Since I skipped 19 months, it really seems like Andrew has grown up a lot since the last time I wrote.
Andrew is talking so much more than before. He probably knows at least 100 words and seems to be adding and using new ones all the time. I guess you really do hit a language explosion about 18 months. He is starting to say 2 and 3 word phrases (I wouldn't call them sentences without a subject) like "good job", "more rice please", and "play cars". Of course, about half of his words still seem to do with cars and trucks, even when he's asleep! He is also learning polite words. He picked up "bless" for bless you when someone sneezes on his own. After much teaching, he learned please and half the time when he wants something he will just say "please" instead of telling us what he wants.
His new favorite thing is to pretend to talk on the phone: his play one, our old phone, or our actual phone. He pretends to talk to Daddy and Pa and mostly talks about eating rice and playing cars and says, "What?" all the time. He figured out how to make our actual phone ring and then answers it and talks on the phone. He actually answered the phone once this week without me knowing it and said, "What?" My friend thought it was very funny.
For awhile there, his tantrums were very bad. One day, he had two tantrums that were over 30 minutes each! And he could still remember what he was fussing about. Mostly it was because he was tired/hungry, but still. Thankfully, the tantrums have really calmed down and are down to the normal 30 second things. I'm sure it's just a taste of what's in store for the next couple years.
Andrew is finally finally starting to sleep better. He is finally very settled on one afternoon nap that lasts anywhere from 1-3.5 hours. He usually wakes up still tired and cranky and then ends up falling asleep in my arms for another little while. Fine by me - reading time because it's too hard to do real work on the laptop like that. He is still hard to get to sleep (wants us there / takes awhile), but he sleeps by himself in the toddler bed all night and only wakes up once (usually) around 4:30 and needs comforting back to sleep. I don't blame him for waking up because we live like 20 feet from a railroad and the train comes by then (well, twice actually) and blows its whistle SOOO loud. Half the time, people's car alarms go off, too. Anyways ... this is quite an achievement for Andrew and I am so glad he is in a toddler bed instead of the crib.
Andrew LOVES to play, of course. He is starting to get quite imaginative. He got a Little People farm set for Christmas and loves to play with the animals - they dance and walk around, go for trips in his plane, kiss each other, ride on his cars. He also loves to play with his cars, lining them all up or throwing them off the table. He loves to build towers with his blocks and then put cars or people under them or run his railroad tracks under them. He loves to build railroad tracks and run his train on them or send his Little People down the railroad track as a slide. He also loves to read, for as much as 30-45 minutes at a time.
It's been so cold and snows almost every day so I've been very negligent about taking us outside. But this week, I decided that has to change. So each afternoon, we got out for a little 15 minute walk in the snow. Andrew loves to wear his boots (which are really rain boots because I have never bought him snow boots), hat and mittens. (The snowsuit, as you can see, wasn't such a great idea). He hates when the snow gets on his boots but eventually gets used to it (he has to when there's a foot of snow). We even went sledding today! I'm not sure how much he liked that - he said "Whee", but twice was more than enough.
Andrew really loves to eat. He still loves to eat rice, but meatballs have actually surpassed that love. He also can eat more than 6 clementines a day! That's a lot for a little boy. He loves to get canned food from the pantry and tell me he wants to eat it - his favorite is corn, but he likes canned fruit, too. He even has drunk milk a few times! And I think he is growing. He is definitely getting taller and has finally outgrown all of his 12 month clothes. 24 month clothes are still much too tall for pants, but fine otherwise.
He really loved visiting his grandparents for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. He talks about Pa all the time and also loves to look at the collage of family portraits we have above his bed. He likes playing with kids as well, but is still not too keen on sharing. But he loves nursery and the classes that Katsu and he attend together.
It's been a fun few months with Andrew.
