yesterday, our baby boy turned two! and what a change two has been for him. he went to bed my little one year old munchkin and woke up a whole stinkin' lot older. his vocabulary and understanding and communicating and participating are all just booming.
every time you say his name now, he answers with "what?" every time you ask him to do something, he says "okay!" and when you do something he likes, he says "yeah!" or "yay!" he knows what things are, he asks for them by name, he is patient and doesn't scream (most of the time) when he is waiting. he can *finally* be reasoned with (hallelujah!) oh man, the communication barrier is one of my all-time favorite breakthroughs in child rearing. so much screaming (on both our parts) is now just a beautiful bygone memory. new screaming will come, for sure, but for now, i shall sunbathe in this sweet, sweet (sweet) victory.
so let's talk super powers. dallin's is observance. he has always been eerily observant. remember object permanence? and how infants younger than about eight months old don't generally have such a thing? well dallin had object permanence down from, like, two days out the womb. nothing gets by this kid.
his hearing is almost superhuman.
he can spot tiny objects from across the room. in the dark.
and he most definitely knows when you're eating something delicious in the kitchen, even if he's upstairs in his crib napping.
and while there is undoubtedly a lot of good that will come from having such a super power, the bad is that he is almost impossible to distract -- distraction being a main behavior management strategy of the toddler years and all (insert screaming here).
okay, so on to his birthday.
to know dallin is to know that he loves cereal. i mean, not like passively "loves," but he loves cereal. if the pantry door is open, he will go in and find a box of cereal and eat it. all. cereal is the first thing he asks for when he wakes up on the morning and the last thing he asks for before he goes to bed at night.
and because our kids only get sugar cereal on rare occasions, it's become one of the ultimate treats at our house (seriously, if it was a choice between a box of candy bars and a box of sugar cereal, the sugar cereal would win at the wheelers every. time.) so for dallin's birthday gift, i decided to raid the cereal aisle and brought home twenty-two (eek!) boxes of cereal. the older kids were in absolute heaven and are looking forward to downing every single box. dallin made a bee-line for the lucky charms and was unimpressed by my other offerings (he came around to the awesomeness of it all after a few bowls of lucky charms, though).
later on, we made breakfast cereal donuts.
he also received a box of crayons ("colors," as he calls them) and some great grandparent gifts. it was pretty much the best birthday of his life. ah, two year olds: so deliciously easy to impress.
dallin, you are adored. your juicy cheeks, your sparkling eyes, your dimply dimple. your precious waddle. you are the messiest eater i've ever met. the spitting image of your father. you have the cutest voice, kind of an anger management problem, and the world's tiniest feet. you never back down from a fight, observe everything, think your mama all but hung the moon, and boy, are we excited to watch you grow up.
(not too fast, though.)
happy birthday, woo!
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