The Life of Rob & Jess Plus Two: December 2015

My sweet boy Parker,

I can’t believe you are 18 months! Where does time go?! I feel like it was just yesterday that we celebrated your one year birthday. The past six months have been filled with so many adventures and you’re growing up! You got your first haircut which really made you look like a little boy instead of a baby.

Your personality comes out more and more each day. You babble a lot more and like saying mama and dada. You know which one is which and point at us a lot. You also raise your little hands up to your head and say, “no” when you are trying to say, “I don’t know.” I’ll ask you, “where are your shoes, Parker? Can you find your shoes?” You’ll raise those little hands up and look at me with those blue eyes and say, “No?” But you will go look for them. You also know your friends names at schools. You’re favorite friend’s name to say is Enda. However, this also sounds very similar to “all done.” You can say Annabelle – “Annie”, Nathan—“Nay Nay”, Reya, Sophia—“Phia” and a whole host of others. However, you will NOT say your name for me or dad. You will say Parker all day long at school the teachers tell me, but you won’t do it for me. I really want to hear you say your name!

You are really good at giving hugs, but you generally like to give hugs after you have hit someone. You are definitely a little rough at times. When you don’t get your way, you think you can just hit something or someone. But, you know that’s wrong so you will immediately give a hug. Then, you will hit again. Then you will hug again. Repeat. I love Parker hugs, though. You hug really tight and will sometimes pat on the back and tuck your little head into my shoulder. Those are the best.

Being outside is still your most favorite thing EVER. You will just stand at the door and cry if we don’t let you go outside because you might possibly naked, have no shoes, its raining, its cold, its dark, etc. You don’t care. You want outside. You love to find acorns and hold them in your hands. You will collect so many, that you don’t understand that your hands are full. You are starting to hand some of them over so that you can collect more. I have even caught you eating them. I sometimes wonder how many acorns it takes before you become a squirrel. They have to be getting upset with you taking all of their acorns. You have thrown up after eating too many acorns, so I think you are starting to learn your lesson. We go for walks to the park, to the zoo, bike rides, etc. just about every weekend. You also love it when it rains and you can get wet outside and jump in puddles. Basically, you’re a boy. Inside and out.

You like to brush your teeth before bedtime. Really, I think you like the taste of the “toothpaste” and enjoy sucking it off the brush. But, you let me brush all your teeth so that’s what counts. You climb up onto the stool and put both your hands up on the countertop with a big smile on your face. You can barely see over the counter even with the stool and you’re usually naked while we brush your teeth, so it makes for an adorable memory.

You also enjoy taking a bath now. It was a long time coming. Right around your first birthday was when you decided you hated taking a bath. You wouldn’t sit down in the water, would cry nonstop and no toy could sway you to calm down. Eventually, I decided I would just climb on in with you. I had to do this for about a week. Let me tell you, taking a bath with little water that is just ‘warm’ is not that enjoyable for mom. But, you liked it so I kept doing it just for you. Dad couldn’t take the cold… he only did it once. ;-) We practiced washing our legs, feeling how the soap felt on the wash cloth, played with the toys and that seem to calm you down to where you weren’t afraid to sit in the water. You’ve been taking good baths ever since!

You love your daddy. But, this is just more of the same. You really love to play chase with your daddy. You don’t sit down at all at home. You and him are pulling zebra and a truck around the house on a string and giggling like crazy. You have developed a little affinity for books. You are big fan of, “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.” (…I don’t know why she swallowed that fly, she won’t say why!--- you love this part of the story and will hold your hands up and say, “no” because you don’t know why!). You mostly like just looking at the pictures of books and saying the sounds of the animals. You also like all truck books. We have truck book that plays sounds (honk the horn of an 18-wheeler, siren of a fire truck, dump truck, etc). You like to listen and push the buttons on that book. You also like your Blue Truck books, though you don’t want them read to you. You just want to find the blue truck on each page and say, truck (“uck”). You should also know that daddy has tons of books memorized already. He has your blue truck books, the old lady book, and chica chica boom boom all memorized. Maybe a few others I can’t think of.

You are paci free. We’ve been paci free since around Thanksgiving. You weren’t using it at daycare anymore, so I think we were just using it as a crutch around the house and in car rides. So, one day I just put them away and you didn’t even notice.

You are obsessed with stuffed animals. You sleep with about 8 of them in your crib. You carry 2 or 3 in your arms. We still have stuffed dog (from ikea that is life-sized) that you call “dog” and you like daddy to chase you with it. But, you will cuddle with all of them, still. You just grab everything that will fit into your arms and then tuck your head into them and fall to the ground. It’s quite adorable. The way to your heart is with a stuffed animal.

Mom & Dad went on their first vacation that you didn’t come on (Mexico). Mom and Dad had a very good time, but really missed you! Though, I don’t think you really missed us. You had so much fun with DD Nana and T-Pa! Really, you did. They have some good pictures to show for it. When we came back it took you a couple of minutes to realize that we were really back. I think you were kind of in shock. Then, you went CRAZY for the rest of the evening. You were running around, banging maracas together, playing “Away in the Manger” on the toy Nativity set and just generally being crazy. You were just super excited, I think. It was sweet.

You are still my little sleeper. I love that about you. We are eternally grateful and I pray to Jesus that you will always be this way. J You go to bed between 7:30 and 8 and sleep until 8:30 on the weekends (we wake you up at 6:40 on weekdays). You take a 2.5-3 hour (2 hours at daycare) nap at home as well starting around 12:30/1. Even if you wake up early, you just sit and play with your stuffed animals until we come up and get you which is always at 8:30. You also tell us when you want to take a nap and walk yourself to the stairs. All we do is drop you in the crib and you bury your head in your stuffed animals and walk away. I really think getting rid of the baby monitor has helped with this—we never come get you when you wake up. You know when we are going to come get you.

You are doing well at daycare. You know some of your colors.. red, yellow, blue. You also know a lot of animal sounds (horse, goat, lion, bear, sheep, cow, bird, frog, dog). I’m very impressed with this. You also love to paint. Mom bought you some finger paints and a giant roll of paper for you to play with under supervision. If you see paint, you get really excited! You know exactly what to do. You stick your whole hand in it and then make 1,000 handprints. I love it! You have gotten a few illnesses (cue Hand Foot & Mouth) over the past 18 months, but you handled them like a champ.

We are working on getting you to hold hands more frequently. You like to just run off and our neighborhood doesn’t have sidewalks, so it makes mom really nervous. You aren’t really into riding in your stroller. You’d rather be out running crazy. You will ride in your trike though still and will ride in your wagon. You also like to push the strollers and pull the wagon.

What other adventures have we done?! We go to the zoo a lot and let you be free. You will pay attention to the elephants, but for the most part… you just like to walk up and down the ramps that are at each exhibit. We went to Arkansas for Labor Day weekend and you got to ride on your first boat with Uncle Travis. He also pulled you on your first tube ride!!! You didn’t care for the life jacket too much, either. Mom also took you to see Santa. You weren’t a huge fan, but you did like the stuffed monkey the photographer had, so that calmed you down. J

You love, love T-Pa. I think in general you seem to like men more than females. Must be a boy thing. You just adore T-Pa. You stop whatever you are doing when you hear his voice and say “Pa, Pa, Pa” over and over. Ya’ll have a good time together—you carved pumpkins, did yardwork, went on walks, etc with him over these past few months. You like DD Nana, too. You always pick up my phone and say, “Nana,” because you know you she will pop up on the screen (FaceTime).

You watch absolutely zero TV. Zero. You have no interest.

You are such a fun boy, Parker! You are so energetic and full of life. You exhaust me sometimes! We always stay busy with you and laugh with you. I’m so glad you are mine. Here are few other bullets for your 18-month milestone:

· You wear size 4 diapers and BM twice a day. You get the worst diaper rash ALL the time! If your poo hits your bare bottom, it’s all over. Apparently, you are really allergic to the acid in your poo.

· You tell me when you have “Poo Poo.” I think we are close to potty-training!

· You wear size 12-18 month clothes. You can only wear jeans/pants if they have elastic in the waist band.

· You wear a size 6 shoe.

· You are pretty good eater, except for when it comes to vegetables. I’ve tried everything, I feel like. You will sometimes eat carrots. And sweet potatoes… do those count? There are some days that I feel like you just don’t eat, but then another day you will scarf your entire meal down. My philosophy is becoming, you’ll eat when you’re hungry.

· Your favorite foods are spaghetti (glad this hasn’t changed!), chicken nuggets, blueberries, yogurt, waffles, orange slices from chickfila (must be from chickfila.. or else you won’t eat them), bananas, hot dogs, hamburgers, grapes, steak and mashed potatoes. We always give you what we have dinner as well. You will eat most meats and fruits it seems.

· You know where your hands, feet, toes, eyes, nose and ears are. When we say, “Where are your hands, Parker?” you raise your hands up real big and then clap them together!

· Your favorite stuffed animal is elephant. You call him “elpha.” Your next favorite stuffed animals are giraffe, dog and lamb.

· For some reason, you are rebelling against getting your fingernails clipped. It’s like going to battle with you and the clippers.

· We’ve started doing time-outs with you and you aren’t a very big fan of them. I usually have to sit on you to be still. We also will swat your hands or leg if it’s particularly problematic. But, you’ve started swatting us back, so I think I may stop doing that for a while.

· You love, love to swing. I think you could swing at the Park for over an hour. You especially love it when someone runs under the swing… you think its hilarious (cue Mom & Dad pretending you’re going to hit us while swinging).

· Still have a thing for water outside… the muddier and bigger the puddle, the happier you are. You don’t even care if its cold outside.

· You like to chase after live dogs in the park. Once you get to pet them though you are usually done and walk away.

· You will play on the playset at the park and will go down slides. But, you pretty much only do all of that if some kid catches your attention and you try to copy him. Otherwise, its all about the swing.

· You have almost all of your teeth! Your bottom incisors are still growing in and then all we have left are the back (two-year old) molars. YES! I can’t wait to be done with teeth!

· You don’t care for going to church nursery. In general, you have a hard time being left with people that you don’t know. So, it doesn’t help that the church nursery staff changes in your room quite a bit. You cry pretty much the whole time and look relieved to be picked up every time.

· We got you a Duplo block set that you are entertained with. You know how to connect up to three blocks at a time. I call that success!

You have changed so much in 18 months baby boy. You become more of a ‘person’ each and every day. I love watching you learn new things and seeing your personality shine through. I can see that you are going to be a bit hard-headed and you get frustrated when things don’t work for you right away… that’s mom’s perfectionism coming out. J Mom and Dad love you baby boy, always and forever.