Choo Choo, I'm Two!

What a wonderful birthday we had with our Colin! On Tuesday, his actual birthday, while Jackson was at school we spent a lot of down time together just playing and relaxing. By request we spent the afternoon at the train park. The boys had a blast and Jackson doted on Colin the whole time which was so sweet. Jackson just loved that it was Colin's birthday! Later that evening we shared a meal of spaghetti and meatballs, a Colin favorite, then celebrated with cake and present opening. It was a precious time with my family!

You could tell that he knew it was his special day! We had been counting down the days on the January calendar which made for a great build up. As we came in his room early in the morning before Bryan left for work to sing him Happy Birthday you could see it in his eyes that he knew the big day was finally here. "My Birday!" he said excitedly as he came down and saw his banner hanging above the window. Then when he saw the Chuggington birthday decoration on our breakfast table he got a sweet smile of satisfaction that I had decorate in the theme he had chosen many days before..."yeah, Chuggington Birday!" My favorite memory was watching him blow out his candles as we sang to him that night. When his cake came out he said "two candles, yeah!" and then tried to blow them out half way through the song he was so excited. Present opening was so sweet watching these sweet brothers interact. Jackson was so excited to give him the new choo choos he had picked out the week before. These were by far his favorite gift, maybe based on just the excitement of the presentation alone by Jackson. Even halfway through Bryan pushing him on his new big boy swing, he stopped to run in to get his little chuggers. We ended our day with our traditional reading of "On the Night You were Born," snuggled together in the rocking chair. It couldn't have been a better day!

We decided to also have the typically big party a smaller (if you can call our family small), slower one this year and I'm so glad we did because it was such a special relaxing time with our family that really focused on him. He just shined that day, which is not like any other day, but I loved that because it was a more simple day we had more time to soak up his light. And me not being in "party mode" was very refreshing I must say. I enjoyed every minute of watching the ones I love, love on my precious boy.

At two, Colin is all in. He is the sweetest, busiest little guy. He is constantly running or climbing or jumping off of things, getting into things, pulling out things, eating things (just food, but a lot of it), reading things, counting things ("1,2,3, 3 apples Mommy."), saying things, asking questions about things, etc. And he does all these things incredibly well. His doing is very quiet too, so it's harder to catch him doing his stinker things. I'd give his conversational language a 10 (amazing 5-6 word clear sentences in the sweetest voice), his creative play a 10, his getting into things a 15+, but his sweetness a 20!

Despite the fact that Colin was determined to come in contact with every germ in the patient room by crawling around and pretending he was a snake on the floor (ick!) Colin did great at his two year well visit. He is now 30 lbs. (74%) and 35 inches tall (61%). Wow how he has grown since this time last year!

Yes lots of growing and changing since last year for sure! He is now snuggling down at night in his crib fashioned as a toddler bed due to endless trips to plop him back in his crib after climbing out in the middle of the night. After a week of staying in bed til Mr. Sunshine comes up training he is now sleeping through the night just fine, waking a little early for my taste, but that's our next tackle. He has also taken an interest in beginning to potty train, something I'm not really ready for, but probably should jump on this full throttle because he's so excited about it and wouldn't it be nice to only have one kiddo in diapers at a time. And wow, what a fantastic little talker he is. His 5-6 word sentences are so clear and everyday he amazes me with his vocabulary. He loves to be in constant conversation with us, telling us everything, asking us about everything.  There are two many favorite things Colin has said recently that I will have to do another post soon so I don't forget these precious memories.

In many ways he is very much a two year old boy, full fledged big boy in the making, but I still think of him as my baby. I remember feeling like Jackson was so old at two and though Colin is doing more "big boy" things already he still feels so little to me. Or maybe I know now how fleeting these baby years are so I'm trying to hang on to them a little longer. I love this sweet baby big boy to pieces. I just can't get enough!