almost 2 years old!

In just a few more weeks Sebastian will be 2 years old! I've been looking back on some of his pictures from when he turned a year and then comparing them to more recent ones...my how he has changed just in physical appearance! Not a baby anymore!

The past few weeks have been kind of sticky. 80% of the time Sebastian is great, great, great. But then there is the other 20% (mostly when he wakes up in the morning and after his nap, and sometimes when Curt gets home) where he is crabby, crabby, whiny, irritable, and in a crying mood. It's been hard. For the first time ever he managed to climb and fall out of his crib. This happened during a three hour screaming episode. I put him in his crib hoping that it would calm him down, but he must have been so frustrated that he flung himself up and over the railing, yikes. And he just LOVES getting up at 5 am! But I think we are making a turn for the better. I don't think Sebastian's frustrations are due to lack of words and not being able to communicate. If anything we feel like his brain is taking another leap and that he's going through another huge developmental phase...this happened to him around 16-18 months too. There are times when I watch him and it looks like he is going to lose it, but then he actually catches himself and tries to stay calm.

Sebastian likes to talk a lot, if you are around him and he wants you to interact with him, he'll say, "mommy talk!" or "daddy talk!" he does this when he wants you to talk him through what he's looking at, or if he wants you to respond to what he's saying and the silence is too long for him. kind of funny.

something cute is before naps and bedtime he says, "goodnight" with an emphasis on the "t" and then says, "wuv you!".

a few things I enjoy doing with him during the day:
1. making tunnels out of legos for his trains.
2. pretend cooking in the kitchen. although he ends up licking a lot of utensils and I have to wash them all over again.

it's safe to say that he can identify all numbers from 1-10, all colors, and capital letters. the concept of counting objects is hit or miss. i just introduced him to lowercase letters, he looked confused, but interested. pronouns are starting to be used. he likes the piano...really expensive ones we figured out when we were at Schmitt's Music...he picked one out that was $70,000! way out of our budget! on the keyboard he knows low C, that there are white keys and black keys...i guess that's a start until he learns how to read music.

i like that he tries to be clean now. he likes to clean tables, himself. He'll ask for a washcloth or napkin if he gets dirty.

a bad habit we got into was allowing him to watch home videos of himself over and over on the computer. he loves his home videos, we are trying to limit those now as I think it kind of wrecks him from finding other things to play with...but he likes to "check email" now or "Sebastian is working" on the computer.

his smile is great. we get lots of comments from people that his smile is going to get him into trouble someday, i believe it.

he is still a delight! even on the bad days!