PCK 23 Months

Parker Campbell, you will turn TWO years old exactly one month from right now.  As a special treat, we woke up to SNOW on today, your 23-month birthday. Where, oh where, has the time gone? In so many ways, I still think of you as a BABY, but each and every day you surprise me with how much you are growing and learning and doing…

Health: Parker’s leg healed incredibly fast! One day he was hobbling around and the next he was back to walking like it had never been broken!

And, while Parker has never really been sick or even had a fever other than while teething, we did have a bit of a scare the other day when he woke up from a nap with his left eye almost completely swollen shut. Luckily, he was acting fine, it didn't seem to bother him, and his actual eye was moving around and seeing things. Children's Benadryl (as per the advice nurse's recommendation) helped the swelling  go down and brought the eye to looking almost normal, and that's when we saw what was most likely a bug bite on his eyelid. Add that to the bee sting from last summer, little man is just too sweet to resist! After a good night's sleep, his eye was 100% better. 

Sleep: Parker loves his sleep. We have quiet time (reading, snuggling, singing) before naps and bedtime, and then when it’s time for him to go into his crib, he sometimes giggles and says “bye bye!” – as in, “I’m totally excited to sleep now, thanks.” After shunning blankets for sometime (he would say “Aaahhfff! Aaahhhfff!”) Max finally got him to take one into his crib and he has loved it ever since (he even pointed at it, smiled, then put his face down on it and snuggled with it just to get the point across). Parker currently sleeps with his bunny, a sheep (“baaahhh! baaahhh!) and 2-4 rotating books (he will run/hippity hop each one over and lunge it into his crib after we read them in the “seeeet”). Favorites to sleep with this month have been “ahpuh boo” (Airplane Book), his picture dictionary, Goodnight Texas, Little Blue Truck, “Bah Buh Bah Buh” (Brown Bear, Brown Bear), The Wheels on the Bus, and Goodnight Moon (both the English and Spanish versions).

Diet: Favorite foods this month have been yogurt, “layala”s (crackers), cheese, kiwi, “maahhh” (mango), pineapple, kidney beans, blueberries, corn, edamame, and tortilla chips with salsa.

Also, there's always room for ice cream. 

Likes: Parker has found the spice drawer in the kitchen! One of his new favorite things to do is pick out different jars, bring them over to me or Max, ask what they are, have us open them to he can smell them, and then put them back in the drawer. He is especially obsessed with Chili Flakes and Whole Nutmeg.

Parker loves “hoo hoo”s (trains), “ahpuhs” (airplanes), “guhyahs” (crayons), riding in Sandy (if we are in Pepper he will talk non-stop about how he’d rather be in Sandy), EXIT signs, STOP signs and YIELD signs, radio towers and water towers (he’ll request I draw these for him).

He's been on an “ahhnaugh” (astronauts, he always whispers this word) kick lately and only wants to sleep in astronaut pajamas (luckily he has several pairs).

His most random favorite? An anemometer (pictured above, a device used to measure wind speed – I promise I would not know what this was if I were not married to Max). Parker and I were playing with his toy airport one day, and he held up the toy anemometer and said “annamomema!” (Max had identified it some time before – how Parker remembered what it was, I have no idea). Since then, Parker has been on and off obsessed with it (we’ve had to make countless trips up and down the stairs to retrieve said anemometer). I was putting him down for his nap one afternoon, and he was holding his precious anemometer in hand, running with his happy feet exclaiming “annamomema! annamomema!”, until he saw his Exit sign and then said “Eyeh! Eyeh!” and I thought he must be the only almost two-year-old out there obsessed with such obscure things! A future scientist like Dada? I should think so!

And speaking of Dada, Parker could spend all day every day up in Dada's home "office" - I think it's his favorite spot!

So many buttons to press!

Social: Parker loves saying “bye-bye” to people and things. We’ll leave a room and he’ll just say “bye bye!” Parker continues to love chasing games, hide-and-seek, and “calling” people on faux phones. Parker has also started telling “stories”. We’ll pass by an animal (a cow, a bird, a dog) and Parker will make the yum yum sound like the animal is eating, then he’ll tell us all the things the animal is “eating” (mango, melon and crackers are all usually on the list!).

Though we haven’t introduced any new sign language signs in months and months, Parker has come up with a few on his own to communicate with us. “Flower” is rubbing his cheek, “stairs” are raising and lowering his arm, rubbing his tummy with both hands refers to lotion, and he opens and closes his hands to indicate blinking lights. He has also added a palm in the air to emphasize “pah” (stop) when he says it. He randomly busted out the sign for please while he was saying “pleeeeeeese”, and it totally shocked me as I hadn’t done the sign in ages.

Milestones: Parker’s self awareness has jumped to the next level – he knows he’s the baby and he knows when he wants to do things by himself! If I ask “Can Mamma help?” in an effort to aid him in a task, he will proclaim “Baby!” – as in “I’m going to carry this book by myself”, or “No thanks, I’ll spear my own food with my fork”, or “Excuse me, I’m going to dip my own paintbrush in the paint thank you very much.” It makes me giggle whenever I hear “Baby!” I just love it.

We have also started officially working on colors, having a color of the week! Parker already had “buhhh” (blue) down, sometimes “puhpuh” (purple), and now can identify “gah” (red) and “ohhrrahh” (orange).

He has also randomly become obsessed with the capital letter “T”. It’s present in both his EXIT signs and STOP signs, so we have pointed it out and identified it quite a bit, but all of a sudden he is a “T” finding machine. If there is one on a book page, on a sign, on a package, in a store, wherever, he will find it and say “Teeeeeeeeee!” He also has been into finding capital “E”s, and then will say “Eyeh” (Exit), as in, “I know that letter, it’s on my EXIT sign.”

Speaking of EXIT signs, Parker has been identifying them for ages, and I would argue with Max that this meant he was "reading" (Max said he was identifying the light up boxes above doors). I was only half joking about the reading thing. Then, we made a trip to Costco where P saw this masking tape "Exit" on the floor and immediately said "Eyeh!" I of course took the opportunity to point out to Max that this Exit was neither above a door nor glowing. I believe that's a point for my theory that he's "reading" ;) 

PCK, These last 23 months have been an amazing whirlwind of awesomeness. Thank you for teaching your Dada and me what is truly important in life. We love you, our littlest man!

P.S. You have taken to calling me “Mommy” part-time. I’m not sure if I should cry as this makes you sound like you have turned into a teenager overnight, or if I should just bask in the absolute cuteness of the way you say “Mahmeeeeee”, always with a smile!