Toby,
You're two! There is a spot on the wall where we have pictures of Kaden and Blue from their two-year portrait sessions. A year ago when we hung them it seemed like it would be forever until your picture could join the set. I guess forever has come and I guess I need to schedule your photo appointment, huh? At least I scheduled your two-year check-up. It's still coming up though so I don't know your height/weight stats at the moment, but you've grown at the same proportions remaining long and lean so I don't expect much variation from previous stats which have always had you in the 80 or 90th percentile for height and never more than the 20th percentile for weight. Now that I think about it, this is the exact opposite from Kaden at this age - he was short and round!
It's been a good year for you. At the end of your 14th month you started walking. This is also the month when you were fully weaned and just drinking out of a sippy cup. It took till around twenty months before you started getting verbal and in the last month you've really been adding to your vocabulary. All year you've been in speech therapy, occupational therapy, and play therapy. You enjoy all of them but are usually done just before you're supposed to be. Your OT reports that you will bring her her shoes and then go stand at the door before your therapy is supposed to be over.
Kaden remains your favorite brother but you are coming around to Blue. The other day I even caught you two being snuggly during a show:
In general, you love more people now. When Gran and Papa last came to visit you ran up to Gran! Most of the time when a person enters the house you do a "downward dog" pose. Sometimes we call it your head-in-the-sand pose. Pretty much, from a standing position you bend over and put your head on the ground in your attempt to get away? Be invisible? But you didn't shy from Gran and you're never shy with your ST or OT anymore either. This morning you grabbed your OT's hand and when she told you to say goodbye you just waved over your shoulder as if you could hardly be bothered... you who were off to such important things.
You have some funny mannerisms that I know come from your Fragile X. Direct attention results in peekaboo. People think you're playing with them, but I know you're struggling with the impulse to be shy (cover up) or friendly (hands away, big smile!). Or you throw whatever you're holding at the person. Or you drop. If you are walking and you realize you are arriving somewhere you don't want to be or if someone approaches, you just drop into a seated position and look down. This always happens in the church parking lot. You usually do fine in church nursery now, but it's still one of your harder transitions. When I can no longer just hoist you up and physically place you where I want you, I'm going to have to come up with better strategies.
I could jump around forever between cute Toby anecdotes, mannerisms, and abilities. I'll try to be a little more systematic...
Talking:
Words you say regularly at home (you say more at speech): baby, bible, book, bath, milk, Bubba, nana (for Banana), juice, eat, snack, Daddy (usually said, Daddeeeeeee!), Mamma, out, down, up, bubble, more, mine, yay. You've said more but these are the words I think you use most. You also do the animal sounds (and your piggy oink is pretty spot on) and sometimes you will say the animals too. But you've NEVER said horse. This is always just "neigh neigh."
You've started saying " ank you" when you hand me something which I find adorable.
When you say "yay," you always clap your hands. One night you, Daddy, and Blue were playing and fighting. Daddy pinned Blue and then told you to "get him," after which you would hit Blue on the butt and then start clapping and saying, "Yay!" I loved this.
You have a book where a pig can't find his mama. The pig calls out to her on almost every page. The other day you were flipping through the book and calling out "Mamma" for each page. I melted.
Eating:
You've been self-feeding finger foods since before you turned one, but I have yet to seriously encourage you to use utensils. I keep toying with the idea of making this an OT goal. You went through a patch where you didn't want to be fed so I'd give you a spoon to hold too. This was messy but you seem to have forgotten you ever cared about this and are now happy for me to feed you non-finger foods.
You've had an odd and messy habit of sticking your fingers in your mouth while you eat. You seem to want to feel the food as it's in your mouth. With your mouth open so your fingers can go in, some food comes out, and it's not a pretty sight. In just the past week, I've been saying, "hands down," and you comply! I have to say it 1,000 times per meal but hopefully we're finally on our way to breaking this habit.
You are also a stuffer. With finger foods I can only give you a few at a time. And with bigger foods I still have to cut things into small pieces. If we can master the "hands down" idea then we'll move on to, "one at a time" and "small bites" as soon as we can.
Sleeping:
You didn't start sleeping through the night till after we weaned. Then we had to do about a ten night stretch where Daddy went to you if you woke up and cried. Once you figured out the food wasn't coming anymore no matter what, you slept through the night about 50% of the time. This pattern continued for months - we went to bed never knowing what kind of night it would be. I'd say in the last two months we've been at 80% Yup, about two nights out of ten you'll still wake up and fuss loudly enough to wake me up. (No baby monitor but I leave my door open.) You just don't self sooth, but usually all it takes is about 15 minutes of holding you and you go back to bed.
You go to bed between 7:30 and 8pm and usually talk, play, and sometimes fuss for about an hour. You wake up between 6:30 and 7:30am. You usually wake up happy.
Naps have gotten unpredictable. Somedays you go right to sleep. Somedays you play the first half hour to an hour and then go to sleep. At least two days a week you will play or fuss through all of nap time. On these days you always falls asleep in the car when we go to pick up Blue and/or Kaden from school. On car nap days you may only get to sleep for twenty minutes whereas on crib nap days you sleep about two hours! Yup, we're all over the place with naps.
Playing:
You have a baby doll and you love to carry it around. You also like pulling your blanket out of your crib and using it to put your baby to bed anywhere and everywhere around the house.
You like to hold small figurines (action figures or Little People), one in each hand, and make them fight. This used to be all you would do. Now you like to make action figures ride on a small plastic polar bear or one of the zebras that came with the Little People Noah's Ark.
Sometimes you push cars around and sometimes if you are pushing the Hess truck you will load things on it.
You love being outside in the backyard playing in the sand or climbing in and out of the wagon, but your favorite thing is to get Gus's water bucket and dump it on yourself.
You like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Elmo's World but now you are starting to love Jake and the Neverland Pirates. You try to sing the theme song when it is on and this cracks me up. Because of this new interest, I used some of your birthday money and got you a pirate ship:
But even your favorite shows only hold your attention for about the first half, then you're off to the next thing.
You LOVE to sit and look at books. Your favorite book is your picture Bible.
What else?
Sometimes you can be such a trooper. Sunday we went to the beach straight from church and you never napped. But you were fine, just played and played...
But you aren't always such a trooper. At the grocery store after about a half hour, forty minutes if I'm lucky, which is right about when I still need to grab one more thing and check out, you start getting uh, vocal. This can be kinda stressful actually, so I vote we drop the habit soon, k?
My singing is still the best cure for a car tantrum which can happen if we've run one errand too many. You like music. In the car you will raise your hands in the air to songs and at home you will dance by bending at the waste and bobbing your head. I sing to you every night before bed and just recently you've started singing along. You like to sing LOUD. Most words aren't clear but at the end of B-I-B-L-E you shout out Bible! perfectly.
You are adorable. Daddy says you have an angelic face with perfectly shaped little red lips. He's right. You have dark blue eyes and light brown hair that will curl up when it gets long enough. It was quite long and when brushed out it went halfway down your back! But it's been kept shorter since March.
Right now you are the person in my life most likely to make me laugh out loud, smile, or tear up happily. Thank you for that.
Here's to you being two!
Love you,
Mom
