the sequel is such a little smarty. i’ve been meaning to start making him sign “please” before meals for the last month or so and i just kept forgetting every meal. last week, i finally worked it into my routine. after a little over a week, he’s already starting to try to do it on his own. i say “let’s do please” and he starts swirling his right arm around. sure, it’s not technically correct yet but i think that’s a fantastic start for such a short time. i want to say it was a month and a half or two months of doing it with the turkey before he started doing it on his own.

in other news, he’s crawling all over the living room and trying his best to pull up on stuff. this one is just in way too big a rush to be a big boy. 🙁

this weekend, i noticed that the turkey had pulled the edge pieces off all the mats in his room. i walked in and found him waving them around in both hands. “what are you doing, lovebug?” said i. “i’m waving palm branches for Jesus!”

i seriously love that boy.

The turkey is learning to sound out words. Today, he read “cat” and”bat” by sounding them out. 

The sequel is getting ready to crawl. He gets his butt up in the air and pushes up on his knees and elbows. Today, he scooted about six inches like that.

Too fast. It’s all just going too fast.

Updated: and then the sequel rolled onto his belly for the first time and slept on his tummy. How can my little itty bitty baby be doing such big things already?

even though the sequel has grown steadily, he’s never actually had what i consider to be a true growth spurt. the turkey went through several periods where he would cluster-feed for a day or two and then his clothes didn’t fit anymore. the sequel has just had slow, steady, quiet growth. last night, he started his first cluster-feeding frenzy with two middle of the night feedings and he’s been starving to death every three hours all day today. i expect him to be two inches taller tomorrow!

When I get the turkey out of his Sunday school class, the teacher usually tells me what the lesson was this week. This morning, with tears in her eyes, she told me that the lesson was “God loves everyone.”  She said there was one boy who said “God doesn’t love me.” But my boy told him “yes God loves you and he loves me too!” 

Sometimes I think we can’t be messing up too badly.

Coming home from dinner tonight, we were talking with the turkey trying to keep him awake until we made it back to grandmother’s house. This conversational snippet nearly made me cry:

He: I’m a happy boy!

Me: yes you are. What makes you so happy?

He: mommy makes me happy!

After a few seconds of thought, he revised that to “mommy and daddy” but the point is, I was the first and immediate response! Maybe he’s not a total daddy’s boy after all.

Because the turkey is such a good kid, I have a tendency to the sight of the fact that he’s still a toddler. There are times when his behavior is not quite exemplary and I end up feeling like a huge failure of a mother. I need to get past this urge to internalize and hold him up to a standard that’s unrealistic. Fact of the matter is that even at his Worst Behavior we are incredibly blessed to have such a great kid.

sometimes i really am at a loss for where the turkey is picking things up. this morning, i asked how he was doing while he was eating breakfast and his response was “boom shakalaka!”  what the heck?!  that’s definitely not something hubby or i have ever said. he doesn’t watch tv and the only place he’s been around other people lately is church.  it’s such a weird expression, i just wish i knew who uses it.

the other favorite lately is “oh my gosh!”  i’m pretty sure he picked that one up from my niece but it’s so funny when he says it.

in other news, he just so much more conversational in general lately.  he keeps coming up with increasingly complex sentences.  he blows me away with the things that come out of his mouth.

i’ve been a bit concerned about how fast the sequel is gaining weight.  granted, we had a weight stall-out with the turkey around two months because of his severe gerd but it still seems like this boy is gaining too fast.  just in the last couple of weeks he’s gone from the 55th percentile to the 75th.  at seven weeks old yesterday, he weighed 12 lbs 7.5 oz. that’s over five pounds since birth.  i think i remember the turkey’s dr saying that they look for babies to double birth weight by four months (the turkey was closer to six).  this little guy is on track to double in just over two months.  anyhow, between that and the tummy troubles, i’ve decided to try stretching is schedule a little.  instead of a three hour schedule, i’m going to start him on a 3.5 hour schedule and see how he does.  we had the turkey on a four hour schedule at sixish weeks because of the reflux so i don’t anticipate any problems with milk supply or anything.  i can always change it back if there are any problems but i think he’ll do fine with it.

after an unprompted count to thirty during dinner tonight, the turkey counted to ten in spanish. i asked him if he could do french to which he responded “je m’appelle {turkey}.” i started with “un” (one) and he finished the ten-count.  i then asked him about german.  i started and he jumped in at “sieben” (seven).  he then insisted that we keep doing german again and again until he was able to do all ten.  i love my crazy smart and thirsting-for-more-knowledge little guy!

today, we spoke for the first time in ten years.  it was a let’s-act-like-nothing-ever-happened 45 minute conversation.  there were tongue-biting moments but i played the game because i’m trying.  after all, i’m the one who extended the invitation because i feel she should have the opportunity to meet these amazing kids. it’s up to her to make that happen but i sincerely hope that she does.  i honestly had no clue how to respond to “so what have you been up to, other than having babies?”  how do you succinctly cover “what you’ve been up to” for a decade?  time will tell.

yesterday was our first battle with willful defiance.  while i was getting a cloth to clean the turkey after lunch, he decided to shove the last four chunks of chicken into his mouth and chew them all up.  when i got back to the table, i found him with his mouth completely stuffed full of chicken.  he continued to chew and chew and chew but refused to swallow.  he very skillfully drank half his milk without swallowing any of the chicken.  i stayed very calm, asking him repeatedly to swallow the chicken so he could take a nap.  i then told him that if he hadn’t swallowed his food by the time i got him all cleaned up and out of his chair, he would be getting a spank.  i told him a couple times so that he understood what was at stake.  when i got him down, i delivered on my promise.  i think that’s the second time i’ve ever had to spank him.  he cried, drank more milk, and still refused to swallow any of the food.  the dance continued and by the time the hubby got home fifteen minutes later, the turkey had had four fully warned spanks.  the hubby then took over and ended up delivering another two spanks over the next fifteen minutes before the turkey decided to end the battle of the wills by artfully puking all over his daddy.  holy cats!  please tell me that this was a singular aberration for my wonderfully good boy and not the beginning of some hellish stage of epic defiance.

hard to believe that it’s been two years since i last heard your voice and your laughter.  it’s unreal that life has just gone on without you.  your grandson, who you were so excited to meet, is a toddler now. complete with sleeping fits and tantrums and singing songs and real conversations and just all kinds of amazing. he is ridiculously smart.  you would be so proud and you would have a ton of fun with him. he’s a big brother now. truly, he’s the best big brother on earth. he has a little brother who we named in your honor. the sequel has your hairline, dark hair, and blue eyes.  you would dote on these boys and spoil them rotten; i just know it. the turkey asks to look at pictures and videos of grampy all the time.  it makes my heart smile and ache all at the same time.  i still give him a kiss on the forehead from grampy every night before bed.  i do the same for the sequel because i know you would tell me to and i want him to grow up knowing just how much you would have adored him.

i love you, daddy.  i love you and i miss you every day.

i love how your pride and joy shines through in this photo

the turkey looks just as proud holding his brother as you looked holding him

it’s been a rough three weeks for sure.  i have the nasty habit of comparing the sequel to the turkey, who was pulling nice five hour stretches from the sixth day on.  the sequel can’t seem to get past three hours – three and a half if i’m super lucky.  i do remember some exhausting nights with the turkey too but i was always able to nap during the day with him to make up for it.  now that i’ve got a toddler to look after, that’s not so much an option.  hubby has been doing a great job of keeping the turkey occupied but his schedule doesn’t really overlap with the sequel’s so i’ve only got thirty minutes or so here and there to try to rest my eyes.  all day yesterday, i felt like i was about at my wit’s end.  thankfully, the sequel decided to take mercy on his momma last night by pulling a heavenly 4.5 hour stretch followed by a 3.5 hour one.  i feel considerably less zombie-like today after getting almost five hours of sleep throughout the night!