New House

Dear Roman,
We did it! We moved into our new home successfully without losing much along the way except maybe a little sanity here and there. It was a crazy couple of weeks trying to pack boxes and coordinate in between your trying to unpack the boxes and create as much chaos as possible. Then you and I caught a nasty cold and you started climbing out of your crib again and nobody in our house was sleeping!
Just as I thought you couldn’t possibly find another way to act out (throwing, screaming, clinging, climbing) and I couldn’t possibly stand another day trying to keep a sick little boy occupied with all his toys packed away the BIG MOVING DAY arrived! “Hi movers” you would say as the men came in and out of the house with furniture. Immediately you felt at home and what’s not to love. You have a big playroom where you can run around and mess everything up. You have a cozy little bedroom with your crib next to the window. I have caught you standing and looking outside where you spotted the trampoline in the neighbor’s yard and said, “I want to go there.” You are sleeping again and we couldn’t be happier!

Now we can focus on Christmas!

*Photo taken on one of the last days at the old house- without any toys you ended up playing in clothing drawers. You called yourself an “astronaut” and a “diver” in this particular ensemble.

Two Years and Two Months

Dear Roman,

Right now you are really into playing with toys. You say, “play with me Mama” and then instruct me on what we are going to play.

Lately it is a lot of building with blocks- “houses” and “rockets” are what you tell me we are going to build. Then an “astronaut” or “knight” (imaginary) join in the fun.

Another thing you still like playing with is your play food/kitchen. You ask me to sit at your little table and serve “tea” and “grilled cheese” sandwiches. Sometimes you’ll make some “treats” for us to eat too.

“Play cars” is usually something you want to do with your dad when he gets home from work. Playing cars consists of you dumping the bucket of cars out and distributing a car to each of your stuffed animals. “Here you go kitty cat, dog, orangutan” as you hand out various colored cars.

You are obsessed with clasps and latches like the ones on your booster seat, car seat and stroller. You HAVE to “help” me strap you in. Along the same lines you have now found huge interest with trying to take your toys apart. You’ll turn them over, run to get a screwdriver and twist away hard at work and deep in concentration. You really like trying to figure things out.

At preschool you LOVE the sensory room and spend most of your time at the paint, playdoh, water and sand stations. Today at school you rolled blue paint all over paper ducks and would stop everything to go wash your hands if paint got on them.

Evenings are spent with you getting quality time with your dad. The two of you go upstairs and get creative. I can hear the two of you playing that you are in a spaceship going to the moon. There’s lots of running and physical play and you LOVE it! I think your dad does too.

As you can tell you want your parents involved in your play time. For awhile you were going off on your own sometimes for up to 20 or 30 minutes, but these days you are all about having us near by and involved.

Besides playing you are are busy stringing words together and making sentences- although sometimes they are a little confusing for us to understand and you talk non stop, usually very enthusiastically and often using little sayings like “no way” “oh nice” and “no thank you please.” You try to count, but it comes out like 1, 3, 10…. and you try to say your ABCs which are also all jumbled up, but very cute to hear.

You LOVE singing songs right now. “Sing Mama” you’ll exclaim and then I’ll start singing a song and you’ll tell me “yeah” or “no” if you want me to continue. Songs you like to sing along to are Rain Rain Go Away and Row Row Row Your Boat.

You still adore rocking and reading books- especially before bedtime. There are definite favorites, currently you are loving anything illustrated by J Otto Siebold. You’ll stare at each picture and point to an image and say, “what’s that Mommy/Daddy?” over and over again.

You go to the potty on the toilet every night before bed. This has been going on for a couple months and has become part of your routine- go potty, brush teeth, put pjs on. You really feel like a big boy sitting on the toilet.

All in all you are still a very easy going child who is usually pretty happy which is saying a lot considering you are two!

Changes

Dear Roman,
There seems to be a lot going on right now for our family-

We found out that “Baby Bean” is a girl! A revelation that you have apparently known for awhile. Constantly you would tell me Baby Bean was a girl. Even if I’d try to explain that the baby could be a boy you’d persist with a confident- NO MAMA A GIRL!!! I was relieved to find out you were correct and I wasn’t going to have to argue with you anymore. You’ll give my belly lots of pats, hugs and kisses. And you try to share all your favorite things with her by shoving them at my belly and saying, “Please Baby Bean take this.”  But my favorite thing is when you tell me, “Baby Bean come out so I hold you.”

We started to look for a bigger house and you totally caught on to what was going on. We’d drive by houses and you’d say, “that my house?” Or you’d look and decide if it were a “nice” house or a “yuck” house. I actually started taking your opinion into consideration.  I’ve caught you calling Ben (our Realtor) on your play phone and having conversations about houses. It was all kind of amusing at first, but now I think you are tired of having your time taken up with looking inside houses where I run behind you saying NO TOUCH. You’d rather be at the park. So it’s probably a good thing that we ended up finding a new home.

I just apologize in advance for the coming months when your life gets turned upside down with packing, boxes, new rooms. Hopefully you’ll adjust to it all before we throw another curve ball your way. She’s due to arrive at the end of March…

Happy Halloween

Dear Roman,

This Halloween was so much fun. Right away you caught on that this holiday was something you were going to be into- mostly because it involved treats. The days leading up to October 31st you’d talk about candy. Anytime you saw a pumpkin you would exclaim “treat” as though it was a reminder of what was to come.

So it wasn’t surprising when we took you trick or treating tonight and you walked right up to each house, knocked on the door and said, “treat please” as though you were an old pro. Looking adorable in your astronaut costume people couldn’t resist and offered you multiple sweets from their candy bowels. And you really knew how to work the person at the door by politely asking for an extra piece of candy for “Mama” or “Kitty Cat.” I swear there was no coaching involved.

After a big night of going door to door you were completely content with a single lolly pop and your Dad and I are devouring the rest of your haul…

We love you!

 

Astronaut

dear roman,
your imagination is running wild lately. sometimes i think you just aren’t sure what you are talking about and other times i think you should pursue a career in creative writing.

something you are really into is pretending that you are an astronaut flying to the moon on a rocket ship to look for moon rocks. you will run up to tell me that you are an “astanaut” and then you take your hands and pretend to fly. Once landed on the “moon” you look for “moon rocks” and pick tiny pieces of nothing off the ground and put them in your pockets. We were walking down a city street the other day and out of the blue you took on your astronaut persona picking up moon rocks off the ground. you even held some up to a group of guys walking by shouting, “look moon rocks” as they smiled and laughed at you.

your kitchen set is another favorite pretend spot as you’ll make “soup” or “treats” or “cheese sandwiches” for your parents, stuffed animals or friends. And you love, love, love to serve tea. You will get a cup and saucer and hand it to me saying, “please mama tea” while pouring and re pouring from a tea pot.

then there are the stories you tell. You’ll talk about flying baby bumble bees and the neighborhood cat. You tell me stories about the people you love and what they are doing.

this part of your development has been fantastic to watch and we can only “imagine” it’s going to get even better!

Preschool

Dear Roman,
Today was the first day of preschool and you had a blast! Not too much of a surprise that you jumped right in. You wasted no time saying “hi” to teachers, exploring the five rooms and making yourself completely at home.

Your favorite room was the “craft room” that had multiple sensory tables filled with oatmeal and scoopers, play doh and cookie cutters and a water table with doll babies and wash rags. You played a lot at the play doh table and pretended to look for “baby seashells” at the oatmeal table like you would with sand at the beach. The funniest moment was when you handed wash rags out to your teachers and instructed them on how to clean a baby at the water table. Of course they were good sports and played along.  Besides the craft room you spent a lot of time at the play kitchen. Two little boys sat at a table while you served them play food and you all did a very good job of pretending to eat!

At the end of class we sang the goodbye song, you got a stamp on your hand and then started crying “no go home Mama” over and over. Luckily you and I get to go back every Monday for the rest of the school year.

Baby Bean

Dear Roman,
A topic that has been on your mind lately is that you are going to be a big brother! You talk about “Baby Bean” all the time. Sometimes you just say “hi” or “goodnight”. Other times you offer up your pacifier to Baby Bean. And when asked where’s baby you say, “In Mama” so we are pretty sure you are getting the concept.

What we are very sure of is that you are going to be a totally loving, gentle, generous and friendly big bro.

Baby Bean is one lucky baby!

Happy Birthday Roman!

Dear Roman,

This past year you became an independent, self sufficient toddler! You finally started sleeping through the night,  tackled weaning and separation anxiety, you’re talking, you’ve made friends and taken lots of classes. You HATE being at home, at an empty playground or basically anywhere that doesn’t have tons of stimulation and lots of other people/kids/faces. You are most content outside, on the move, where the action is. You’re a particular, independent, mild mannered, sensitive, generous little guy with the biggest heart of anyone we know.

So Happy Birthday to you…
Our cupcake connoisseur, swing obsessed, neat freak, book loving, cat spotting, guitar playing, two year old!

We love you more than you love your blanket (tag) and pacifier combined- and that is saying a lot!

xo,
Mom and Dad

23 Months

Dear Roman,
Your Dad and I can’t even believe how it is possible that we are almost parents of a 2 year old- a kid- a person, but when we look at you lately that is exactly what you are. Roman, you are turning into a self sufficient, caring little guy who we are so proud of. Here’s what you have been up to at 23 months:

Your motto should be something like “me do it” because that’s what we hear from you all day long! Forget any help, you are all about getting into your stroller or carseat, walking up and down the stairs, putting your own toys away, opening doors to get outside, cleaning up spills and crumbs and walking walking walking everywhere on your own.

Speaking of walking, a new ritual of yours has been evening walks with Dad. Every night when he gets home from work you guys take off on foot around the neighborhood. You love to pick up rocks, look for cats and of course you have to push all the cross walk buttons. One night you guys were gone for two hours because you both got side tracked downtown and ended up sharing chips and salsa at the mexican restaurant.

You are talking more and more each day. Still lots of jabbering and saying things that we can’t really understand, but between your own language we have been able to pick up more actual words. You like to talk about bikes and helmets, bugs, balls, friends and animals. You always point out if something feels “hot” or “cold” and you have been using the word “back” appropriately- either when talking about front and back or when walking backward. Also of interest is “sleep” and “awake” and colors although you usually call all colors black or green.

Current favorite toys are your little guitar and/or anything music related, a tee ball set your Dad got you that you love taking to the park to play with, crayons and pens, little toy cars and pretend food/kitchen toys.

I am beginning to see you pretend when playing. You’ll pretend to eat your toy food and give a bite to a stuffed animal sitting across from you. I’ve caught you a few times playing with a little toy car which you told me a friend of yours was driving in. Oh and you still will pretend anything and everything is an instrument. The other night while out to dinner you played a very good straw flute!

Summer Concerts

Dear Roman,

Every Wednesday morning you and I walk down to our neighborhood park and enjoy an outdoor concert. Each week a different band sings songs and entertains you and all your friends. It’s pretty much the best hour of your day since you LOVE music, instruments and dancing!

Here you are dancing with your buddy Evan and hanging out with Izzie.