Terrible wonderful twos.

Isaac turned 2 October 28th. There's literally so much that I could write about him, that I don't want to forget, but there's no amount of space adequate to capture our crazy goofy boy. Trying to keep track of all the cute and funny things he does, is kinda like trying to keep up with the laundry with two babies. You think you get it all done, then you turn around and your daughter spits up some of that Thai curry soup you had for dinner on your white shirt and her clean sleeper, and your son has managed to take off his diaper without ever taking off his pants, and pee in his clean pajamas. So there goes your pristine white empty laundry baskets. That was probably a really terrible metaphor, but hopefully you get the idea. No matter how much before bed journaling, status updating, blog posting, and memo writing I do, I know I'm going to finish this blog post and remember something adorable I wanted to include. Here goes my futile attempt at capturing some small part of my son as a two year old!

Weight: 25lbs8oz
Height: 33 inches
Teeth: We are done until 6 year molars!!!!!

Favourite foods: pizza, pancakes, cereal, cheese, pickles, pasta, smoothies, fruits and veggies. He eats twice as many (at least!) veggies as he does other food for dinner. We have to tell him to eat the other parts of his dinner before he can have a third helping of veggies.

Favourite shows/movies: Toy Story, Beauty and the Beet (a veggie tales movie whose songs are frequently requested for bedtime) , animated Star Wars-he loves storm troopers which he calls "woopers", and Finding Nemo.

Favourite things to do: play outside in any weather, play with Mia in their tunnel, cook with me, take selfies while saying "cheese", play with his trucks and cars-he's obsessed with anything and everything that has wheels and can probably identify more types of vehicles than me.

Favourite books: Star Wars 123, Mortimer, The Going to Bed Book, Toy Story.

Note the Toy Shirt-he also has Toy Story pjs he insists on wearing as soon as they're washed.

Remembers everything: besides letter, numbers, colours and shapes, Isaac knows his birthday and age. He has a really good sense of direction and spatial awareness, and can direct me to our church, the park, where any construction is going on-so he can see dump trucks. He recognizes our neighbourhood, and even my parents' neighbourhood who live in Calgary. He'll say "Isaac go gwanny gwampy's house!" several minutes before we even get there.

Isaac can recite most books by heart, but in his own toddler way. Mortimer says "Clang clang, rattle bing bang, gonna make my noise all day" so Isaac says "Cang cang bing bang noise all daaay!" It's my favourite when I come upon him reading a story to himself, and hearing his interpretation of the story.

He knows what types of cars his grandparents, us, and our neighbours drive. When we were headed home a few days ago, our neighbour drove past us also headed home, but they were fairly far away, I could barely make out who they were. Isaac yells "I see Jas (the little boy upstairs) car!" Whenever we're driving anywhere he yells any time he sees a specific car, or a bus, dump truck etc he yells "I see school buuuuuusssss!!" "I see vaaaaaaaaan!!" "I see the Edge!!" (my dad drives a Ford Edge).

He also remembers the most random things we say. Gordon and I can be talking about something to each other, and days later Isaac will randomly say a phrase or expression we said, even though we only mentioned it in passing. We usually can't even remember the conversation we were having where Isaac would have picked it up. We get a good laugh about the things he comes up with.

We said goodbye to Auntie Devon who went on a mission to Toronto

Typical two year old: Isaac is a pretty regular two year old in a lot of ways. He's super possessive with his toys and personal space and can be heard saying all day long "No Mia! My car" "No Mia! My toes!".

He loves to push buttons and test boundaries, and some days I'm like "Man I'm never going to judge anyone who is on Supernanny again". haha. Literally some mornings he just runs around the house and creates as much havoc as possible-turns the dishwasher on, swipes Mia while he's running by, pulls the books off the shelf, runs into the bathroom and grabs my toothbrush, runs into his room with my toothbrush in his mouth, and empties all the diapers on the floor. Then after I finally catch up to him with Mia in tow, who's mad about the swiping, he's jumping on the bed laughing and screaming maniacally. I close the door so he can have some quiet time. 15 minutes later we do it all again. That's why I drag my kids out of the house in -20. My sanity depends on it.

He's somehow turned into a teenager as well. I told him off for throwing Mia's clothes everywhere, and he yells "Stop saying that! Stop talking!". 

He was running away from me trying to put his pjs on, and ran into his room and under the covers. He yelled out to me "Nice try!". What a kid.

And of course there's no shortage of whining and temper tantrums around here. But those really are old hat for us now. I'm so used to them in public, I don't even blink. I just haul him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and walk with him screaming and flailing while pushing Mia in the stroller, and sometimes even carrying her in her car seat. Who needs the gym when you have a toddler?

Funny stories-the ones I remember.
 
I heard him open the dishwasher so I went to see what he was doing. He put his empty juicebox from the morning in the dishwasher, took the straw out and put it in the utensil holder, then closed the dishwasher.

Isaac is really into pretend lately. He piled up the blankets on the couch and sat on top, and called it his "motorbike". He had Buzz and Woody and Bullseye and he told me they were riding in the "backseat". He said he needed keys, so he went upstairs for a minute, came back down with one shoe on the wrong foot, said "See you guys!" and came up to me and very seriously gave me a big kiss. Then walked out the door. It was the CUTEST thing ever.

He pretended I was a car, and pretended the ignition was on my shoulder, the seat belt came out of my leg, and  the license plate or "numbers" as he calls it were on my feet. He'd get in the car (sit on me), turn it on, drive, leave and pretend to lock it "I wocked it!". It took me a few times of him doing this to understand what he was doing, then we gave him a tie for a seatbelt, real keys, and a plastic lid for a steering wheel.

Isaac helped me clean the bathroom one day, and I told him that when he got married it would make his wife very happy if he did that. He then informed me "Isaac marry Mia in temple!". hahaha. He's finally at the age where kids say the darndest things.

He has a man for his one car, and he says "Change diaper, man. Just pee pee". So he gets one of his diapers pretends to wipe and throw the dirty wipes in the diaper. Then goes and throws the clean diaper (which I assume he was pretending was the dirty diaper) in the bathroom garbage. His future wife owes me big time.

He pretends to wash Mia's hair in the bath. He shakes the bottle of soap over her head and then rubs her hair. Sometimes he tells me he's giving her a "haircut". He's pretty domesticated.

He's very insistent that Mia is like him, and has parts that she doesn't have because she's a girl. I've always used the correct name for all his body parts, so he very often says to me "Mia have [insert male part]!", I say "No, Mia doesn't. Only boys do." He says "Isaac have *****, Mia have ***** too!". The best part is that when the sacrament was being passed a few Sundays ago Isaac says "*****!". Gordon and I just about died laughing, except we were trying not to let him see us, so he wouldn't keep saying it. At least he left out the Mia part.

 
Thanks for making the last two years of our lives so unforgettable son! You make our life before you seem incredibly boring.

 

Mia eats a spider. This is not a metaphor.

Mia is a few weeks away from 10 months, and last week she was officially out longer than she was in-which was exactly 41 weeks, and the night her father got food poisoning. Impeccable timing, no?

She finally has 1.5 teeth. Her first one poked through a few days after her 9 month mark, and the second is just making it's way up now. Her top two are already showing themselves, so I think this is going to be a long few months.

As she gets older and her personality becomes very apparent, there are two words I would use to describe her-social and mischievous.

Mia waves, gives kisses, plays peek a boo, has noises for every possible emotion she is feeling, and must not be left alone, lest she miss out on some big adventure.

The only exception to the above is when she is exhibiting personality trait #2.

If she is alone (and quiet) or with her brother unsupervised, she cannot pulls things off shelves, throw things out of baskets, or shove every inedible thing into her mouth (including spiders) fast enough. Granted making a mess is kind of her developmental stage, but when I say "Miaaaaa" while she's in the thick of doing it, she giggles and screams with delight, then does it even faster before I can whisk her away.

Mia never stays still. She's always squirming and trying to turn herself around if she's being held. She can push herself up from the ground or an object and stand for up to 10 seconds. She loves to climb stairs, and gets plenty of opportunity, since her brother thinks this is an activity he is qualified to supervise.

Although she does get rough housed pretty regularly, Mia adores Isaac. They chase each other, wrestle with each other, play in the bath together, and watch movies together. She is usually only interested in whatever he is doing, much to his chagrin.

Mia is the best eater. Isaac was really good at this age, but I doubt even he was better than Mia. This girl will eat anything I put in front of her. Example-this week's menu was turkey pot pie, spaghetti with homemade meatballs, shepherd's pie, and Thai coconut curry soup.  She eats it all. She even ate a whole meatball to herself. 1.5 teeth be darned.

Just in case you're still reeling from my casual mention of her eating a spider, I will tell you the story that is sure to be told to every date she ever has in order to deter any smooching that might occur. Just kidding, I'm not that mean, but her daddy is. I was talking to him on the phone when it happened and he said to me "We are telling that story at her wedding.". Sorry kiddo.

I'm not afraid of spiders, so normally if I find one on the floor I just let it be. I had noticed one under our cupboards in the morning, about the size of my thumb nail. I ignored it and we went out for the morning. I was cleaning up after lunch, and looked down to see Mia with something in her mouth. This is pretty typical, since Isaac will sometimes drop some snack on the floor that I missed or didn't get to yet. Then I noticed it looked like she had pieces of string on her hands. She's always finding the weirdest things to put in her mouth, so I bent down to take a closer look, and knew it was a spider leg. I quickly looked around. No spider, but there was another spider leg on the floor, one on her shirt, one on her hand, and one stuck in a drool pool on her chin. So I didn't technically witness her ingesting the spider, but unless he shed his legs spontaneously and she just happened to pick each one up, I think it's a pretty safe conclusion to draw.

So be forewarned. She may appear all smiley, petite and adorably cute, but nothing gets between her and her appetite!

She was Hamm (the pig from Toy Story) for Halloween!