A photo journal comprised of my thoughts on motherhood and other life happenings, as well as some of professional work as a photographer. Southern California is home.
Growth & Appearance: Your hair remains oddly thick and coarse. We stopped shaving it in the midst of moving and have agreed to let it grow out mostly by default. As it’s grown out, it’s gotten blonder and blonder. It’s almost white now. A friend of ours said you look like Rod Stewart and your Papa and I agree. I mean, look. We’re considering a Rod Stewart costume for Halloween. Sorry.
You have scratches on your face and neck constantly from your brother, who likes to choke you. You have one running down your entire forehead and a matching one on your temple. You take many beatings from Hooper.
You feel like you weigh a thousand pounds. You’re dense. You’re in size 5 diapers and wearing 2 or 3T sized clothes. You appear enormously tall next to other kids your age.
We refer to your feet as potato feet; they’re round and chubby. The bottom of your feet are black, always. You downright refuse to keep your shoes on. As soon as we get you in the car seat, you fling your shoes off. I don’t even put them on now until we get where we are going. I don’t even know what size you wear. I think it’s a size 7.
You have a diaper tan.
Both of your two year molars on the top left and bottom left are in. The bottom right should be popping through soon. It’s more apparent when you’re teething now than it was when you were a baby; you’re grumpier, more volatile, and you don’t eat much.
Eating: There is no manipulating you at the table; you will either eat it or you won’t. When you say you’re done, you mean it. Sometimes this means you’ll eat all of one thing and nothing of anything else on your plate and I’ve simply learned to let it go. You eat a lot so it’s easy to let your phases of finicky eating go. And for the most part, you’re only finicky when you’re teething. All in all, you’re still a championship eater.
You can fit a ridiculous amount of food in your mouth and it’ll be gone within a couple seconds.
You love water bottles but haven’t figured out how to conquer that whole back-washing bit. When you’re done with the water bottle, it looks like a dirty fish tank. You can drink out of a cup but we still use sippy cups because we’re lazy and hate cleaning up more than we have to.
Your favorite foods as of late are bananas, peaches, zucchini, pasta, but you’ll eat most anything and everything. You tend to favor watered down juice over milk, but you still drink a lot of milk. You love snacks.
You ask for utensils but more often than not end up using your hands.
Sleeping: You and Hooper are sharing a room. You are sleeping in a twin bed with a toddler rail. You wake up around 7:30am and nap around 1:30 for about 3 hours. You go to bed around 8 or 9pm.
You sleep with your blanket but don’t seem overly attached to it. We also allow you to pick a toy to sleep with each night; it’s usually a different toy each time and more times than not it’s a book.
You do well with sharing the room with Hooper but you two are not able to nap together. Instead, we put you in the pack n’ play either in the spare bedroom or in the bathroom. I hear you guys each morning “pwaying py-rits” (playing pirates) over the monitor.
The other night I awoke to hear you yelling and found you covered, head to toe, trapped in your sheet like a ghost.
Talking: When you want some of whatever we are eating you say, “sch-um” (aka, some) varying degrees of urgency depending on whether we give it to you right away, or not.
You’ve also started putting words together. It started with an abnormally long pause between the words; like if it’s cold outside, you say “coh’d”—–“side”. Then you started saying the words without the pause and now you’re stringing together three or more words.
Your first complete sentence was clear as day, “I want down”. And down you went.
You say “yes” very distinctly. We ask you a lot of questions that we know you will say “yes” to because we love hearing it.
You are your brother’s parrot; whatever Hooper says, you too try to say.
You have tons of words in your vocabulary and while it’s more or less easy for us to decipher what you’re saying, you still speak a foreign language to others.
Your laugh is deep and hardy and comes straight from your belly.
Development:You love to spray things with a water bottle but you cry when someone turns the water bottle on you.
You’re interested in potty training. I’ve put you on the toilet several times and you’ve peed successfully. You’re also starting to hide when you poop, which I think means you’re getting closer to being ready for official training. We haven’t dove in head first, but we’re splashing around. We’re rewarding you with a tic-tac. You request “tac”—“two”. As of late, you wake up with a dry diaper and go to the potty first thing in the morning. You don’t ask to go during the day.
Anytime we ask you a question that’s answer is a numerical value, you say “two”. So how old are you, how many fish are there, how many grapes do you want… the answer is always two. No matter what.
Same goes for colors. The answer is always red, regardless of whether there is red or not. We try to set you up for success and only ask you what color things are when we see something red… like fire trucks.
You can jump off of a higher surface. In fact, without fail, each time we get to the last step of whatever staircase or stairwell, you insist on jumping off. You throw the biggest tantrum ever on the beach in Maui because you did not want to leave a rock you were jumping off over and over.
You ask to hold our hand when you’re going downstairs but are able to do it by yourself without a problem when we’re not around.
You can catch and kick and hit a ball. Papa’s pretty impressed with your drop kick.
You’ll sit and watch a cartoon, which is new. Bob the Builder is your favorite.
You’re scared of monsters. When we need you to listen, we tell you a monster is coming so you better “X”. It works 90% of the time.
You are destructive; you like chewing things up and knocking things over and taking things off and throwing things all over the place.
It’s obvious you’re a younger sibling; you’re obsessed with things being yours. If you get down off the sofa to go play with a toy and your Papa and I take over sitting where you were once sitting, you will come up and insist we move, declaring the seat yours. You get things taken from you left and right, so I get it.
You’re not much a cuddler. When you get hurt, you run to me but within a second of being in my arms you’re off and running as if nothing happened. I don’t think you’d even come to me for comfort if it wasn’t something that you’ve seen Hooper do; I think you’ve learned it from him but don’t need it whatsoever.
Favorites: Balls. Oh my, you have a ball in your hand almost constantly; tennis balls, soccer balls, basketballs, golf balls, bouncy rubber balls, beach balls… it matters not. You love holding the tennis racket over your shoulder and using it as a baseball bat. You also have a mean drop kick and some pretty good ball-catching skills. No matter where we go, you seem to find a ball. Within seconds of arriving at a park, you will have a ball – that does not belong to you – in your hands. We went to an open field the other day and you found a golf ball in the dirt. I’m convinced the balls find you just as well as you find them.
You love picture books and request to read the same books over and over and over again.
You also love riding on your Papa’s skateboard. Somehow it made it’s way from the garage to the family room. You like to sit on it or lay on your stomach and push around on your feet. Sometimes you’ll come up to me and ask to hold your hands so you can stand and try to balance.
I’m late on posting this, but what else is new. Your birthday is right around the corner…
Growth & Appearance: Your eyes appear hazel and while your hair is still blond as can be, I think it will turn brown in time. You’re wearing a size 7 shoe, size 4 diapers, size 3T pajamas, and size 2T clothing.
Talking: You have preferences now. Actually, I’m fairly certain you’ve always had them, but you can now communicate them. Or some of them, anyway. Here’s how our conversation went the other day in the bath:
Me: “Hooper, would you like to sit down in your bath?”
You: “Nooooo” (said so sweetly you could melt an ice cream cone)
Me: “You don’t like sitting down in your bath?”
You: “Nooooo”
Me: “How come?”
You: “Doo Daa… Hi-YEE!”
And that’s about the extent of it.
Your favorite word is “Hi-Yee” and you use it not only when you want to say hello to someone, but also when you’re in trouble and not sure what to say. There’s been several times we have taken you to the corner and scolded you only for you to look us dead in the eye and say “hi-yee”. I think it’s your go-to when you’re uncomfortable.
You’re saying a ton of two syllable words now. Our favorites include “pumm-mee” (pumpkin), “tra-tee” (tractor), “ta-tee” (tatoo), “da!” for motorcycle (I know, we’re confused too), and my most favorite of all: “bra-ba” for Barbara. You don’t know a Barbara, for the record. Again, you better pick up on our humor if you want to thrive in this family.
Before you go to bed, it’s become routine for your Papa to hold you and go through a series of new words you’ve been saying. It’s not for practice. This is purely for our own enjoyment. It goes a little something like this:
Papa: “Say bye”
You: “Bye-yee”
Papa: “Say pumpkin”
You: “pum-mee”
Papa: “Say Bananna”
You: “Bammmm-ma”
…and now…
Papa: “Say Barbara”
You: “Bra-ba”
I know, we’re weird. Welcome to the family.
Oh yes, you finally call Sarah by name. Only to call her by her nickname, “Gonlz” (which you pronounce “gone”, said like “cone” with a “g”). Never mind how she became known as “Gonlz”. What I will say is it’s a derivative of her prior nickname of “Sonlz”.
Feeding: I’m really making an effort to help you become more independent with your eating. I give you praise each time you use your utensils. It’s gotten a little bit better, but the improvement is so slow moving and mealtime, in general, takes forever. I’m eager for your two year check up so that I can confirm your weight is fine and I can relax and let you eat when you want at the speed you want. Though somehow I have a feeling I’ll still be a neurotic lunatic chasing you around with a spoonful of something.
Your favorite foods include the following: pesto chicken pasta, breaded chicken, bread, peas, kiwi, strawberries, cheese, chicken nuggets, mac n’ cheese, ground beef or turkey, and greek yogurt. You used to love scrambled eggs, but lately you’ve been doing this weird gag thing every time I give them to you.
I’m giving you breast milk again. Not to mistaken with breastfeeding. I have so much milk and I hate to waste a single drop, so I put whatever leftover milk I have into your bottle. One of these days I’m gonna slip it into your Papa’s glass too. Shh… don’t tell him.
Sleeping: If we are home for the day, you typically take two naps. The second one is much shorter than the first and sometimes we refer to it as “quiet time” instead of a nap because we can hear you in there rustling about the whole time. You’re sleeping nearly 12 hours at night (9:30pm to 9-ish am). You take your first nap around 10:30 or 11 am and wake up around 1:30ish pm. Then we put you down again around 5:30 and you rest for about an hour. If we’re out and about, you usually skip the second nap and pass out on the way home. You’re pretty adaptable and so long as you are entertained, you are not too grumpy even if you miss your nap.
Development: You love to give kisses. You kiss lots of inanimate objects. I caught you kissing the grapes I gave you as a snack. I’ve also heard you kissing your blanket during a nap. You have given kisses to the passing garbage truck, flowers in the yard, and mickey mouse on my shirt. You’re quite the lover these days. Van still gets more unsolicited kisses than anyone.
You are no longer shy. In fact, you say hello to everyone. We were leaving a restaurant the other day and you walked right up to a table and said hello to a little girl. She got down from her seat to say hello back. You gave her a hug goodbye and that was that.
We took our first road trip as a family this month and it went as smooth as possible. You’re very adaptable and easy going. You didn’t even mind sleeping in the little closet of our small room. You spent the long 6 hour drive watching the passing cars out the window, pointing out the trucks and motorcycles along the way. I hope you always stay this way, but I’m sure we’ll hit the “are we there yet?” blues at some point.
You love pointing. When you want to do something again, you raise your index finger up to your face like you just stumbled upon some bright idea and proclaim, “ghen” (again).
I still take you to your gym class, which you love now. You’ve fully come out of your shell and are the same madman there that you are at home.
Favorites: You still love your toy cars. Good thing you have a gazillion. You enjoying organizing them into piles or lines and then reorganizing them at a different location than before. You can almost always find at least seven cars on our sofa at any given time. You love coloring and like taking my writing pens out of the drawer and scribbling all over the paper at your little table. You also still love Gabba Gabba and insist on watching it daily. It’s a struggle for me. I’d much rather you play outside, but it keeps you entertained while I’m feeding you and I’m not sure how to get around that. I hate TV, I really do. Luckily, you do love going outdoors too. We’ve done a lot of fun things this month. You went to your first circus, which you loved. We went to the pumpkin patch and LA county fair. Also your first official road trip to San Francisco, where you went to the zoo. You’re a lucky little dude.
Growth & Appearance: Your hair remains oddly thick and coarse. We stopped shaving it in the midst of moving and have agreed to let it grow out mostly by default. As it’s grown out, it’s gotten blonder and blonder. It’s almost white now. A friend of ours said you look like Rod Stewart and your Papa and I agree. I mean, look. We’re considering a Rod Stewart costume for Halloween. Sorry. 
