which to run around. It seems that Molly has accepted you as a member of the household now that you can throw the ball for her in the backyard. It’d be nice if that’s all most people needed. It’s quite humorous to hear you exactly mimic the intonation we use to tell Molly to stop barking and come back into the house. “Mooollly!”.

Daddy’s engineering mind is shining through this month, as all our questions are answered quite literally. “Where are you?” “Right here!” “What are you eating?” “This!” “Where are Nana and Papa?” “Right here!” (pointing at Skype on the iPad). It’s always enough to bring a smile to our face and a “parent’s look” at each other. It’s probably the same look we’ll be giving each other when you come in at 15 and declare that you’ve decided to get a tattoo.

As your vocabulary and grammar jumped by leaps and bounds, these months brought so many fun sayings:

“Dump it all out!” as you dumped an entire container of toy dishes on the kitchen floor. This quickly led to a tea party with your stuffed animals and lots of water. It’s ok. The tile can take it, but we won’t get to watch you do this for very long at all.
“Frog’s hungry” as you pretended to feed your frog, followed closely by an “I love frog!”
When asked about your food, “it’s yummy!” or “it’s tasty!”
“Can I have a Mickey Mouse band-aid?”, walking into the doctor’s office to get his flu shot.
“I’m making squiggle lines on my leg!” – Better there than the wall, we say.
“Seth watch violence!” During a commercial on the football game after Mommy said, “You don’t need to watch the violence”
All statements are prefaced with “I need” – “I need lollipop!” “I need a treat!”
“Can I listen?” any time Daddy has his headphones on while on the laptop.
“Daddy play catch with you?” while holding his little football.
“Monkeys sit in trees.”
“I digging for dinosaur bones” with a stick in the snow at Sequoia National Park – methinks we’ve been reading Curious George to you a lot.

Seth: “Can I have a lollipop?”
Mommy: “We don’t have any lollipops.”
Seth: “Go to store and buy some?”
Mommy: “How will you pay for them?”
Seth, after a moments consideration: “Mommy, can I have some money?”.
Apparently we need to move from Goodnight Moon to Baby’s First Market Economics

Two other big changes recently, you moved to a big boy bed and started potty training. The first change was brought on by a nice fall out of the crib. The second by a desire on your part to use the potty. There’s a certain amount of freedom for you parents when we don’t have to change your diapers all the time. Ask a potty-training parent about freedom the third time they’ve walked back into Albertsons from the parking lot. On the other hand, OSHA has raised the exclusion zone around the trash can, so there’s that. For some reason, you’ve fixed it in your mind that you’re not allowed to get out of bed once we tuck you in. You have to wait to “wake up when the sun comes up!”. That’s a little harder on Mommy and Daddy when the sunrise moves earlier with the time change in the fall, but all challenges are more than balance by the opportunity to kneel down next to your bed, tuck you in, and kiss your forehead at bedtime.

Daddy went on his first business trip in a while, and you’re just old enough to really recognize that I’m gone, that I’m not just at work and coming home in the evening. Skype makes it easier, though, since you’re getting used to seeing and talking to the grandparents that way. Of course, all the heartstrings get tugged when you pull out a “Daddy come home now?” on the first night of a 3-4 day trip.

You love to play hide and go seek. You’ve pretty much got the “seek” part down, as you go through all the places we’ve previously hidden: “here? No. Here? No. Here? No.” Haven’t quite figured out that hide means you’re not supposed to squeal with laughter and come running as soon as we start to look for you. You almost close your eyes for hide-and-go seek and prayer, but not quite. It’s a tight squint, as if you have to make sure you don’t miss anything.

We had a wonderful trip up to Northern California for Great-Opa’s birthday. It’s such a blessing to be able to get together with the whole family, all the great-grandkids together for the first time.

It’s such a blessing to watch you connect concepts, people, places, and things, both in the real world and in the books we read to you. It’s harder and harder to even keep track of all the ways you’re growing up. It’s only the second go-around for things like your birthday, Christmas, and Thanksgiving. This time through, you’re just old enough to realize that something special is happening, and to join in the celebration. These times are that much more precious as your little mind shines through.

The milestones might get bigger in the future, but we’re always going to love you just as much, and be just as proud of you if it’s graduating high school or just figuring out how to fold your hands for prayer with all your fingers in the right place. Each and every day with you is a re-discovery of the small pleasures in life through your eyes.