22 Months

I have been meaning to write this post for a couple of weeks, but I kept running out of time. Life seems to happen in fast-forward these days! At 22 months:

-Jackson is a talking machine. He is starting to string more words/syllables together. One thing that he says all the time is "zippedy-do-da". I am not sure where he got that from..maybe his MMO program? After he said it, I started singing the song and he loves it. He chimes in at the "my, oh, my" part and the "mister bluebird" part. He also seems to like singing more and more and he is also a champ at naming the artist of songs that come on. He amazes us all the time with it. He can instantly pick out a song by Bob Marley, Sarah McLachlan, Sting, Enya, Tom Petty, and Hootie (haha).

-He is definitely soaking up everything like a sponge. He loves doing his puzzles. He has a numbers puzzle (0-9) and he will say all of the numbers as he is putting them in the puzzle. He will start counting things spontaneously and pointing out letters of the alphabet on things as well. He still loves reading and pulling out ALL of his books. We are up to reading 3 nighttime stories now.

-He is starting to remember places. Once we visit a place a time or two, he will start pointing it out when we drive by. If it is a restaurant he will say "eat", or if we go by a place with an elevator, he will say "up, down". He knows hotels very well and will get extremely excited when we drive up to one. He will start jabbering like crazy and says "up, down, room".

-Jackson is definitely a water baby and is really enjoying this summer at the beach. He loves playing in the ocean, sand, and tidal pools. He is pretty fearless in the ocean and keeps trying to walk in deeper, so we really have to stay right on top of him. The other day we were in Hilton Head and there were jellyfish and starfish washing up everywhere on the beach, so needless to say we stayed in the tidal pools that day!

-He is really into Toy Story right now. He loves all things Woody and Buzz and his favorite is Toy Story 3. He has about 30 minutes right before bed where he watches Toy Story with Justin while I go for my evening run. He absolutely loves it and he has begun laughing at certain scenes (with the monkey) and really getting into it. We got him a stuffed Woody and Buzz and he carries them around everywhere.

-He is sleeping through the night in his own bed. I repeat, he is sleeping through the night in his own bed. And it only took almost two years-ha! Long story short he fell out of our bed one night a little over a week ago. He somehow wiggled his way down to the foot of our bed and slid out. I can only assume that he slid because our bed is three feet high and he didn't have a scratch, bruise, or mark on him. In fact, he didn't even cry. Still, Justin and I were SICK about it. We woke him up and made him walk around and talk for a while to be sure that he was ok, which he was perfectly fine. Still, I couldn't hardly go back to sleep after that. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "things that go bump in the night" and we knew right then and there that it was past time for him to be in his own bed. We just felt so lucky b/c he could have really hurt himself. So after that, I began putting him back in his own bed every time he woke up. The first two nights were very trying and he got out of bed and repeatedly walked to our room over and over. It was rough for those 2 nights and then it started getting better. Every morning we would tell him how proud we were of him for sleeping in his big boy bed and we also talked about it before bed every night. We play this game where we "call" one of the following: woody, buzz, nana, grandma, aunt boo boo, Uncle A, Agent Oso, Mickey, etc and tell them what a big boy Jackson was for sleeping in his own bed. Jackson loves it! Now he is sleeping through the night in his own bed, although usually waking between 5-6AM...yikes! We do let him get in bed with us for the one last hour of sleep since we are usually in a light sleep. Thankfully he will sleep until 6:30 or 7 AM. The rule is that we don't let him in our bed if it is before 5 AM when the sun is about to come up. He has done really well and we are so proud of our big boy for transitioning so easily.

-He continues to eat ok, although he goes through phases where he loves things and then when he wont touch them. An example is mac and cheese. He is on a mac and cheese strike right now. He absolutely loves fruit and I think he would be happy eating only a fruit salad for every meal if we let him! He had a touch of bronchitis about a week ago that required putting him on his first antibiotic ever. At the doctors office, he was weighed and weighs 26.2 lbs. He has gone up in his weight percentile, but he is still extremely long and lean. He has to wear a belt to keep most of his pants on.

He loves the two bedtime stories that I tell him and demands them at naptime and nighttime. One is (of course) the story of our trip to Hawaii. He loves to fill in all of the parts and talk about the animals that we saw at the zoo and aquarium. He also loves to talk about the pineapple plantation visit and the fact that daddy ate pineapple ice cream. The other story that he LOVES is one that my mom used to tell me. It used to be called the story of "princess Amber", but now it is obviously the story of "prince Jackson". Basically prince Jackson loses his mommy and daddy on Sesame street and runs into many of the characters who help him eventually find his mommy and daddy at the ice cream shop. Jackson smiles during the whole story and I do all of the voices for the characters.

-He is still a pretty well behaved little guy. He does great out in public and at restaurants. We still get comments when we are out about how calm and well behaved he is. ha! He can be a little tornado at home. I don't think he's had a full blown tantrum just yet, but he has had little fits. He responds so well to time out and will go stand and say sorry to us when time is up. He still (lightly) bites and hits, although I can tell it's out of frustration and not necessarily anger. He is extremely affectionate still with me and Justin and loves to snuggle and give kisses. He has the cutest little shy smile when we are telling him how much we love him/are proud of him. What a sweetheart!