Hellobee

I’m a little late in doing this update… but it’s been 6 months since my last one! I did monthly updates on my personal blog until Wagon Jr. turned 2, and I guess this will be my very last update before I’m updating for two! Lil Miss Wagon will be here by mid-July.

So Wagon Jr. turned 2 1/2, or 30 months, 2 weeks ago. Here are his latest stats from the pediatrician:

2 years, 1 month
Weight: 30.06 lb (71.74%)
Height: 33 in (16.49%)
BMI:  19.41 (95.86%)

2 years, 5 months
Weight: 30 lb (56.8%)
Height: 35 in (35%)
BMI: 17.22 (74.87%)

So he’s finally getting taller, but not gaining much weight. We left the appointment with the instructions to fatten him up, so we’re back to sneaking butter and cheese into all of his food. As with almost his entire life, he fits into the clothing size for his age (2T). Pants can tend to be a little big so he still fits into most of his 24 month stuff for bottoms.

Heh-woh?

Health
A few months ago, Wagon Jr. had Roseola, so he had a super high fever (105!) for four days straight. It was really scary, but he had zero other symptoms, not even a runny nose. And the fever would go all the way down to 98 degrees very shortly after we gave him ibuprofen. So after a few days we took him to get tested for a UTI, which was negative. Finally on day five he broke out into the telltale Roseola rash all over his trunk, and we were so relieved, we did a family high five. It was super scary to have such a fireball baby those few days though. He’d be so hot to the touch, but not sweat at all, and in the mornings he’d chug an entire bottle of water without stopping.

Wagon Jr. has an ear infection right now, only the second one of his life (that we’ve had diagnosed, that is), so he’s taking amoxicillin. I’m sure he’s had a few small ones here and there that resolved without antibiotics, but his fever was 103 for two straight days so we took him in and decided to treat the infection since he was pretty miserable. It’s been a nightmare getting him to take his medicine — pink amoxicillin explosions everywhere. Basically the only way we’ve been able to get him to get everything down is by pinning him down, pinching his cheeks open and pinching his nose shut while dispensing through an oral syringe little by little. It’s heartbreaking but he gets over it very quickly.

Talking
Wagon Jr. is talking up a storm lately. He knows how to ask for things now, but he’s still kind of in the repeating phase, so if you ask him “do you want eggs or pancakes?” he’ll respond “eggs or pancakes?” Then if you ask him “which one?” he’ll respond “which one?” It makes for some pretty frustrating conversations, especially when he’s in pre-meltdown mode, but it’s still light years easier than when he couldn’t talk at all. He has started responding with “yah” when I ask him questions he understands, and that’s really the first back-and-forth we’ve had where I can fully believe we are truly understanding each other, and that’s so exciting!

Hola!

I’ll talk about whining in this section since whining is talking… and he’s still pretty whiny. We constantly have to ask him to say “please,” and once he can say please after his request, the whining usually stops. One funny thing is that when he whines “spoooon! I want spoon!” I say “I want spoon… what?” and he says “I want spoon… what?” Then I have to remind him to say please. These days I’ve been saying “ask nicely” and sometimes he’ll respond with the request followed by please.

Propeller hats are back!

Even though he’s quite a little chatterbox, he’s still difficult to understand. I consider myself Wagon Sr.’s personal interpreter. I really don’t know how they communicate at all when I’m not around. But there are so many things Wagon Jr. says on a regular basis that are still a mystery to us. For instance, whenever I ask him about the baby in Mommy’s belly, he smiles and says something like “I come a truck!” He’s been saying this consistently for months now and I still have no idea what it means.

So are gigantic glasses.

He is definitely understanding us more and more now, though. For instance, when he doesn’t want to eat and is reaching for toys at the table, I can say “if you have one bite of eggs and one sip of milk, you can have your book.” He’ll immediately eat the eggs and drink the milk, and if he takes a tiny sip, I can say “no, you have to take a big boy sip” and he’ll take a bigger sip. So he definitely gets cause and effect, and reward! (And yes, I know, I’m bribing my child into eating and letting him play with toys at the dinner table. But it’s a huge step up from letting him watch videos at the table every single meal!)

My first popsicle!

Eating
Wagon Jr. has always been a pretty big eater, even when he went through his picky phase around 18 months when the number of foods he’d eat dwindled down to 5. But very slowly his food repertoire is growing again, and he’s been willing to put new foods in his mouth.  Chewing and swallowing them, not so much, but we praise him for trying all the same. He eats the basics (mac and cheese, pasta with sauce and meatballs, pizza, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, etc.) but it has been really difficult to get him to try new fruits and any vegetables.

Sleeping
After establishing one of our house rules of “no climbing the crib,” Wagon Jr. hasn’t vaulted out of his crib at all. He’s threatened to try and vault out a few times, but he knows the rules now.  Since the crib vaulting episodes, our bedtime routine has been a bit lengthened with the addition of reading a book together, letting him sip water, and staying with him for a minute after putting him into the crib. Wagon Sr. has been handling all of the put-downs, since after the baby comes he will be doing Wagon Jr.’s bedtime alone, and it’s been going super well. I help with the bath and stay for the story, then I make my exit while Wagon Sr. sits with him to pray, sing songs, and then puts him into the crib. He rubs Wagon Jr.’s head for a bit while talking softly to him about bedtime, saying goodnight, and then he asks for ppo-ppo (kiss). It’s so cute to watch on the monitor as Wagon Jr. gets onto his knees so he can reach up and give Wagon Sr. three kisses in a row. Then he lays down on his own and repeats “good night” and “I love you” as Wagon Sr. says these things as he leaves the room. We also leave his water bottle in the crib with him since he’s been asking for it during night wakings. I was worried about this, but it’s been going pretty well. Sometimes he gets frustrated and shoves it over and over again as it rolls towards him, but it ends up in the corner of his crib and then he leaves it there and falls back asleep.

The number and intensity of his night wakings is definitely a little less, but still ranges between 1-3 wakings a night. On good nights, none of them involve any crying, and on bad nights he wakes up screaming at the top of his lungs several times a night. If this continues we’ll probably need to see a sleep specialist at some point. All the research I’ve done recommends earlier bedtimes and more sleep, but ever since he was a baby he’s had very early bedtimes (6:30pm usually, and 7pm now) and slept through the night as well as plenty of nap sleep during the day, so lack of sleep can’t be the culprit.

My little rockstar.

 
Playtime
Wagon Jr. is still totally obsessed with music!  He always wants to play with his “instruments”… “guitar, drums, piano, and microphone”. Probably 50% of his talking involves one or all of these words. We’ve been turning on the TV for him more and more, but he usually asks us to turn it off after less than an episode of anything, unless it’s The Wiggles. And God forbid we get one of those episodes that has a long skit with no music or dancing… he basically only wants to watch TV to watch people play instruments, sing, and dance. Even then he usually asks us to turn it off after a few 10 minute episodes. So there you go ladies and gentlemen– lots of screen time as a baby does not necessarily result in addiction to TV as a toddler! But of course we’ll see how it continues as he gets older.

Perfecting his Jagger lip scowl.

He’s also started to really love playing with his kitchen and all the food. He loves to pretend he’s cooking, and gives us tastes of his creations. Usually it’s eggs, pizza, or milk. He also has adopted a few of our large plastic kitchen utensils as his favorite toys lately.

Wagon Sr. loves to take him to parks and whenever we pass one while driving, Wagon Jr. gleefully points out all the “pwayground!”s around. Although when we do find a playground to play in, he usually ends up ignoring the play structure and swings and just wanders around the park, playing with sticks (pretending he’s a baseball player), picking flowers and leaves, and just walking around. I really can’t wait until we have a yard so that we can spend time outdoors every single day. I’m picturing Wagon Jr. and the dogs running around the yard, Lil Miss Wagon snoozing in the shade, and Wagon Sr. and myself sipping icy cocktails in lounge chairs on the patio and reading! That is, in the 4-6 weeks a year Boston has good enough weather for all of that to happen.

I think that’s about it for now! It’s so hard to write updates for kids once they’re eating regular food, sleeping regular sleep, and have mastered walking and talking. But I do hope to keep up with the monthly updates when Lil Miss Wagon comes along… as a second child, I want to be sure I’m just as excited for her growth and development as I was with Wagon Jr.! And of course, I want to make sure Wagon Sr. takes just as many pictures.