12:12 12/12/12

Pretty special day, 12:12pm on 12/12/12. It will only happen once a century, and this century you spent that special moment in your first day of Preschool!

Miss Aubrie (SLP) was going to have you wait to the new year to come, but she decided that making a friend or two before the new year would be great. Funny thing about your first day of Preschool, you were the only child that wasn't scared to leave momma and daddy to go to class.

Your played with sand, read a book, played some games, made a very glittery craft in which you are super proud of and insisted goes on our fridge, and you even got to snack on some popcorn and hot cocoa! Needless to say, you didn't want to leave.

All the teachers were very impressed how much you would repeat, they say it is a good sign that you are interested in speaking. They were amazed all the animals you knew, and the sounds that go with each and every animal! But  they couldn't stop laughing when they asked everyone to clean up, without being directed you immediately began singing "clean up, clean up, everybody do your share" while picking up the chairs and stacking them. You made momma proud, even if i don't understand why you think the chairs were making the room messy!

The homework Miss Aubrie gave us to work on during the break was "Yes" and "No" questions. When I ask you questions like "is Gage a boy?" you like to respond "boy!" in stead of "yes!" Don't worry we will get there, you are catching on so quickly these days!

Lately...

Lately, your favorite animal in the world is an elephant. You follow me around on all fours make elephant noises, or high pitched squeals, and wiggling your tiny nose. You love Diego, he is the coolest animal rescuer on TV. You sleep til 10am everyday. You LOVE chicken and been known to pick up an entire chicken breast by hand and eat it. You think all belts and workout bands are snakes. You love to wrestle dad, and know better not to with mom. You are officially potty trained and only have 1-2 accidents a week, mostly at night followed by a big dinner with lots of drinks. You are constantly fake sneezing just so you can say "bless you." The cold weather has nothing on you, I often find a door wide open and you missing shoes playing outside. You have been known to play in the snow for hours, after the sun has gone down, playing "polar bears" while mom and dad watch you from the window where it's warm. You love to take small bites out of all the apples or eat half of a banana and leave the other half for mom to find. You love nursery and seem sad when we say you have to sit through sacrament first. You have the hardest head of anyone I know, and  you take basketballs nailing you, metal faucets Attacking you, and the ground finding a way to your head like a champ, with no tears. You still cry when i cry, and often need to be consoled after i turn on the scary vacuum. You need a toy to accompany you at the store, and you usually find a stuffed animal in the first 10 seconds, but you gladly put it back when we are ready to leave. You will share everything but your trains and your toy whales, you have made it very clear that Asher is not allowed. You like to sleep upside down in your bed, with your feet up on your headboard. You have the most sweet heart, and the wildest imagination. Two and a half is pretty great, for both you and me!

speech

If you can remember, at the beginning of summer most of your vocab consisted of animals, and the few commands you knew were only understood by momma or daddy. Dr. Schmidt wanted to check back at the end of summer, and if you were still not putting words together to make sentences he recommended we get a few things tested so we could get you caught up. When the end of summer came around, not enough progress was made, so the testing began.

You passed your Health exams with flying colors. Everyone seemed amazed that a kid so active and strong could have undergone a heart surgery. No surprise there!

Your Hearing exam was an interesting experience. I thought for sure you would be scared and unwilling to cooperate, but momma thought wrong. You sat on my lap in this little room cluttered with creepy animals and blinking lights. For what its worth, if I was two I would have been scared. Every so often little chirps went off in various corners of the room. You swung your head to and fro to figure out what animal could be making that noise. It was a a pretty fun game, so much so that you started jabbering all about the animals chirping and forgot to listen for the next one to make a noise that on one occasion I was asked to quiet you down. I love your enthusiasm, even if they didn't. After all was said and done you did amazing and have no hearing problems!

Later that week Jaque came to our house to do some tests. She worked on gross and fine motor skills. problem solving skills, social skills, responsive language, and expressive language. I bet you can guess on what you aced? You see, in order to qualify for Early Intervention, a program to help you get on track before you are three, you needed to test low enough in at least one area to be considered a severe delay. You aced all the motor skills and scored low enough in language to qualify for the program.

While you were being tested both mom and dad had a strange feeling of pride and fear. There was so much excitement for doing well on a section of the test and a also a fear that you may not qualify. Glad that it is all over, we couldn't be more excited that you get to work with Aubrie on your speech for the next couple of months.

and you thought halloween was over

Guess again. You think Ahser's costume is pretty awesome and have been rockin' it daily. You spend a good part of the day following me, crawling on all fours and roaring.

buzz it-ear

You rocked a Buzz Lightyear, or "buzz it-ear" as you would say it, for Halloween. We first tried out your costume at Grandma's school carnival. Your costume must have been a hit because you won all of the best toys, including two Buzz Lightyear action figures. Although you didn't quite understand that you were at a carnival, you sure did love wearing your costume. So much so, you wore it every day after until Halloween night. 

Since the dress rehearsal was such a hit, we headed to the cousin's for the real thing. You happily trick-or-treated and took handfuls of candy from every house, even the scary ones. The next morning when you found your bag of candy it could have possibly been the best day of your life.

You also carved your first pumpkin. And by "you carved" I mean "dad carved," and you proudly supervised and took all the credit.

Halloween was a total success!

potty training

 A month ago your parents did the unthinkable, we starting potty training you. I guess you could say it was because we got fed up buying diapers for both you and your brother, or changing a two year old is not a fun experience, whatever the case, it was one loooong day. 

First, you picked out a sweet "Cars 2" potty that came suped up with a gear shifter for your entertainment.

 Next, we loaded you up with all of your favorite drinks, determined to get you to pee every 15 minutes

Last we made sure your bud George kept you company while we waited for you to do your thing.

Fourteen accidents on day 1, two accidents on day 2, and no accidents on day 3! I am pretty impressed you got most of this potty training thing down. I say "most" becuase you have yet to poop successfully on the potty. Fortunately, bed wetting is not a thing we need to worry about, you have always been pretty good at holding it while you sleep. So thankful to be beyond diapers!

mt. timp

Dad wants to get mom fit post baby brother, and he thinks you are five years older than you actually are, so we spend a lot of time at skate parks, soccer fields, and around monkey bars. You can imagine how excited he was when Nana came to visit and suggested we go hiking. So hiking we went.

Strapped you to the back and Asher to the front and trudged along Mt. Timp for several hours. A funny thing happened on that hike, momma realized maybe dad need to get fit post baby brother, and you are still a two year old that gets tired and needs a daddy's should to sleep on.

happy zipper day

I cried today. Not my usual blubbering crying where the words I am saying don't make a lot of sense.  It was a lot like two years ago today. Two years ago when I brought you home from the hospital after your big surgery. Then, I was relieved to have you in my arms again, ready for you to thrive for the first time. Now, its because I don't know that I could have imagined what I was going to miss out on had you not come home with me that day. Now its that you are not only thriving, you are a little person.

You are my toddler that spends all labor day snuggling up to a fake deer. You are  my toddler that is caught shaving his legs with my razor. You live in this world where the only food worth eating is bananas and chicken nuggets, where the hardest part of your day is when you reluctantly put every single juice box away when you are told "no more." You are my toddler that wakes up from naps naked. My toddler that cant resist a dog pile. You cry when I cry, and yell when I yell. You are my toddler that is afraid of the vacuum, my toddler that can't resist sweeping. You spend most of the day in a world where toy whales fly, and toy elephants give kisses. The thought of missing any of these moments makes me even more grateful for today, the day i got to bring you home again.

Little mister, I am looking forward to the many zipper days to come.

Love, momma

bear lake

You lucked out when the friends that invited momma and daddy to Bear Lake insisted that you tag along too. So not only did you get to come, you got to do everything the adults did. You went tubing and four wheeling, and you even got to stay up late to make s'mores.

The first day on the lake you were so anxious to get on the tube that you and daddy toppled in the lake, head first, missing the tube entirely. The cold water caught you off guard, but you were a champ, toughed it out with not a single tear, just a lot of heavy breathing. In no time you were used to the water and loving the tube, so much so we couldnt get you off it. You would say "whoa!" and "Aw shoot!" with every bump. When you weren't being tossed around you talked a lot about the "wayer" and the "beeds," in other words, the water and the birds.

Believe it or not, we made it home with no sun burns!

the zoo

Only a week after leaving St. George and your cousin Sofi, you were able to re-unite and hang at the zoo. The zoo is something we do every summer, but this year was by far the best, after all, your vocab mainly consists of animals. You thoroughly enjoyed all the animals your recognized, and wanted nothing to do with the ones you didn't. To finish the day off you and Sofi rode the merry-go-round, and I hate to break it to you, your younger smaller girl cousin was WAY less scared than you!