Lincoln: 27 Months

At 2 years and 3 months you're a hoot. I'm always impressed by the words you put together. A day in the life of you looks like this:

Around 7:30 or 8:00 you usually wake up and come into "Momma's Room" by yourself with a friend or two. You climb up Bella's stairs at the foot of our bed and crawl up to me asking for boobs. You don't like to be tucked under the covers. Usually Daddy has gotten up during this time and you will follow him out into the living room. You tell him, "Daddy, couch" and watch Disney Junior in the morning while eating a bowl of cereal drowned in milk that Daddy has fed you from your place in the center of the couch. Your favorite cereal is Bran Flakes and I wonder if it has more to do with the orange box than a true love of bran.

Around 9:30 Emi and I start to wake up. You'll come back into Momma's Room and climb across saying, "Emi awake. Emi done feeding. Momma get up, please." And we all congregate back in the living room where you've done some block stacking, car lining up, or train playing in the time I went back to sleep.

You love Emi give her hugs and kisses. Usually around this time you start asking to go outside. You hit balls off your tee, "chase booboo", throw her toys, and dig in the rocks. You have yet to figure out how to pedal your trike. We are really enjoying the nice outdoors with you while it lasts.

11:00 means lunch, a time that comes all too quickly, and Daddy often makes something nice. You eat like a bird and I battle with myself whether to just feed you anything you'll eat or set the rules that you eat what I eat or you don't eat all in effort to get you to eat more variety and limit my short-order cook time. It's often a combination of both. I make you lots of smoothies. You've started asking for dinosaur chicken but I don't think you know if you really like it or not.

After lunch Daddy says good-bye. You say, "Daddy go to work." and when we ask you what Daddy does at work you know he's, "making bacon." because Daddy tells you every day that he has to go to work to make the bacon. You and I generally play outside some more and then come inside and put on your new favorite show, The Magic Schoolbus, while you eat the lunch you didn't eat before or a pre-nap snack. Then we head into your room for nap. This often creeps up to 2-2:30. You have another booby snack and then I sing you to sleep. It's one of my favorite things right now to watch your eyes grow heavy, your hands relax, and your breathing slow. You have been taking some monster naps (like 2 1/2 to 3 hour naps!!) I've had to wake you up a few times. Luckily *knock on wood* you've almost stopped the hysterical crying!! You often wake up yourself and come into Momma's room and snuggle with Emi while she's also napping with me. I'm usually watching some Netflix and you've liked Merlin so far, but you prefer to steal the iPad and play some games for awhile.

I hate dinner. It's my least favorite meal because it's usually just us. We eat a lot of peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches, which I have to cut into triangles to make you happy.

You demand to "take a bath" every night. and you love when Emi and I get in with you. Whenever I tell you I'm getting out you say, "Emi stay in. Momma stay in." You're very picky about your jammies. You've been quite attached to Santa jammies all season as well as a pair of fleece lion ones. They seem warm and comfy so I don't blame you.

Around 8:30 i try to have you in bed but it more often than not turns into 9:00 and 9:30. You love to read books but you don't want me to read them to you anymore. My tactic has become to tell you I'm reading it to Emi. Sometimes that means you come and listen and sometimes you steal it out of my hands and lay it on the floor to read it to her. You have started to "read" books. There is one particular Whinnie the Pooh book you know so well you can tell me what is happening as you turn the pages. You can do the same with Going on a Bear Hunt.

Getting you into bed is always (99% of the time) a joy even when you keep getting out. I sing to you while you nurse and then you ask me to scratch your back and sing Twinkle then sing Rainbow and often times sing Twinkle again. I don't sing you to sleep at night. I kiss you and tuck you in with your friends and your twilight turtle and leave. When you get out of bed too many times your friends start to sleep on the piano for the night. I've only had to take away 2 at most recently. You have WAY too many friends in your bed and you still know when one is missing.

Some of the funniest things that happened this last month were you starting to ask for 2 more minutes when we tell you it's time to go. You also have learned that if Daddy says no you run and "ask Momma" (luckily I heard Daddy say no so I knew what the answer was) .

Along with increasing the length of your sentences, you have counted from 1 thru 10 a few times straight while counting objects. You also continue to love your circles and triangles, and I want to start teaching you more songs. We used Pandora's toddler tunes stations a few times and you did really like that. You can recognize almost any disney/tv show song within a few notes so I don't think it'll be hard to learn Itsy Bitsy.

We joined our playgroup again now that we're settled because I want you to start playing with more kids and make some good friends you age. Same goes for me. You're very very attached to me and we both need some independence.

Last night (Dec 29th) you told Daddy you loved him for the first time. You said "wuv Daddy". Then you came all the way into the laundry room to find me and say "wuv Mommy" and give me a big hug. We love you too, Lincoln.