The Life of Rob & Jess Plus Two: Parker's 2.5 Year Update!

Well my first born, you have changed quite a bit in the past six months! Or rather, life in general has changed quite a bit since June! You are now a big brother and you are such a big helper! I will never forget the first time you met baby brother, Andrew. You walked into the hospital room with DD Nana with a “I’m scared” look on your face. I could tell the tears were about to start rolling… but then you noticed the baby I was holding. You walked right on up to me and climbed on the bed, held your hands out and said, “Need that.” It’s been a love relationship with your brother ever since. After that moment in the hospital you’d hold your hands out and say “Hold him.” You were quite enamored with the new baby for the first few days.

You are such a big helper, too! You love to run and get diapers, wipes and “oye-ment” [ointment] for us. One time Andrew had quite the poop explosion that resulted with poop everywhere.. like the floor, daddy’s shirt, daddy’s pants, mommy’s foot, the closet door and the wall. It was amazing… I’d never seen anything like it. So now, anytime Andrew poops you always say, “Andew poops on daddy’s shirt!” or “Andew poop on mommy’s foot!” or even “Andew make big poops!”

This update might include a lot of poop/potty talk because besides getting a big brother we’ve been potty training you and poop was a BIG, BIG deal. We started at the end of July and did the bare-bottom weekend with you. It was CRAZY. We scared you half to death trying to run you to the potty… so much so, that you refused to sit on the little potty. The first day was pretty much you peeing everywhere and mom trying to catch the pee. I felt like I needed a potty tool belt that was equipped with wipes, cups, sanitizer and the like. It did not go well. But, you started to catch on for day 2 and 3. With pee at least. It took us 3 MONTHS to get you poop in the potty. You refused—you would just hold it for forever and poop in your pants. So, mom had to result to giving you a laxative of sorts and just sit you on the potty until you pooped. That kickstarted it for us. You cried though. It was a traumatic experience. I can now officially say that you are daytime potty-trained! The book Oh Crap Potty Training was a god-send. You haven’t had a poop accident since before Andrew was born and only randomly have a pee accident when you get too focused on an activity and we forget to tell you to go potty. They are few and far inbetween.

Potty training has been such an experience for us—we read what seemed like every book possible about pooping. I will never forget reading “Everybody Poops” which is a book about animals and people pooping. You would scream out Elephants make “BIG poop!” and a mouse makes “TIIINNNNYYY Poop!” A one hump camel makes “ONE HUMP POOP!” and a two hump camel makes “TWO HUMP POOP!” I can’t even say the word tiny without picturing you yelling out “TTTIIINNNYYY POOP.” We talk about pooping and peeing a lot. That has literally been our world for the past 6 months. We carry a potty chair in the back of our car and a potty seat in the diaper bag. I’ve got post-it notes to put over the automatic flushers, too. That way the auto flush doesn’t go off while you’re sitting there. When you first getting the hang of it, when you’d poop in the potty you’d raise your fists up and yell, BIGGG POOOOP!” You were so proud of yourself and so were mom and dad. Now, you thank Jesus for big poops and pee at your nighttime prayers.

I haven’t attempted to get you to be potty trained at night yet. That seems like a feat that will be impossible. You don’t seem bothered by wet sheets or anything, so you don’t even wake up when you pee in your bed. So, our goal is to get you potty trained at night by the time you are 3. I think we’ll pretty much have to eliminate drinks after like 4 PM to get you stay dry… you’re a very deep sleeper it appears.

Let’s see.. what else?! Your vocabulary has exploded [and continues to explode!] and you can say sentences now. How crazy is that?! I love listening to you talk and I think you are maybe slight ahead of your peers right now when it comes to your pronunciation of words and the amount of actual words you say. You just love to talk!

Your favorite thing is still to jump on the trampoline with dad. You call it the “jumpleen” though. You do seat drops over and over again and just jump. You could literally do it for hours and hours. One of your birthday presents was a marble run and you really loved helping dad set up the run and then watching all of the marbles run down. You’d jump up and down and say, “yay marbles yay!” You seem to be losing your enthusiasm slightly for it recently but that could be because we’ve lost most of our marbles… they’ve descended down the toilet or otherwise been thrown around/lost by you. We started with 15 marbles and now are down to two.

You still love all things elephants. You have recently started wanting mom to sleep with you--- I don’t even know where you get this idea b/c we’ve never slept with you before. You seem to have become scared that we will leave you. I think it has a little bit to do with Andrew being around and knowing/sensing that I spend all day with him at home right now and see me with him a whole lot. You’re still my good little sleeper though—we went through about a week long phase of you not wanting to go to sleep for naps/night but luckily that was short-lived!

Your crib is filled with animals (3 elephants), red blanket, pumpkin towel, parker-saurus towel and giraffe towel. You even like to sleep with a pair of pants and your “fuzzy ball” hat. For some reason you want to sleep with your bath towels. But, whatever floats your boat when it comes to sleep!

We are in the throes of the terrible two’s. If this is bad I really don’t want to see the horrible three’s. You want to do many things by yourself and get frustrated when you can’t actually do them and you want things done a particular way. You say no a lot and “I want..” a lot. Some days you just have meltdown after meltdown. You do best when we go out do something. But, even then… you can just plain have a bad day. I’m working on trying to get you to understand the emotions you’re feeling and letting you work through it, but I’m not gonna lie… it’s hard! I sometimes feel like I’m failing you because my patience is short at times.

You still dig trucks and rocketships. In fact, we made you a bulldozer costume for Halloween, but you insisted on being an elephant. So, an elephant you were! The cutest elephant there ever was I might add! You loved trick or treating this year, too!

Let’s see…. Food. Some days you love it and some days you could care less. I have to remind myself this is pretty normal. In general, you like noodles, chicken, steak, sausage and turkey. You also like oranges and strawberries. Blueberries have gone by the wayside. You can eat a baked potato like nobody’s business, too. You also love all things yogurt. We made a ton of homemade smoothies during potty training whereby I would throw in some flax seeds and coconut oil to keep your stool soft and make you go regularly. You thought I was just putting in “butter.” Mom’s a trickster! Hehe! It really helped you, though! You eat yogurt for breakfast every morning along with either pancakes, sausage biscuits, cheerios or waffles (all frozen!). You also have a strawberry smoothie for breakfast, too. Then, you might have another smoothie or another yogurt after nap. Yogurt is your thing! You also like goldfish and the Nature Valley Soft Baked peanut butter bars. You are also really into chocolate milk… just like your daddy!

Overall, it’s been so fun to watch you grow. You are quite a big taller and look more and more like your dad each day, I think! You are full of energy and don’t like to sit still [will you ever?!]. You can count to 15 and know your ABC’s. It’s so cute to hear you sing them. You know all of your trucks—thanks to TWENTY TRUCKS you tube channel. We can just drive down the road and you’ll start yelling them out. You are a bossy little thing—it’s your way or complete meltdown ensues. I have no idea where you get that from. J

The bright and shiny of having a baby brother has kind of worn off in the last month and half or so. I think you realize that this baby is staying with us and sometimes you feel a little resentful that we spend time with Andrew, too. But, when you don’t think we’re paying attention you will go up to Andrew and try to tickle him the way mom and dad do and talk in a real baby voice. It’s the most adorable thing. I know you love him and he’ll get more playful, soon! You will give him your elephant and like to see Andrew in the morning. You give Andrew hugs and kisses every night.. you really are a good big brother already!

We spent Thanksgiving at the beach and you loved it even though it was cold. I’m excited to take you back there this summer. You loved the waves and would say 1-2-3 Blast Off before you jumped in the water. You also did seat drops in the cold water, too. It doesn’t bother you that the ground is hard, haha.

You love to read books. You’ll say, mommy, read that one and you’ll pick up your own book and flip through the pages. We read 3-5 books a night and you seem to have most of them memorized—which I think is amazing because I don’t think you are usually too much attention to me. But, somehow you are!

So, here’s some more fun stuff that you’ve been up to these past six months:

Weigh around 31lbs and are just over 3 ft tall!! You can see over the kitchen counters! Aah!
Wear size 8 shoes and are just about into a size 9.
Will do just about anything for a sucker.
Enjoy taking your picture with a smile if it suits you
Sleep about 8-8 every night in your crib with a 2-2.5 hour nap around 1. I still haven’t moved you to a bed because you do so well in your crib—maybe by 3 I’ll finally do it!
Enjoy taking a bath every night and right now you are into bubble baths.
Love all things yogurt.
Love to keep little elephant “safe.”
Would run a mile straight if mom could keep up! We are always running around outside.
Still have not figured out your balance bike yet
Love to swing
Enjoy playing chase at the park with daddy and you hardcore play on the jungle gym.
Need a new trampoline because daddy has ripped two springs off of ours
Go to gymnastics once a week on Thursdays. Some weeks you do really great and other weeks all you want to do is jump on the trampoline. You finally do the trapeze, now! 6 months in the making for that trick! I had to convince you to just do “little trapezes” which you agreed to and you’ve been excited to trapeze ever since!
Give the greatest hugs and kisses.
Going through a separation anxiety phase with mom.
Love your teacher Ms. Zainab at school. We are sad to be transitioning to a new class in January.