There isn’t any point pretending Little Evan isn’t a full-blown person-type human anymore. There’s almost no trace of baby left on him, as if every night in his bath we wash another layer off, revealing the Big Kid underneath. He carries a (toy) phone in his pocket for goodness sake. Next week he’ll be asking for the keys so he can pick up his friends for a movie. BUT I WILL SAY NO. At least not until he takes out the trash and feeds the dog.

I am constantly amazed by how much he takes in and remembers about our days and conversations. It makes me feel like all the shlepping around and packing and planning actually MEANS something to him, even if he is too young to remember it when he’s older. But when he’s still asking about “Farm? Sheep-baa? Go, mama? Friends?” a week after we went to the farm it makes me smile. It also breaks my heart that I promised him a ride on the horse-drawn carriage at Mystic Seaport last weekend but had to cancel due to my foot-sprain and every time we get in the car now he asks about the “horse-boat?” Soon, Buddy! As soon as I can walk I PROMISE.

He has a funny way of saying words that are more than one syllable that is totally adorable but means I have to serve as a translator with most grown-ups. (Kids, on the other hand, understand him even better than I do.) For example, he says “Plees. Car.” for “police car” and “Bass. Ball. Net.” for “basketball net”. He recently learned to love my singing – bless his heart – and will request songs by singing his own mini-version or with hand motions. His favorites are Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Baa Baa Black Sheep, You Are My Sunshine and Happy Birthday.

Little Evan took a four hour nap at some point last week and woke up 2 full inches taller. All the 24 month summer clothes I bought him are too small, and he’s safely in a 2T or even a 3T and a size 6 shoe. He’s still in a size 5 diaper and will probably be in them for a while. We’re taking a casual approach to potty training that’s not stressing anyone out but is also going to take a looooong time. But we’re OK with that.

Favorite things include books, running, pointing out basketball nets, his baby sister, boats, horses, Daddy, his friends, napping with his blankets, taking pictures, splashing and the iPad. Least favorite things include being tired, hearing no, water when he can’t touch the bottom, swallowing strange food (he’ll put it in his mouth and chew it up), and being buckled in the stroller.

Damn those birds! Why are they so angry?!

Eyelashes & rosy cheeks

So much attitude for someone who can't wipe his own butt.

27 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Jumps with both feet – Yes, jumping has always been one of his strong points.
• Opens doors – Yes, both the regular doorknob kind and the lever kind. Like, for instance, on our back screen door. Which means he can escape the house.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Understands descriptions (e.g., big, soft) – I’d say about 80% of the time yes. He knows a bunch of colors, and big and small, and mama’s vs. dada’s vs. baby’s, and a bunch more. You can say “Evan, go get that round thing over there” and he will go get it.
• Draws a vertical line – He’s not too interested in drawing, but he can use his finger to make a straight line on an iPad (totally counts).

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Starts to recognize ABCs – Starts, yes. I’m thrilled to see this on the “advanced” skills for his age, because it seems like TONS of my internet friends have toddlers younger than Evan who already know almost all their letters. I was worried I’d been failing Evan somehow by not doing alphabet drills before and after every nap time. But how do you FORCE a 2 year old to learn his letters when he’s busy kicking balls and playing Angry Birds? Now that he likes playing with his VTech magnet letter thing he recognized a lot more of them.
• Balances on one foot – Yes, and I know this because he puts his pants on like a REAL PERSON now. I almost cried the first time I realized I didn’t have to make him lie down to get dressed.

We had the Birth to 3 people come out for Little Evan’s speech evaluation yesterday. They scheduled it for 1 pm which is an hour past his normal nap time, so when Evan started asking “night night? night night” before noon I knew it was going to be a LOOOONG afternoon. He actually did pretty well, only reaching that crazy level of exhaustion-induced hyperactivity for the last few minutes of the appointment.

Of course, he’s still a toddler, so his general behavior was in the realm of “I DO WHAT I WANT” for the whole hour. After the fourth time he almost hit the therapist in the face with his miniature hockey stick E took it away and an EPIC meltdown ensued – just at the exact moment the evaluator asked “Does he demonstrate appropriate negative emotions?”

Um, is standing in the middle of the kitchen wailing with giant tears running down his face because we took his stick away “appropriate”?

Turns out the answer is YES. BECAUSE HE IS TWO.

The evaluation was actually for all sorts of possible developmental problems, including an early screening for autism spectrum disorders. They brought toys and games and asked him to stack rings and point at items and identify pictures and show off his motor skills. There was one test that involved matching items on little cards (where’s the other spoon? where’s the other dog?) but he was totally over it after less than 30 seconds and ran off to chase the cat. The therapist actually skipped that test completely, because although not being able to focus long enough to participate is unhelpful, it wasn’t a measure of his ability to complete the task and she didn’t want to score him a zero on that one test when he could complete all the others.

The other 50% of the evaluation was questions for me ranging from my pregnancy to how Little Evan handles meeting strangers to what goals we have as a family. (I bombed on that last one BTW. I had no clue. She said some people say to be healthier as a family or to buy a bigger house or maybe a new car. I said “I just want us all to be happy” which makes me sound like a Miss USA contestant.) She asked a series of questions until we reached one where I gave a “wrong” answer, even if it meant going far past the skills they expect a 26 month old to have mastered. Not knowing which answer I was supposed to give made my palms sweat, but both women were so nice and very willing to help me explain and elaborate on my answers until they really understood what Evan’s typical behavior would be.

E came home from work early to be here for the meeting, which was both helpful – when dealing with EPIC TODDLER MELTDOWN – and unhelpful – when the evaluator asked “Does he have trouble separating from mom and dad, even with other familiar adults?”

“Not at all” said I.

“Absolutely” said E.

After a few minutes of clarification and discussion, we decided that we were both right. When we are all at home in the family room and one parent leaves Little Evan will scream and cry and throw a fit because someone is going somewhere and it is probably fun and how DARE they not take him TOO??! But when it comes to allowing another adult to provide for him he doesn’t care at all who it is. He let my father-in-law (who he hadn’t seen in months) put him to bed in an unfamiliar bedroom in Ohio without any problems. He regularly wanders off to the bathroom with my friend Cheri when she takes her son. He will ask anyone who happens to be around for help if he needs it. Apparently a lack of stranger-danger is OK at two, although I am suddenly much more worried about someone snatching him in public because he’d happily go without any protest. We should work on that.

But we WON’T be working with the Birth to 3 people anymore, because after an hour the therapist determined he’s totally normal for a 2 year old and we did not qualify for services. Which is good news. They assured me his vocabulary is fine and that they could understand a lot of what he said and that he had no other signs of any sort of delay. Some of their statistics were really reassuring – the 50 words by 2 is only a general guideline because that’s the point when kids start to put 2 words together and THAT is the real milestone for normal development. Little Evan has recently added “I” in front of most of his statements  – “I slide! I wash! I stink! I fall down!” – so we’ve got 2 work phrases down. They also said a parent should be able to understand 60-70% of their child’s words at this age, which is almost exactly where we are. The speech therapist also confirmed that a child with advanced motor skills (she was REALLY impressed he can hit a ball with a hockey stick with direction) might take longer when it comes to verbal skills. I know it’s something people SAY but to hear it from an expert was nice.

One suggestion from the speech therapist that I really loved was to qualify and expand on the words he does have when he says them. When Evan points at a balloon and says “bah-oon!” instead of just saying “Yes that’s right!” I should say “Yes! That’s a red balloon! A big red balloon!”. I don’t know why I never thought of that on my own, but now I’m going to make a real effort to do it for all his words.

Two more things that made me really happy: First, we’re elligable for a development evaluation every 3 months, so if 12 weeks from now I’m still concerned they will come back and do it again. Second, at no point did they tell me I was over-reacting, concerned for no reason, imagining things or silly. I was actually more afraid of being laughed at than I was they would find something wrong and suggest we start therapy. But this evaluation couldn’t have gone better.

So if you’re wondering if you should mention your developmental concerns to your pediatrician? The answer is YES. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted and I can go back to just enjoying being mom to a toddler.

Hello, I like to speak to whoever is in charge of turning my little baby boy into this GIANT PERSON. I am dissatisfied with the speed at which it is happening and would like it to slow down immediately. Thank you.

There’s nothing like bringing home a new baby to make your old baby seem, well, old. Although some of it isn’t just in my head – I ask Little Evan to help out a lot more than I used to and so he’s learning responsibility pretty fast. I know “go throw this diaper away” or “bring mommy her iPhone” isn’t rocket science but it’s still cool to see him understand and follow through. Most of the time. Sometimes he gets weirdly possessive of the dirty diapers and cries when we throw them away. And sometimes he throws them at my face. Oh, toddlers.

In “things I really dislike” news, we’ve officially reached a point where I can’t help comparing my kid to other kids and worry about his development. Why doesn’t he talk more? Should he be saying more words? Why doesn’t he know his letters or numbers? Which of course leads to mountains of Mommy Guilt – although some of it might be just a little bit deserved. If I haven’t really been teaching him letters and numbers how is he supposed to learn them? I’ve been so focused on words (and words that actually SOUND like the words they’re meant to be) I totally skipped the alphabet. I guess I thought we had some time before I needed to start on that sort of learning, but based on my Twitter/internet friends we’re now way behind. And although I love his babbling gibberish I’m starting to feel like people are judging me in public because he doesn’t speak more clearly or say more words. One of my goals this month is to write down a list of all the words he DOES say so at his 24 month check-up I can ask the doctor if he thinks we should look into speech therapy.

Luckily the BabyCenter milestones for this month don’t include language skills so I can try to stop worrying for a little while longer. Oh! Although I have news on the block-stacking front! The other day I caught him making HUGE towers of blocks upstairs in the playroom, so I guess I no longer have to be bitter that he missed all those previous block-stacking milestones. TAKE THAT BABYCENTER.

22 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Kicks ball forward – He’s a soccer player in the making.
• Follows two-step requests (e.g., “Get your doll and bring it here”) – Yes! He could probably follow a three or four step request. Understanding language is not our problem.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Does simple puzzles – Does this mean the wood cut-out ones? Because we’re working on those and he’s getting there but he loses interest pretty fast.
• Draws a straight line – Maybe accidentally. He likes coloring in theory a lot more than coloring in practice.
• Names several body parts – Yes. Especially my boobs.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Puts on loose-fitting clothes – Sometimes, although he has a problem understanding pants and shirts are not the same. Also that pants are not hats.
• Might be ready for a big bed – I’m planning to make the switch for his 2nd birthday. The problem is it involves a lot more than just switching the crib for a bed because the room isn’t very childproof and if he got up to play he could ruin a LOT of stuff before I noticed. But I’m hopeful that the actual transition to the bed will go well.
• Understands opposites (e.g., tall vs. short) – I don’t know? He understand enough differences that I can ask him to bring me one of two similar things and he gets the right one but I’m not sure we encounter a lot of opposites.

This morning in a desperate attempt to calm a temper tantrum I let him try out the piano for the first time and he loved it. He clearly heard the differences in the notes and loved sliding down to press the lowest ones and then reaching up to the highest ones. He also taught himself that pressing one key at a time made a different noise than smashing down a whole bunch. I’m not saying he’s an OMG MUSICAL GENIUS or anything, but it’s nice that he enjoys it.

Hmmm...time to write my materpiece!

Definitely need some of these notes up here

Brilliance has struck!

Stop bothering me while I'm composing!!

Now for the BIG FINISH

That's it! I shall touch it no more. My work is perfect.

Apparently I found the threshold at which I can no longer remember to celebrate Little Evan’s every monthday, and that threshold was 19 months. So…Happy Monthday Baby! Good thing you can’t read a calendar yet so you have no idea Mama is three days late! Let’s blame it on the hell known as Daylight Savings Time aka the longest day of the toddler year. SO SO LONG.

But lateness is no excuse to skip my milestone update entirely, so let’s do this thing!

Except when I went to look at the chart it turns out we’ve officially moved to the 19-24 month level, which is WAY TOO MANY MONTHS. Why are there so many months?! (Please say that last part in the “Why are there so many ostriches?” Don Knotts on Family Guy voice, because that’s totally how I hear it in my head)(Apologies to those who have no idea what I’m talking about.)

Sob sob sob Mah bebeh is so biiiiig! Sob sob sob

OK, I’m done now.

19 Month Milestones (from Baby Center, as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Uses a spoon and fork – I wouldn’t say he’s ready for dinner with the Queen, but he does OK
• Runs – Fast
• Throws a ball underhand – Overhand, with enough aim to hit almost anyone in the face
• Enjoys helping around the house – Define “helping”. I would say “is as interested in helping around the house as any 19 month old, especially when it involves cleaning up messes he would rather continue to make.”

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Understands as many as 200 words – Am I supposed to be counting? He definitely understands at least 90% of the stuff I say TO him, and probably 50% of the stuff I say in general. I can say something like “Why don’t you go get your milk – it’s over there by the dishwasher – and then sit in your chair and watch the football game?” And he will do all those things, while also saying “milk” “football” and “touchdown!!!”
• Recognizes when something is wrong (e.g., calling a dog a cat) – I…don’t know? Is that a game we should be playing? It seems sort of mean.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Washes and dries own hands with help – He LOVES to wash his hands, but it’s not really a help-free activity
• Points to picture or object when you call it by name – Very good at animals, trucks/cars, babies. Not so good at everything else.
• May know when she needs to pee – No, but we usually get a poop warning. Although honestly, teaching him the sign for “potty” has been one of the best things I’ve done, simply because I can explain to him “mama’s going to the potty so she’ll be right back.” And now I get to pee (or hide out and take a few deep breaths) in peace.

In other toddler news, we’re having some trouble with both “no” and “stop” especially in regards to “hitting mommy” and “jumping on mommy’s belly”. I’m planning to set up a time-out zone (aka the Pack-n-Play in the boring living room) and start enforcing time-outs in a calm, non-shouty manner when calm, non-shouty instructions are not followed, but I have very little faith it will result in anything more than 2 minutes of hysterical screaming and crying.

Our super easy bedtimes have regressed a little to mostly easy naps but bedtime crying when he realizes he might be missing out on something fun. Rocking & book reading doesn’t really help – he just needs a few minutes to be sad before he goes to sleep, most of the time for 11-12 hours straight. I’m starting to worry a little about sleep-regression issues after the new baby comes, but figure it’s best not to dwell on it and just take an extra nap whenever I can.

But in general, this is SUCH a fun age. He’s fun to hang out with and capable of entertaining himself long enough that I can still get things done (for example, as I write this, he has dragged his blankie over himself & the dog and is curled up drinking his milk, totally content to be hanging with his BFF). He can make most of his wants/needs known clearly so there aren’t many frustrated crying fits. We still haven’t seen much stranger anxiety – just a little shyness that I swear he fakes just because it makes ladies at the grocery store say “awwwwwww”. And there is no way to explain to a non-parent just how exciting it is when your kid learns a new word/sign/skill. You can practically SEE his brain growing and it makes my heart feel all bursty every single time.

My goal for month 19 is to trick force bribe encourage Little Evan to eat more vegetables, even if it means I have to soak them in ranch dressing. If you see me tweeting about dinner ideas, please remind me that meat with a side of pasta and cheese is NOT a balanced meal and green things won’t kill us. Hopefully my 20 month update will include an extensive list of new healthy foods Little Evan now loves.

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I have TWO more winners to announce this morning!

The winner of the adorable green polka-dot Gussy pouch I am crying a little bit over parting with is…

#12 Merin!! Since this giveaway is coming from me personally, I’ll be sure to get you your pouch ASAP. Although it might involve making you drive to my house to get it.

And the winner of the Phoebe Mouse & the book is…

#18 Robyn! Conrgats mama, I KNOW you’re little girl will love Phoebe! I will email you to get your address and send her out some time this week.

Thanks to everyone who entered – I was blown away by how many people entered the Phoebe giveaway, considering it wasn’t made by a fancy handmade seller but just by me. Or, more likely, everyone just wanted the adorable book and planned to throw Phoebe in the trash as soon as they got her.

The LAST open giveaway is from Becca at Hugs & Kisses Designs. Get in your entries now – it’s got less than 50 as of this morning, so you’ve got a pretty good chance to in yourself something REALLY pretty.

I was too busy passing my baby off on other people to do a post in honor of his 17 month milestone this weekend. Yes, I am a terrible, neglectful, horrible mother AND I DON’T EVEN CARE A TEENY TINY BIT. It was actually a much more important milestone for E and me – we’ve never turned baby bedtime over to anyone else before. My parents swear it was fine besides some protests over the big, slippery bath tub and Baby Evan was so exhausted from TWO dogs and several balls that he slept in later than I did every day. We are now one step closer to hiring an actual non-related baby sitter so we can make date night a regular event.

Ok, I swear I am done talking about how much we needed that break. Over. Done.

We really needed a break. A together break. Couple time is totally different from just a mommy break.

Sorry. Now let’s talk about my kid!

17 month milestones from Baby Center, as usual

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Uses six words regularly – Yes, sort of, maybe. Most days it feels like the only two words he says are “dog” and “ball”. DOG! BALL! DOG! BALL! And new from this weekend, “DOGBALL!” – as in the ball that belongs to the dog and is not for babies. Definitely yes if you count signs.
• Enjoys pretend games – Maybe? I’m not always sure what he’s doing when he entertains himself. I guess he’s pretending. He is very good at making imaginary phone calls.
• Likes riding toys – Loves riding toys. Especially the dog. He also tried to ride his little V-Tech helicopter today with very poor results.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Feeds doll – He’d rather feed Mommy or Daddy or Brutus. He’s very good at sharing food.
• Speaks more clearly – Well, “NO” no sounds exactly like “NO” instead of “neeaaawwwoo!!” He can also add “no” to any other word to make a sentence – “no dog!” “no ball!” “no dada!” “no book!”
• Throws a ball underhand – My kid is a ball throwing genius. He’s been throwing overhand (on the chart as an “advanced skill” at 18 months) for months already and has EXCELLENT aim. He can also catch the small blue ball about 50% of the time, which isn’t even on the under-two charts. Now we just have to decide which sports to sign him up for. (Football? Baseball?)

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Dances to music – He is a dancing FOOL. I swear I’ll get good video some time soon, but most of his dancing is to commercials on TV (add one more point to the bad mommy tally) so it’s only for a few seconds. He also “sings” sometimes, which is adorable.
• Sorts toys by color, shape, or size – Are they balls? He can sort those. He doesn’t really play with the toys specifically made for sorting yet, but he can sort his food based on color.
• Kicks ball forward – BAAAAAAALL!!!!! So, yes. (Soccer?)

A quick round-up of everything else: Baby Evan has 12 teeth – only missing the 2 year molars and the four canines. He’s going to get his first haircut soon, unless I can’t bring myself to do it because I don’t think the back-of-the-head curls are going to grow back and I love them SO SO much. He still refuses to wear shoes most of the time, although that’s mostly because he has TEENY TINY MIDGET FEET and all his cute size 5 sneakers are still too big and the size 4’s pinch his toes. He goes to sleep after a bath and a book without any protest, sleeps from 8 pm to 8 am and takes a 2-3 hour nap around 1 o’clock. (Do not ask me how we managed that, it was blind luck and a good tempered kid). We are still using cloth diapers during the day and disposables at night or when we travel, a system that works really well for us. Baby Evan is a champ at riding in the car, riding in the stroller and going new places. He loves everyone and gives out hugs and high-fives within minutes of meeting strangers. It is AMAZING to watch him grow into an actual little person, although sometimes littler person opinions can be a challenge. And I’ve got to stop laughing at his temper tantrums or I’ll encourage the banging-his-head-against-the-floor-and-stomping-his-feet-fits he’s recently started. They’re just so hilarious, especially since he knows not to hit people and dogs and often flounces off to hit a couch or a wall instead. Oh the flouncing.

Happy 17 months Baby Evan! I promise to stop calling you Baby really really soon!

Hockey? Daddy would like that one best. And yes, again, hobo baby wears no shoes.

Two of his favorite things: Dog and Yarn.

Food breakthrough: HUMMUS. Spinach and artichoke here. The mess is definitely worth the nutritional value.

Party Baby!! It's a whistle from the bachelorette party that I sadly broke just a few minutes after Baby Evan figured out how it worked. "Accidentally" broke, of course.

And here’s your bonus Baby Evan video of the week: attempting to jump. Jumping isn’t on the milestone chart until almost 2 years, so clearly these attempts are early and understandably less than perfect. But he loves doing it!

Sorry about the video, I forgot to turn my phone sideways & the quality isn’t very good, but you can get the idea.

(Maybe not basketball)