two and a half!

Nate is two and a half today! The doctors here aren't really interested in measuring growth at regular months, so I weigh and measure him myself. He is 37" tall and weighs 30 lbs even. His head circumference is 20.25". He remains average height and weight, with a 90th percentile head circumference. That means he's thin for his weight.

He loves animals

When we took the boys to register with a doctor in March, they did weigh them. They weighed Nate at 30 lbs 12 oz. That would mean that he gained 3 lbs in 2 months, which I doubt. I'm fairly sure their scale was off. Or, he was so upset, crying, and throwing a fit that they weren't able to get an accurate reading.

Nate and Rodgers built the tallest tower ever!

Nate is daytime potty trained (and how liberating to have only one child in diapers!). The only problem is that now he has nothing to hold up his shorts! I used to have his trimmer shorts put away because they wouldn't go over a cloth diaper. Now, those are the only ones he can wear.

He enjoys helicopters, Fireman Sam, playing with Ben, Legos, and soccer, in addition to continuing to love Elmo. He likes reading books, paper or on the Kindle Fire. He has started playing matching, peek-a-boo, and other toddler games on my phone and the Kindle. He knows how to find his games on either one. Sometimes, he pulls up Free Cell and tries to play like Baba.

He thinks every day is his birthday and that he is always 3 year old.

He is pretending to sleep and snore

Nate has normal toddler food issues. We have now entered the "I don't like vegetables" stage. He will almost always eat beans, sausage, rice, toast, and grapes.

He gets in trouble for holding/squashing/crowding Ben more often than anything else.

Nate asked me for coffee today, but I told him he has to wait until he is 3* (for real 3, not pretending to be 3).

Cuddling with Ben and Baba, two of his favorite people.

*I'm not really going to give a 3 year old coffee.

Ben's happy place

I've mentioned before that Ben loves food. That Ben will not take a bottle if he sees someone eating real food, so we have to sneak the bottles in around our mealtimes. Ben's happy place is anywhere food is. I wondered if Ben would ever crawl. Then, Nate left food on the floor, and Ben had a reason to try crawling! We are collecting photos that we'll call "Ben's happy place." Here are some:

Sitting on Baba's lap, with a wad of bread in each fist

In his walker, with toast 

Under the desk, "cleaning up" Nate's snack that he dropped on the floor

spelling

Wouldn't smile at me. "No, Mama! Don't take my cheese!" he says.

I want to teach Nate how to spell his name. There is a song on a video he watches that says "R-E-D, that's red!" He repeats it, so I thought I could teach him to spell his name with a song.

It's to the tune of Frere Jacques.
N-A-T-E, N-A-T-E
That spells Nate, That spells Nate
Nate is a silly boy, Nate is a silly boy
N-A-T-E, That spells Nate


Really simple, right?
He sings it all the time, but he thought it would be funny to put other people's names in there. I can't seem to convince him that N-A-T-E does not spell Ben or Mama. So I made a song for Ben, too.

To the tune of 3 Blind Mice.
B-E-N, B-E-N
That spells Ben, That spells Ben
Ben likes to make a mess, and Daddy has to clean it up! [Note: that is my favorite part of the song.]
B-E-N, That spells Ben

This morning, Nate saw his name written out and started singing, "N-A-T-E, N-A-T-E, That spells Ben!..." Oh well. We'll keep working on it.

don't pee on...

[This is a post about potty training.]

Nate is now totally daytime potty trained. He wears training pants at naptime, but almost always wakes up dry. He wears a diaper at night, and almost always gets up wet. We are not sure whether he's peeing as soon as he's awake or peeing during the night.

He had been wearing diapers away from home, but decided last week that he doesn't want to anymore. Public toilets aren't common here, so often, he ends up peeing on the side of the road, but really, that's what everyone else does, too. And by everyone else, I mean men, women (myself excluded), and children, not just newly-potty-trained kids.

Over the course of buying training pants, I noticed that some have cute pictures on them, and they promote that as a way to encourage your child to keep them dry. "Don't pee on the frogs..." I never tried this tactic with Nate, and I am quite sure it would backfire. He loves peeing on things. Typical boy.

Since all of our potties are upstairs, when we are downstairs he usually pees outside, in the grass. It's just easier on all of us. Upstairs, he uses the potty, and all poops go in the potty. No pooping outside.

Last week, he dropped a Dora sticker outside, then rediscovered it once when he was peeing. Now, he keeps going back to that same place to pee. "I wanna pee on Dora!"

can't even tell it's Dora anymore.

9 months

About 1 week late.

3 days old vs (almost) 9 months old - I love to see how he has grown!

Ben is 9 months old! He is 20 lbs 8 oz, 28.25 inches tall, with a head circumference of 18.5 inches. This puts him right about average, with a big round skull, like his brother (they get that from Rodgers' side). He has 4 teeth. The fourth actually just peeked out yesterday.

He went through the most recent "Wonder Week" a few weeks ago. At the end of that, he started clapping, signing "milk," making twinkly star hand motions when Nate and I sing Twinkle Twinkle to him, moving around more (though not crawling yet), pulling up to standing and sitting back down again without falling, and cruising the furniture.

Yesterday, he started crawling for real, though he uses his knees and feet, rather than just knees. He never did the typical belly crawl, but he could still make his way around the room. I wasn't sure he'd ever really crawl. He likes to be original, I guess.

He eats everything. He is in the loving food stage. There are, of course, a few foods we are still waiting to give him until he's older or has molars. But he'd usually rather eat off the table than have a bottle. I'm strategically spacing his bottles around mealtimes to make sure that he still gets enough formula for nutrition's sake.

With his new mobility, he is getting into more things. However, if I tell him "no" he will obey. Sometimes I am a little too firm saying "no," and he bursts into tears. Sorry, Ben! I'm used to telling your brother "no!"

He loves giving cuddles and kisses and Eskimo kisses (Nate and I call them "nose, nose, nose"). He adores Nate, and especially loves to play with Nate's favorite toys. He is desperately trying to convince us that he is not a baby anymore.

On his 9 month "birthday"