Andrew is definitely starting to act two and showing his personality more and more every day. He is probably the most enthusiastic kid I know. He is always very excited about everything - especially if it involves his friends, other kids, yummy food, or going somewhere fun. He cheers every time we go to the church, store, library, friend's house, or even the doctors office (I think he likes the little play structure at his pediatrician, riding the elevator, and getting a sticker). He invariably says "Yeah", "Yup", or "Yes" to everything, so asking him questions is never very illuminating. He just is generally agreeable ....
But little moments are definitely starting to creep in. Andrew is starting to say "No" to things he doesn't want more and more. He has a really hard time when we say no to him or he doesn't get his way and gets very emotional. He also gets his feelings hurt if he thinks that we are made at him and needs lots of comfort.
Andrew loves to play. He especially loves going to the park and playing with any kids, especially older ones. He seems to be getting the idea of hide and seek (though he giggles too much and won't stay in place long) and also tag. He spent the entire church activity today running around and rolling around on the floor with all the older kids. He gets so much joy from playing with other kids. His fascination with Fisher Price little people is being pushed a bit to the side, and he loves to play with cars all the time again. He takes a nap, at least initially in his stroller, and wants me to pile on all his cars to hold. He's even tried to sleep with them before. He has a little purse and will put cars in there to carry around. Unfortunately, he thinks any car he sees is his, which makes for hard times at play dates and at Mom's Group. He also enjoys singing songs that I printed out from online (I'm trying to learn some) and dancing.
Andrew is very active, though probably typical for his age. His loves to climb and jump and spends the evenings before bed time jumping on and generally injuring Katsu. He loves to jump on our bed during the day. He also is starting to get a little more aggressive with the cat, unfortunately. He can be a handful - when I went to get the mail last week, he ran away over towards the creek. I finally caught him and carried him into the apartment building only for him to go straight for the stairs, climb down to the basement and run into the laundry room. Now, I let Katsu get the mail when he gets home.
Andrew still takes really long (2-3+ hour) naps in the afternoon which helps me get a lot of work done, but I feel like I'm missing out on some playing time with him. He seems to be needing to sleep less at night and is doing a little teensy tiny bit better about sleeping in his toddler bed. He likes Katsu to put him to bed and tell him stories about his adventures with Horse and Goat. He will cry Goat Goat at night because he wants to hear more stories. He eats really well - both in terms of quantity and especially in terms of quality when I think of all the special foods his Bulgarian babysitter Maria makes for him - homemade cakes, sweets, french fries, specially prepared chicken and meatballs, soup for his every week, lots of fruit. Wow - he has probably eaten more Bulgarian specialties than I will ever eat.
Andrew has lots to say. He is learning more words, but less quickly now. He loves to ask questions, "Mom, what's that? Where's daddy going? Where'd he go?" Etc. And often the say question over and over and over again. He also loves to talk about his cars. And make requests. He has learned some new numbers, but still doesn't quite now how to count in the right order. It's usually more like "2, 4, 5, 9, 2". But he loves to try to count all the time and everything. He is fascinated with watching things outside and loves to look for planes in the sky or police cars or trains from the window. He is still scared of everything, especially the sun and cars who might run him over (a bit overly cautious) and even sometimes Joe.
We had a fun month - here are pictures from the Japanese Cultural Day (Katsu and Andrew went - I think I was sick), from an Easter Egg scramble for the city that was totally nuts - the kids just plowed through eggs in like 30 seconds flat, from around the house with his best friend, Joe the cat, and also of the ressurrection eggs which have symbols of Easter in them which Andrew is in love with and wants to look at ALL the time. So fun!!!
