Don't worry. I don't think I'll be that mom that refers to my four year old as my 48 month old. This kid is just a really cool cat and I don't want to forget who he is at two and a quarter years old.
Likes: choo choos. Chugga chuggas. Dump trucks. Fire trucks (but when he says fire trucks he drops the t and the r and adds an f). Thomas the Train anything. His Jake pillow. Olaf. Sleeping with his hand inside his pillowcase. YouTube and wifi. Counting to 8 and showing off his mad alphabet skills. Especially the letter x. He loves that letter. And his Baby Einstein letter books he has on lockdown. Laying on his belly watching wheels go around and back and forth. Diggers. Singing the last word of every line in a song, particular Let It Go.
Eats: Goldfish. Chocolate milk (if at Nonna's it can only be out of his purple cup). Oreos but only the side of the cookie with the icing, the other side he hands off to whoever is nearby. Sticks (french toast). Three. Covered in syrup. Please. Water with ice, out of his blue Mickey Mouse cup.
Vocabulary: It's really changed a lot in the past few weeks. He attempts sentences and conversations. He is extremely expressive with his face. Showing sympathy very well, eyebrows drawn, bottom lip out. He is excellent at saying please and thanks and love you too. He randomly says I want a hug and then takes a hug. Whenever he hugs Letty he says mom! look! Just so he's sure that I'm sure that they love each other. I continue to sell him short, expecting him to be my baby. But he isn't anymore. He is fully aware of what is happening and he has plenty to say on the matter, if I would only ask him.
Books: If I Built A House (thank you Maria!), is a nightly read. It pains me to see what he has done to that (autographed!) copy. Pages are wrinkled and one is even torn. Not my MO but it's so very well-loved. Any of his tough books about trucks. Big Red Barn. My Big Animal Book. Cock-a-Doodle-Doo! Barnyard Hullabaloo. He is a creature of habit and so many of these we read nightly. To Matt's chagrin.
Around his (three!) baby cousins: Well, they are there. He is aware. He is cautious when venturing in their general vicinity but he's not super into being their buddy. But if baby cries? His whole face scrunches up and he gets very disconcerted. The bottom lip juts out and now and again he will even start faux crying as a show of solidarity. And when he says Baby Lena anyone in ear shot kind of melts.
I could have an entire paragraph dedicated to his idiosyncrasies. Because he's got em. He is a very particular little boy who likes his things juuuuust so. And he takes personal offense to it going any other way. My father calls him The Rainman, I call him Howard Hughes. Sometimes he just sits there and gives me such a look like his paternal grandfather I wonder how it's even possible. A man he never met and imitating an expression he's never seen. It's always the most serious of expressions too. Like he's on to me. And he is not amused. He searches himself and anyone around him for booboos. Scars. Freckles. Moles. Actual booboos. He makes a face like he can feel your pain and then he kisses each and every one. Again and again.
Right now he is suffering from a nasty cold and cough courtesy of his beloved sister. He won't eat a meal to save his life. He won't even consider using the potty (but he will be most helpful if you are using the potty. Wipe? Stool?). I'm loving how smart he is and how willing he is to learn. So very different from his sister. Who he loves to the moon and back. He will give her anything, if she only were to ask. He is the toughest roughest little dude, constantly bumping his head and moving right along. And he is just the best of the little boys.
