G2 Year in Review II: The Pictures

It's true that time seems to speed up as you get older. I swear to you, it does not seem like a year has passed since I wrote this. On the whole, it was a good year, though it does seem like G2 was sick slightly more often. Daycare, an older sister and a pre-disposition toward asthma will do that to a person. Honestly, I'm congested something like nine months out of the year, so the odds were never in his favor.

But, in the past year, he learned to walk, then run, then bounce off every conceivable hard surface (and that was just in the first month and a half). He went from talking very little to talking a lot to singing passionate renditions of "Let It Go," "Tomorrow,"and "Uptown Funk." You've not lived until you've witnessed a 4-year-old and 2-year-old engage in spirited call and response using "Uptown, funk you up, uptown funk you up!" (Seriously though, it's also never been harder to capture this nonsense on video. I write this down now hoping my aged brain will be able to conjure up the memory when I'm old and gray.)

Enough jibba jabba. Without further ado, here's G2's second year in pictures.

Reminder: each of these pictures was taken on or around the 29th of the month.

Here's where we left off. Covered in cake and splotches. Today, he got significantly more cake in his mouth, and he's a lot less splotchy.

I'm sorry. I can't hear you from the sound of the sugar roaring through my veins.

These first couple pictures are not indicative of the sheer amount of smiling this kid does. He really only has two or three modes: eating, smiling and getting into trouble.

April: He used to be super fond of popping out of this window.

As he started to walk regularly (around 13 and a half months), we didn't always have to bring the stroller or the baby backpack to the playground. Of course, he still wasn't mobile enough to do anything about getting plunked onto an empty see-saw.

May: Which was hilarious.

G2 never ate as well as his sister, which is to say, he's pickier. But eating slightly less well doesn't mean he ate less. It's just that instead of eating a plate of peas or bowl of broccoli like LG, he'd eat two bananas and half a pint of blueberries.

June: Completion of any meal is signaled by the customary Plate-Atop-Head motion.

 G2 has more patience and focus for a lot of different activities. He's always tried to figure things out, and he'd typically stick with a project longer than his sister. Except for painting. In this, his M.O. is get in, make a big mess, and get out as quickly as possible.

July: This paint has a piquant flavor, reminiscent of a goldfish cracker past its sell-by date.

Toddler feet are funny things. They're so chubby and round, and they do not fit into shoes. For G2, this was not so much a problem as his fat feet were made of steel. He'd seriously walk on anything barefoot sooner than let us mush him into some sandals or sneakers.

August: Just look at them! How is he even upright?

Unspoken rule: If it's transparent and at face height, G2 is going to press his face against it. It is never not funny (to me). It freaks Hollie out a bit, especially when he did it to a turtle tank at the museum.

September: "I see you!" "We see you, too. Now move so Grandma can windex the French doors."

I covered Halloween pretty extensively last year, but suffice to say that G2 had a good time. Turns out, the kid likes dressing up. Like, a lot. What I can't remember is whether this was a thing before Halloween. Did we kickstart this trend with this ridiculous monkey/dog thing?

October: Don't know. Don't care. Don't mind being an accessory.

As I was saying, he makes extensive use of the dress-up bin, which is well-stocked thanks to four years of his sister's Halloween costumes, courtesy of Grandma.

November: They're both green and owned by Disney. Ain't nothing wrong with this mashup.
Seriously, just Google Kermit Hulk. 

This is a pretty standard move. I wish I could tell you there's a reason for it, but the kid just likes to hang upside down.

December: Though in this particular instance, it was because he refused to pose.

Here's the funny thing. We had a lot of snow days this year, but we didn't really have much snow, at least not good enough to play in. And for me, that's fine, because despite all the time he spent in the snow before he could walk, he's not really into it. Maybe it's the suit; maybe it's the boots; maybe it's the fact that he simply refuses to keep gloves on, but G2 is just not wild about the snow.

January: But if I'm ever going to take the kids skiing, he's going to need to get over it.

A further word on dress-up. G2 is as likely to emerge from his room in a diaper and hard hat as he is to be wearing actual clothes. As such things go, I'm mostly pleased when he's chosen to be something other than naked. So this outfit? This is aces.

February: Seriously. He chose this.

Which brings us back to Do. Time marches on, and this guy right here is two-years-old. 

March: And he's also pretending to be a walrus. I guess I should be grateful the straw isn't up his nose.

 BONUS: Because it isn't a birthday post if there isn't cake.

Two seconds later, his sister blew out those candles.

Finally, that Christmas 2013 post... in 2014

It was recently brought to my attention that not only did I wait to write the Christmas 2013 post until February 2014, I promised a Part 2 that never came. Well, it's Christmas Eve 2014 (on the day I start writing this), so let's not hold our breath, shall we?

Still, I do feel a little bad about that, so a quick recap of last year.

Starting last year, we changed things up a bit in order to spend Christmas morning at our own house instead of traveling. Thus, my parents'/grandparents' Christmas Eve/Morning celebrations were moved up a couple of days, and we traveled the weekend before the holiday. This had the added benefit of allowing the kids to see Santa the way I used to: in a tiny cabin on my hometown's square.

It was unseasonably warm.

Note the lack of a line to see Santa. I swear this is a popular thing, but last year, we were the only people visiting at that moment.

So here's how it went down. LG was just fine with the big guy in the red suit, despite the fact that the year before, we had to bribe her with a cookie.

Though she may have realized she was getting potato chips when it was all over.

G2, on the other hand... better to let the pictures tell the story.

These two shots were snapped within a half-second of one another.

This was probably the height of G2's stranger danger phase. He was scared of strangers for about one week in December, and it happened to fall over Christmas. Frankly, I don't think it could've gone better. These days, he's as likely as not to walk up to someone he's never met and demand to be picked up.

The rest of G2's Christmas Eve can best be summed up as follows:

He never met a present he didn't like... to eat.

As for Christmas morning, to reiterate, this was the first holiday we spent waking up in our own home as a family. This meant we could start our own traditions. For instance, we left cookies for Santa, but we also made "sparkle bread" for the big guy's reindeer. This is important, as it helps the reindeer fly.

So for all the rest of you NOT leaving sparkle bread for the reindeer, you're welcome.

We also decided that Santa wraps his gifts in fabric, which we mail back to the North Pole so he can use it again the following year. Santa delivers a lot of presents, so he's doing his part to save the planet by recycling.

Santa also leaves dinosaurs. Rawr.

All in all, 2013 was a great Christmas. If you're all very good, maybe Santa will bring a Christmas 2014 post some time before Christmas 2015.

Incidentally, this was the best picture we could get of the two of them together.
Their cooperation hasn't gotten better in that last 12 months.

Halloween 2014: R.I.P. Sack Costumes

No surprise here, but I jinxed myself last year when I declared that sack costumes were the way to go. LG decided on her costume shortly after Halloween 2013, and it's been full speed ahead every since. She even picked out her brother's costume. Though the sacks may have disappeared, I'm pleased that she thinks coordinated costumes are de rigueur.

Having said that, it's practically a done deal that she'll want to do her own thing next year. It's only fair, I suppose, since G2 will start having costume opinions of his own by that time. (And it's not like we should continue to encourage the notion of sibling-as-accessory.)

Anyway. I know why you're really here. Sloppy Photoshop time!

We'd Like to Thank You, Adobe Creative Suite

The sun might come out tomorrow, but her smile won't if you're asking for it.

Spoiler: The dog steals the show.

You may accuse me of going over the top. You would not be wrong. Also, you haven't seen anything yet.

BOOM.

LG has been enamored of Annie for a while now. More than anything, she likes "It's the Hard-Knock Life," largely because it's sung by a group of little girls. So, some time ago, she told us she wanted to be an orphan for Halloween. Then she asked what an orphan is. Some mild psychological trauma ensued, followed by her supposition that the Hard-Knock Life Kids (as she calls them) seemed to have a pretty good time. Honestly, I think she doesn't give the orphan angle much thought. She sees little kids singing and dancing, and since that's basically how she lives life day-to-day, her decision to be Annie was made up pretty quickly. And then a minute or so later, she decided G2 needed to be Sandy the Dog.

Something Was Missing (it's my beard)

Once G2 was in on the game, it wasn't long before LG realized that Daddy Warbucks and I share the same haircut. And as it happens, I have an old tuxedo in my closet. Although LG mentioned numerous times that I should dress up; it still surprised the heck out of her a few days ago when she awoke to find that "Daddy growed his beard right off his face!" She, at least, was nonplussed. G2, on the other hand, wouldn't look at me for the better part of that day, and spent the ride to daycare that morning relatively quiet, shattering the silence with periodic shouts of "NO BEARD!"

You're Never Fully Dressed (until your mother is also wearing a costume)

Once I walked out of the bathroom with a completely shorn face, Hollie realized she wasn't going to get away without a costume, either. A quick trip to the thrift store, and BAM!

...until it shines like the top of the Chrysler building!

Easy Street (is where all the candy is)

While both kids technically went Trick-or-Treating last year, G2 stayed in the wagon pretty much the whole time (being 7 months old, he wasn't exactly mobile). This year, he figured things out very quickly.

Yo, sis! I think dis house is givin' out full-size candy bars.

With a little prompting, he even got the lingo down.

We weren't sure how it was going to go, especially since earlier in the day the costume parade at his school ended in a cascade meltdown of every child in his class. Admittedly when you march the kids out like a chain gang, I don't know what other result you could expect.

"Whaddya in for, Mick?"
"Me and Yoda knocked over a Piggly Wiggly in Yazoo."

The fact that he even let us put him back in the costume after that was nothing short of a miracle.

In case you've though to yourself, "There's something off about that dog costume," rest assured you are not crazy.
It's a monkey costume onto which I stitched long ears.

I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here (because of all the candy)
All in all, it was a very successful Halloween. But you don't have to take my word for it.

Butts and Boobies, or How I Learned to Love Toddler-ese

G2's vocabulary has exploded in recent weeks. Our vacation in early September coincided with rapid development on his part, and he just started picking up words left and right. Three days at the beach, and he very clearly knew how and when to deploy "sea shell," "sea gull," and "shore." Since then, it's been one word right after another.

This isn't dissimilar to the way LG developed, either, with big developmental leaps forward. The crucial difference, however, is that G2 is a lazy talker. If he can distill a longer word into a shorter form that he knows you understand, he won't make the effort to say the whole thing.

As you might expect, this is hilarious. Yesterday after breakfast, he was running around shouting "boobies! boobies!" Once I recalibrated my Babel fish for toddler-speak, I realized he was telling me about the BLUEBERRIES he had for breakfast. Later, he handed me a small Minion toy, pointed to the front and said, "Butt." I started to correct him with "belly," when I realized he wanted me to push a BUTTON located on the figure's stomach.

I'd love to better understand how these short word forms develop. One of his very first words was banana, but these days he can hardly be bother to muster much more than "bann," "bana," or "nana." Clementine is another fun one. Most often it comes out "cline-tine," which is, admittedly, closer to the real thing than "boobies" is to blueberries. Meanwhile, he has no problem saying "cupcake."

Before he regularly said "Dada," G2 briefly and inexplicably referred to me as "Nya-Nya." LG loved this, though I was somewhat less than enthusiastic. He refers to his sister as "Mimi," which is the best kind of endearing.

Anyone who knows Hollie well knows that there is no shortage of Peanuts memorabilia around the house, especially at holidays. We decorated for Halloween over the weekend, and re-introduced G2 to an animatronic Snoopy mummy. While I certainly get tired of him pushing the "butt" to activate the toy for the 37th time, I very much enjoy his repeated, failed attempts at saying Snoopy. So far, we have "Poofny," "Foofny," and "Poopsny," which is somehow the closest he's gotten.

LG had similar trouble with the word "pretzel." For a long time, she only called them "pencils." That was amazing and confusing, and I loved it. Then it became "prentzel" and it weirdly remains so, despite the fact that this child regular uses "simultaneous" and "similar" in regular conversation. Today, she told me the difference between her right and left hand, and noted that "right" means two things. "Right means this side of my body, and it also means you did something the way you're supposed to. You can do something right." She understands homophones, but pretzel still eludes her. 

Never change, LG. Never change.

They are pretty cute.

Year 4 in Review: The Pictures

In one year, my daughter will be in school. Real school. Not just coloring all day, or affixing glitter to things that shouldn't have glitter on them (NOTHING SHOULD HAVE  GLITTER ON IT), but honest-to-blog going to a place where the primary purpose is to learn. But we're not there yet, which is something Hollie and I have to remind ourselves daily. Right now, we have a 48-month old girl.

A number of things have marked the past year as one of growth. Less physical, more mental. Less height, more depth. Less big, more big sister. Without the ability to conduct a conversation, these pictures won't show the true differences between Year 3 and Year 4, but hopefully the color commentary will fill in the gaps.

As with the last three years, each of these photos was taken on or near the 12th of the month.

And because it's how we do things here, this is where we left off.

September 2013

While not the most ambitious thing she rode at the beach last year, she was pretty darn thrilled by it. Now? Not so much. This year on the boardwalk, after the second ride that only went in a circle, she slumped in her seat and muttered, "This ride is booooooring."

October 2013 

KidZooU at the Philadelphia Zoo finally opened in 2013. The most notable thing about our trip is that Millie made it into a viewing bubble without incident. At 37 months, she was finally able to judge when to stand up without smacking her head. This is a serious achievement, because I was getting pretty tired of crawling on a fours to fish her out.

November 2013

While she technically achieved older sibling status while she was two years old, I would argue she didn't really come into her own as a big sister until she hit three. That's at least partially due to G2's role as a non-mobile lump for the first six months. Regardless, in the last year, she has come to relish her newfound responsibilities. Chief among these? Playful tormentor.

December 2013

From the time she could stand on the step stool next to the counter, she's enjoyed baking and decorating. But this was the year she realized the most important benefit of the task. Now we just have to teach her to finish decorating before mainlining the piping bag.

January 2014

There was a lot of snow this year. Like, a ridiculous amount of snow. It got kind of boring after a while. We took a lot of pictures like this one.

February 2014

2014: The Year We Made Contact (with LEGO). As discussed in this space previously, I have developed a process (patent pending) for indoctrinating children into the cult of LEGO. To be fair, it hasn't stuck as well as I'd like, but a couple of times per month, she asks to get the bricks out. She still mostly builds walls, but they're getting taller. We call this progress. Also in February, she attended her first concert. 

Laurie Berkner is totally amazing, you guys. You don't even know.

I have no regrets, except for maybe cheering too loudly during the encore. That might've been over the top.

March 2014

"Hey, LG! Smile!" And this is typical of what we get. Weird pose; weird face; 100% my child.

April 2014

Speaking of weird poses, this is also standard procedure for most afternoons. The hat is her brother's; the glasses are a hand-me-down from Aunt Kristen. The sprinkler? I think I blame her mother for that.

May 2014

This is the year she discovered that dandelions aren't just yellow flowers you can stick in a glass of water to give to Mama when she comes home from work. This is also the year that my backyard weed problem has gotten completely out of hand. Coincidence?

June 2014

Camping! S'mores! Sparklers! This year was full of big firsts. For instance, this was the first year she grabbed a lit sparkler from the wrong end and burnt her finger. That was less dramatic than you might assume. She's gotten much braver and more resilient in the last 12 months, and it's nothing less than thrilling.

July 2014 

My brother and his wife had their first child in June. LG met him in July, and the most amazing thing was her reaction when he soiled himself quite loudly as soon as we put him in her lap. She could barely contain herself.

August 2014

We got LG a bike back in March, but it took a while before she got really comfortable with it. Just in time to get too big for it, as it happens. And the other picture? Well, how could I not share that? Just look at it.

Sept 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

In the run-up to our annual beach trip, we spent an agonizing few days watching the weather forecast get cloudier, colder and rainier. At the last minute, we decided to shift the trip forward a few days so we could catch some sun. As the picture on the far right illustrates, we made the right decision. This was about three minutes after letting her loose on the sand. She spent the better part of that day in the water getting smacked in the face by waves, over and over. And she loved every minute.

And boardwalk rides? I'm not even allowed to go on rides with her anymore, unless the rules state that I have to. Because she's a big kid now and does these things by herself. It's bittersweet, to be sure. (But markedly less expensive, at least until G2 wants to ride things.)

September 2013, 2014

Of course, that sort of thing tends to tire a person out. And thus begins a new tradition of comparing her vacation naps. It should be noted that she hasn't reliably taken an afternoon nap since she was two-and-a-half. On vacation? Out like a light.

But once again, she didn't officially celebrate her birthday on the beach, and since we do want to make her actual birthday something special, we got her a little something. Her reaction?

September 2014

But what could elicit such a response, you ask?

A horse, of course, of course.

Words, words, words and trouble

G2 is a talker. I don't mean to suggest that he has a large vocabulary, because it's not that. But the little guy just doesn't stop babbling, and it's been this way since he first started making noise. For a while, it didn't seem like he was going to turn those babbles into actual words, but in the last month or so, language has begun to coalesce. As it did with LG, it started with animal noises, but we've come a long way. When LG was about the age that G2 is now, I tracked her words for 36 hours. And since we pretty much compare the two kids constantly, I decided to do the same thing with him.

And here we go!

baby
banana (sometimes "nana," sometimes "ba nana")
ball
bear
beep-beep (cars, trucks & buses all go beep-beep, or sometimes wee-ooo-wee-ooo)
bird
boat
bowl (almost always in reference to the dog bowls, which he knows he's not supposed to touch, but does anyway.)
bus
button (usually on my iPhone, but any button will do.)
car
cup
Dada
dog
eagle (Why eagle? He has a tiny stuffed eagle. Weirdly, he has an entire stuffed menagerie, but eagle is the only one he picked up on.)
Mama
night-night (this is adorable, and is usually combined with laying his head down.)
shoes
seat (Different from sit, below, because it refers to the place where he gets his food.)
sit (Which he knows from how many times we shout it at him while he stands on his sister's bed.)
this (this is a typical response when you ask him what he's holding.)
truck
up
water

Three things of note. I'm surprised how many of these are "B" words. It just seems a little odd. Also, he has fewer abstract concepts in his word list than LG had. He doesn't say "yes" or "no" or "me" or "more." But he has more concrete nouns, like "bear," "boat," and "eagle."Additionally, he has a book of shapes and whenever we turn to the page with the triangle, he shouts, "ker-rangle!" It seems deliberate and he's done it multiple times. To paraphrase Perd Hapley, "I don't know what it means, but it has the cadence of a word."

Tracking words with G2 has been harder, because it's not uncommon for him to point at something, say what appears to be a deliberate word, and THEN NEVER USE IT AGAIN. Case in point: He usually refers to the dog as "dog" or occasionally "uf-uf." But the other day, he looked at the dog, looked at me, pointed at the dog, and clear as day said, "Lola." He has never repeated this.

But then, he expends effort in other ways, like getting into trouble.

This is all perfectly safe, except for the height and the hand mixer and the cheese grater.

Ugh.

15 Months: State of the G2

An unspoken truth about our son is that he's a big kid. It shouldn't be surprising, given how much he weighed when he showed up, but there it is. Although I still contend he never looked quite as big as his weight implied, then or now, the reality is that he's just darn heavy. We've never done anything to promote or control his weight, preferring to let it work itself out.

That's why I was excited to go to his 15-month checkup; in the last two months, G2 went from barely crawling to walking to running, while at the same time, his appetite has leveled off. He actually chooses to stop eating, rather than continuing to eat his food, your food and everything in between. Throw in the obvious vertical growth he's added since the 12-month mark, and he's noticeably trimmer. Given his status in the high 90-percentile over the last few months, the data nerd in me just wanted to know where we stood.

The result? 100 percent of his growth since the one-year mark has been vertical. Back in April, he was 30 inches, or 55th percentile. Yesterday, he measured 32 inches, for 75th percentile. And his weight is unchanged, dropping him into the low 90s. I cannot stress enough that I've never been terribly worried about his growth, as he's always been healthy (give or take a bout of RSV). But it's still nice to know that he's balancing out.

Data aside, the most exciting stuff over the last three months has been developmental. He could stand and sort-of cruise at 12 months, though he didn't really show much interest in it. At 13.5 months, he took some cautious steps. The day after that, he very clearly thought to himself, "Screw caution! I'm a runner!" By 14 months, he was essentially on par with LG at the same point her in development, despite the fact that she had been walking for three months at that time.

He's also taken big strides forward verbally. He had three to five words (mostly animal noises) at 12 months, and now he's got dozens. The only problem is that he refuses to do most of them on cue. He turned to Hollie a few weeks back, pointed at the fruit bowl and clearly said, "Banana." He's maybe said it twice since then. Likewise with "duck" and "dog". These were two of his first words, but now he just laughs at you when you try to get him to say either.

And therein lies the significant difference between G2 and LG at this stage of development. LG wanted to please. You could get her to say or do any of her words or actions with minimal prompting. G2, on the other hand, does things on his time. If he wants to let you know that he knows something, he'll tell you or show you. Otherwise, good luck, buddy.

As ever, there are so many things he does that amuse and irritate. I've recently considered what such a list will look like in 15 years, but by the time my brain got to visions of cars and curfews, the thought was too terrifying to continue.

Let's just stick to the present.

Night Night. Despite the fact that he doesn't sleep on a pillow, he knows what pillows are for. So when he wants to make us smile, he grabs the nearest pillow, lays his head down and says "Night night!" But because he wants you to know that he has no intention of going to sleep, he'll then proceed to make other things go "Night night!"

All of the things.

He thinks he's dog people. As noted earlier, G2 loves the dog bowls. He's faster now, which makes it harder to snag him before he starts splashing in Lola's water dish. He also loves the dog's beds, which is why our bedroom door stays closed and we have to be super vigilant when he's in the living room. There are few things more annoying that having to run a lint roller over your toddler twice a day because you weren't fast enough to catch him before he covered himself in two pounds of dog hair. That why there's a pillow on the floor of the living room in the first place. We thought it might be a substitute for the dog bed. (We were wrong.)

He's a better alarm clock than we are. Despite sharing a room, G2 usually gets up well before LG. So at some point, we get to say, "Go wake up your sister!", at which time G2 scurries down the hall, busts through the bedroom door like Kool-Aid Man, and throws himself onto LG's bed. It is as hilarious as it is effective. The best part is that LG does not mind, and she greets her brother with a warm "Good Moooooorning!" Yet if I quietly and gently attempt to rouse her from sleep, she moans, rolls over and complains that it's too early to get up.

Apple has his number. Yes, we have iPhones. Yes, we have iPads. I'm not going to get into a big thing about whether kids should or should not play with these things. G2 occasionally gets his hands on one. My phone is locked, so the only thing G2 can do is smash the home button over and over. I usually discover this when I hear Siri complaining she can't understand what he wants. However, I recently discovered this series of pictures in my Camera Roll.

Evidently he also figured out how to take a screenshot.

Sharing is caring. With two kids, we knew sharing would be high on the list of necessary lessons. So far, so good. G2 usually wants to share his things with you, though he'd prefer you share it right back after 1.25 seconds. His preferred method of sharing is to smoosh an object in your face. This is largely fine for his sister; it's somewhat less fine for his one-month-old cousin. Let's applaud the sentiment, and work on the methodology.

Animal farm. Kids like animal noises, and G2 is no different. But if you want him to make those noises, you have to ask in the right way. "What does a sheep say?" won't work. "Are you a sheep?" usually does the trick. It's at this point that I have to wonder, "Who's training who?"



Hi-oh! Before he had a great number of words or sounds at his disposal, G2's favorite refrain was "Hi-oh!" Think of it like "Aloha." It meant "Hello," "Goodbye," "Nice to see you," or "I'm going to take a run at the dog bed now. See ya!" It was the cutest thing ever, and he doesn't do it anymore. Tear.

Hips don't lie, but they do groove. I do not have much in the way of rhythm. When called upon to dance, I'm as likely as not to start rocking a white man's overbite. My son was not cursed in this way.



Since there's no way to top that dance, I'll just say this: kids are amazing. Mine, doubly so.