Nathan's 2nd Birthday

Nathan turned 2 today! The time has gone so fast with him, maybe because it has been a busy two years. And it's not slowing down a bit, now that he's in his little early start class three days a week, speech one day a week, which leaves Fridays for us, and I'm glad his birthday was on a Friday. His language has really picked up in the last couple of months. On Wednesday, his speech therapist did an evaluation, and I was shocked at how many pictures he could identify with words. He is well beyond the 2-year-old speech level, but still has trouble with some articulation, so he will continue speech therapy.

Here are some cute things I want to remember about him at this age:

-He is the only kid of mine to adopt a blanket and stuffed animal (his "goggie") as security objects, and cannot sleep without them.

-He loves the show Curious George, and asks for "Monkey" or "Gorge" (not misspelled, that's how he says it) all the time. He also likes Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and the Wiggles.

-Before he can go to bed each night, he runs to Joel and says, "Moon!" because it's now their little ritual where he will take Nathan out there and look for the moon. Nathan is always very excited to find it.

-The other night, I wanted to give him a kiss on the cheek, and I said, "Kiss!" and instead of letting me kiss his cheek, he grabbed my face and made me kiss his lips. I'm not much of a kiss my kids on the lips mom, but it was so cute I had to do it.

-He throws tantrums about things when I take him grocery shopping. The other day, we were in line buying diapers and wipes, and the person in front of us had a big bag of apples. He saw them and screamed "Apples!" at the top of his lungs until we got to the car. He actually did this one other time at a different store for bananas. I need to be on the lookout for what people put on the conveyor belt!

-Earlier this week, it rained for the first time in a while, so I taught him the word rain, and while we were in the car, he thought it was so neat to watch the rain fall and see the windshield wipers. Later that night while putting him to bed, he suddenly said to me, "raining" and pointed to the ceiling and said "water, sky." He picks up on things really quickly.

-Today we've been practicing his age. When I ask how old he is, he says, "Do!" and tries to hold up two fingers.

He can really be a handful most of the time, but I'm glad he has spunk and personality, and a whole lot of determination. He always knows what he wants, and will do whatever he can to get it. We're so happy we have Nathan in our family!