Belated Birthday

 My little boy turned 2 on May 12th. I can't believe it. Here's a quick photo blog about him.

He always impresses me with the goofy stuff he does.

Again, goofy.

Once more, he's a goof.

He loves cars and trains.

And exploring.

He sometimes makes funny faces.

He is the worst eater I've ever encountered. Basically, he'd like to live on french fries and yogurt, ugh. NEXT TOPIC.

He will sometimes choose his clothing.

He has a great interest in art.

But also motorcycles.

And screen doors.

He enjoys blanket forts so much that we bought him this tent. It has yet to be put away.

He is a good big brother, but more importantly, he has been wearing that jacket for over a year.

He enjoys a nice sip of juice now and then. (now.)

He liked blowing out the candles on his cake so much that he made us do it several times.

It's hard to believe that he is now this...

When I will always see him as this.

Some tidbits about Adam, mostly so I can remember how he was at this age.

• He goes to bed around 7:30-8:00, but is always stalling and trying to delay bedtime. He sleeps until about 7:00 and takes one nap a day, usually about 2 1/2 hours.
• Let's not even talk about his diet. Hmph.
• Adam is a Daddy's boy. Like you wouldn't believe. In fact, when I got him from his nap today he asked for Jeff instead.
• Since we had Avery, Adam's TV viewership has grown significantly, yikes. He enjoys The Lion King (he roars to ask for it) and Beauty and the Beast (he says "Beast.") and Toy Story. If we aren't watching the first 20 minutes of the same movies, we'll watch PBS. His favorite show is Super Why, but he's really liking Barney these days.
• He's very good at identifying the colors blue and green, and sometimes gray and black. The others are not important enough, I guess.
• He loves the alphabet (Blame Dr. Seuss's ABC and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Wheel of Fortune). He knows about 10 by name, but he's especially keen on the letter O.
• Speaking of the letter O, Adam is constantly trying to get us to draw it. All of his coloring books are filled with O's. He's a big fan of coloring.
• He has a fondness for Coldplay and Kelly Clarkson, and claps when he hears them. He also asks to watch the video for "Paradise" about a billion times a day because he likes the elephants in it. Because we often drive Jeff to work and I can only take our Disney CD for a little while, Adam is fond of popular music- maybe too fond. I was impressed by how many words he knows to Amy Winehouse's "Rehab." Yikes.
• Adam is really musical. He can sing on pitch to several songs, but most impressively, he can clap to the rhythm of songs. Not for too long, but long enough to prove that he gets it. I think that's pretty cool.
• Adam likes to read books. It's hard to say what his favorite is, but he is a big fan of "Mr. Brown Can Moo," "Where's Duck?" and "I Was So Mad" among many others.
• He's a big fan of the park and is constantly asking to "go go go," usually to there.
• Adam still uses his pacifier for nap and bedtime (I'm not really all that ashamed, either) and is always concocting schemes to get it out of his crib throughout the day, by stacking things and using toys to try and reach it.
• He loves brushing his teeth and would do it about 20 times a day if we let him.
• Adam says about 120 words or so, probably more. All I know is, I counted about 60 a month ago and he has for sure doubled that. 120 sounds like a lot, but Adam is probably on the lower end of the spectrum for speech. He is just now starting to use sentences ("Mama go" "Up, please" "Want Duck") and for a while I was afraid he wouldn't hit that milestone in time (it's a 2 year milestone), but luckily he did. He is going through a bit of a language explosion now. I swear, he learns about 5 new words a day. (Yesterday's highlight was "pine cone.")
• He's knows the numbers 1, 2, and 3 very well. If you ask him how old he is, he responds correctly.
• He enjoys church. He likes to sing the hymns and yell "Amen!" His favorite thing is sustaining people (when people get new assignments in our church, we raise our hands to say we agree), but he is always a beat late and is almost always opposed.
• He likes nursery. It took him a little while, but he does now. Last Sunday, they brought him to me because he split his lip, and as soon as he was done being sad, he grabbed my hand and ran back to nursery.
• He is a good big brother. To be honest, Adam has been mostly neutral about Avery, (I'll take it!) but he is becoming more and more interested in her. He plays "Peek-A-Boo" with her (she is unfazed) and is starting to ask to hold her. He likes to run to her crib (ok, Pack N Play) to see if she's there.
• He's crazy about shoes and went through a significant phase where he would cry if we took his shoes off.
• Speaking of phases, Adam HATES taking baths. He used to love them. He's pretty obviously scared of washing his hair. It is for this reason that I want to buzz his head.
• He is the cutest thing ever. It is a privilege to be his Mommy.

Love him.