2 Years Old: Jan 21, 2009

Okay, so this post is a little late, and there are no pictures. But at least I'm posting!!

Back at his 2 year appointment, Benjmain measured in at 3 feet and 32lbs (I think he would have been maybe 6 ounces left if they weighed him without his cloth diaper). The following is just a quick (ok, LONG but I tried!!) summary of his temperament and activities over the past year, or at least what I could remember to write down:

• Extremely active: loves to RUN (if he’s not confined – he is GONE!!), climb, jump and dance (if any music comes on, especially Mexican music, Ben dances like crazy).
• Adores all people we meet a lot of strangers now thanks to him having to say HI to everyone) and LOVES all dogs.
• LOVES to eat. We can always tell if he is sick if he is not inhaling his food. Veggies, fruit, meat - he eats more variety than I do!
• Still strongly allergic to eggs & nuts but we have been extremely careful this past year at avoiding them so we did not have to use our epi pen! We’ve also discovered a dog and cat allergy (they give him hives). He doesn’t react to Maully which is lucky for us and him since he just adores her. He has had a hard time with his asthma this past year and has required lots of steroid treatments.
• He was transitioned to a bed early December after he refused to stay in his crib. Took us 1 month to keep him in his bed. 1 week of him sleeping/not-sleeping on the floor beside his door. 3 weeks of us camping outside his door for 30min-3hr to place him back in his bed as soon as he escaped. And then 3 nights of us viewing him with a night vision webcam so we could go in and put him back in bed as soon as his feet hit the ground. We are now back to our wonderful 12hr nights and 3hr naps.
• His vocabulary is definitely growing, but we have a long way to go still. He has a very short fuse if we don’t understand instantly what he is saying. He has definitely mastered the important words – cookie, mine, more, NO, deetdee (TV), BYE (he will tell us this when we are telling him to stop doing something he’s not allowed. He smiles and waves Bye so we leave and he can return to his banned action), Mawwy Bed, 3-2-1 GO (his countdown to his running/jumping - of course it can often end up as 3-2-3-1-2 GO OO or some other variation). He also knows the letter “O”. He will make it with his mouth to show you or and will happily point it out to you wherever he sees it.