Lincoln: 2nd Birthday

I feel like it was just a few months ago that I was taking Lincoln's 1st birthday photos with balloons and his blue chair and feeding him his first cupcake - which he shared with me instead of scarfing it down all on his own.

Yesterday we celebrated Lincoln's 2nd birthday! I've heard it gets faster from here and I believe it because I totally failed at a formal 2nd birthday photo shoot.

The second year is kind of a rough year. Maybe I'm just saying that because I don't know what "terrible twos" are like, but that cross between baby and boy just isn't my favorite - not to say I didn't love all that this last year brought, but I'm really glad he's the big boy he is now.

 

We celebrated simply with a few friends at a nearby park and cake. Lincoln got to pick it out and help make it. He INSISTED on Funfetti and I substituted ingredients on the box on the advice of Pinterest and Google - milk instead of water, butter instead of vegetable oil, and add an extra egg. It worked. I had this grand idea in my head though of how it would look and then it all didn't happen when the cake didn't want to come out of the pan because I didn't listen to my mom and grease it more. Joe says he's making the cake next year. Ouch.

Metrics:
NO IDEA. Lesson learned for me - September birthdays are hard to make appointments for because of beginning of the school year sports physicals. Call earlier. Lincoln's appointment isn't for almost 3 more weeks. Compared to Emi though he feels like a million pounds and seems really gigantic. But he's not.

Lincoln's favorites:

color: PINK
animal: lion and tiger
number: 2
shape: circle
book: Going on a Bear Hunt (courtesy of Grandma and now read by Daddy every night - apparently I'm not good enough)
movie: "Arial", "cars", "beast", "laddin" - this kid loves Disney
show: Sophia the First
foods: "bucks" - Starbucks. He loves the yogurt parfait. He loves "cereal" aka granola with almond milk. "nacks" or fruit snacks - thanks, Granmda. ;-D. and "moothies". He will get the blender out of the pantry and ask for a smoothie or juice. (He also asked for chia seeds tonight - yes, I'm serious. I had a glass of almond milk with chia seeds and he took it from me demanding I "share it" and he knows what chia seeds are.)
toys: cars, trains, a wardrobe box house from the move, tents, crayons and markers and coloring
lovies: leopard, tiger, Noah.

Language: Lincoln's first sentence was "I don't like it" in reference to a black bean he put in his mouth. He said it just last week with my mom here, otherwise he puts 2 words together and leaves it at that. He will repeat ANYTHING though. We've gotten very good at being careful with what we say, but I didn't realize how much indirect casual conversation he was picking up until he said "chia seeds" tonight.

Motor: Lincoln and Daddy started playing catch. He loved it and has his own glove which he will "throw it" and "catch it" himself from one hand into the glove. He also got a pitching machine from Grandma and Papa Wagner today and he loved catching the balls with Daddy and hitting. I even made a makeshift baseball tee from our tripod and he caught on to that in a split second. He puts the ball on it himself and hits it off. He throws and bats ambidextrously right now. Keep it up kid, it's a good skill to have. He's also a fraction of a second off of jumping with two feet simultaneously.

Lincoln has started lining his cars up and ensuring they are all facing the same direction. There are some cars I'm impressed he can tell the front from the back.

He's handling being a big brother very well. He loves Emi and wants to play with her. He wants to "hold it" meaning her and will attempt to lift her out of my arms or off the floor. He even rolled her over from one side to the other tonight so he could give her a car he wanted her to look at. Then he started lining up his cars along her back.

The after nap crying has gotten REALLY old. I still haven't figure out what it is or why it doesn't stop. We've got a nice bedtime routine going, but naptime remains slightly illusive. Some days he naps for 2+ and other days it's 45 minutes. It doesn't matter what time, how long, or whether or not he ate beforehand he will cry and whine and toss himself around for a good hour afterwards. Even if he wakes up nicely and comes out on his own the whining and crying will certainly start in a few minutes. I have yet to find a successful method of stopping it - ignoring, nursing, distraction, getting in the car, movies, food, etc. I think that is the biggest challenge for me with Lincoln. I just know that "this too shall pass" (until tomorrow) and bedtime is around the corner from naptime. Ugh.

He increasingly is calling Joe "Joe" instead of "Daddy". Apparently it's genetic because I did (still do) it too to my dad. If "Daddy" doesn't get a response fast enough he'll start hollering "JOOOOE!!! JOE!" in varying degrees of volume and length of the "o".

Lincoln has been to 17 states. He's swam in the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Gulf of Mexico. He's been on umpteen airplanes and needs to get his own frequent flyer account at this point.

It doesn't seem possible that two years ago I didn't know this little boy and now I put him to bed every night wondering what he'll do tomorrow....

Epic mom fail - there aren't any *good* pictures of me and Lincoln :-(. I took on selfie in the morning before we'd gotten dressed for the day and Joe took a few of us eating breakfast (I have pajamas and bed head and yesterday's mascara kind of a thing) on the patio but none throughout the rest of the day. I will just have to do some Mommy- Lincoln self-portraiture soon.