jekyll and hyde

Something happened to Nate. He seems to have a split personality these days. I can only assume this is the beginning of the terrible twos. One moment he's the sweetest kid in the world, and the next he's launched himself backward on the floor, kicking and screaming. Although he does get upset when we tell him "no" to something he wants, usually he's triggered by something that wouldn't seem like a big deal to most of us. For instance, neighbors a few doors down seemed to be having a party (or it may have been a pre-prom gathering). Nate saw everyone and said that he wanted to go to a birthday party. I had to tell him that the neighbors weren't having a birthday, but a different kind of party, and that set him off. Another time he wanted cherry juice, but we only had peach juice, and that led to an all out fit. I just don't get it. By any chance, do pregnancy hormones rub off on toddlers?

On a related note, thanks for all the baby support. We're excited and anxious about the newest Carlbohudakson (gender TBD). Nate does know, but the jury's still out on how much of that he really understands. He has had a rash of baby animals inside his belly, which we assume is related to my having a baby in mine. So far he's had a chicken, a horse, and an elephant, and when we asked what they were doing, he replied, "they are not playing marbles." Otherwise, things with the pregnancy have been generally uneventful, which is nice. Aside from some common side effects (tiredness, etc.) all seems to be going well. We have our fingers crossed that it stays that way!

December 8

pits

Our carseat has a head rest (or a head protector, really) that has two cushions that fit around the sides of Nate's head. Apparently, these pillows cause Grandma Doris great consternation and while putting Nate into his carseat one day she mentioned that they were the pits. Now Nate insists that the head protector is called "the pits." We recently got a new carseat (so we have one in each car) and the new seat has a built-in head protector made of hard plastic, rather than the softer pillow-style one. Now when we are in the car, Nate asks, "do these pits move?"

Nate's been really excited about gardening. He actually has a set of Nate-sized tools at Grandma and Pop-Pop's house and he spends an exorbitant amount of time digging holes around their yard. When we go to the playground, he beelines for the sandbox. He's really quite the digger. Over the weekend, we (aka Thad) moved and removed some of the hedges in the front yard. Nate was a big help digging the hole for the hedges (aka he sat in the hole while Thad dug around him). Cleverly, I didn't take an "after" photo, although right now our yard looks more like a dirt pit than a grassy yard, so perhaps we should hold off on the final photo until it looks a little better anyway!

worm digging

We went on a cool worm-digging field trip as part of the Puddlestompers program. Nate had been anxiously awaiting the outing and kept asking us every morning if we were going worm digging. Finally, the big day arrived! We met up with eight(ish) other kids for a fun and educational morning about worms. We learned that worms have no eyes, no noses, and no ears. They basically just eat and poop. Then we all went out to find some worms and we made a big worm playground for our new friends. We did release them back to their homes at the end of the day, but it was lots of fun getting to know more about our slimy neighbors.

vital stats

Nate had his 2.5 year check-up and is fine and dandy. He's 36.6 inches (60%) and weighs 29 pounds (38%). He got a clean bill of health and a thumbs up from the doctor. Always a good thing!

mother's day

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! We had a nice day, starting with breakfast in bed (Nate thought this was the craziest thing we've ever done.) Then we had a nice morning at Drumlin Farm. We saw this poor mother sheep with her baby standing on her back and jumping around. I can relate. We finished things off with an afternoon at home, complete with naptime for all, and a laid-back dinner. Overall, it was a great, relaxing day!

big kid bed

After a horrible weekend of sleeping we learned that Nate has an ear infection. Now I feel like a jerk for being somewhat impatient with his crankiness (adding a bit of my own to the mix!) He's on the mend now and I'm sure he will be back to his regular hyper self very soon.

In the meantime, the toddler bed is working out pretty well. We haven't had any more pee pee on the floor (yet) and Nate's been pretty good about occupying himself if he wakes up too early in the mornings. He's started knocking on the door when he wants to get out, which is amusing yet mildly creepy if you are half asleep. Ducky is also enjoying the new bed and has been practicing "upside-down architecture," as illustrated in the photo below.