I haven't posted about Max's 2nd birthday yet because I wanted to be able to post pictures, tell about both parties and generally describe where he's at developmentally now as well as reflect on some of the things I love about him at this age. Well, life is busy and if I wait to get the perfect post up, he may be 3 by the time I do, so here's my best shot.
Overall, I was much more ready to get to Max's second birthday than his first. I recall feeling sentimental and sad before his first birthday because of how very much he had changed in that one year. He's changed a lot in the last year but it just didn't hit me as hard as the first birthday. From birth to age one he went from immobile to toddling slowly. From one to two he went from toddling to EXTREMELY mobile!!! I have never been as active in my life as I have been over the last year. This child NEVER STOPS. He even lost a pound or two since his 18 month check up.
One wonderful advance is that he no longer eats every speck of dirt, food, or all manner of disgusting items off the ground (okay, to be honest, he does still try to eat food off the floor if I don't intervene!) He put everything in his path in his mouth until he was more than a year old. Parents who have never had children who do that (I didn't know there was such a breed of child who DOESN'T do that until recently) should thank their lucky stars.
As I sit here envisioning what the last year was like for me, the image of Venus or Serena Williams comes to mind. The way they zip hither and yon on the court with outstretched arms to chase that little yellow ball around and not let it go out of bounds is exactly what my days look like! "Oh! He's over there - no wait - now he's over THERE! WOOOOAAAAAHHHHH he's almost out of bounds!" It's exhausting.
He is my little Monkey Boy. He can climb anything. Last year when I'd take him to the local playground, I was nervously hovering to make sure he didn't kill himself falling off the equipment. I'd see other kids climbing the chain ladder and arch-like thing to get up to the highest level and think that maybe when he was four or five he's be able to do that. He's been doing that for a couple months now! I still hover and he pushes my hands away and says, "Bots!" That's his version of "Max".
Verbally he is adding new words almost every day and starting to combine them into two word phrases. He has no problem making his desires known! He still uses some of his baby sign language rather than the words those signs represent (i.e. milk, thank you, sorry, listen, plane). He constantly surprises me with his receptive language. He'll be playing and apparently not paying any attention to the conversation of the adults in the room and then someone will say something that interests him and he's immediately injecting himself into the conversation.
He has a good memory for places and events. For example, when we're heading in the direction of Aunt Katie's house he squeals and gets excited when we get to her neighborhood and will cry if we happen to go there and not go to her house. If we head in the direction of Old Town Manassas, he automatically starts talking about the trains before we even see the tracks or gates.
At the age of 16 months he finally started sleeping through the night. He is such a good sleeper now, it's hard to believe I went 16 months without a full-night's sleep! He self-weaned at about 18 months. I tried weaning him around 15 or 16 months but he wasn't ready, but a few months later it just happened. As far as potty-training goes, my nature is to let him get to the stage when he's ready when he's maybe 2.5 or 3, but with the addition of his little brother or sister next winter I don't think I can handle potty-training AND being sleep deprived. So I'm going to be attempting that sometime in September. I have all the supplies, I just need to have a few focused days of working on it with him. He already uses the potty once or twice a day, so he has some concept of it. I would like to get him in a big boy bed before bro/sis arrives too, but one transition at a time is what I'm focusing on.
I'll save the party info for another post. For now this is "Bots". Every day is a new adventure!
