sprout and seed updates (humans)

Toddlerhood has been a trip so far. Koen’s amazing! He’s saying all kinds of new words, climbing, running, singing songs and doing all of the normal almost two-year old kind of things. Keeping him occupied can get tricky at times. I’ve been wanting to get him a sandbox, but haven’t gotten around to it. One gloomy day we were both feeling extra cooped up and I decided to make him a little “rice box” out of a tupperware container and some expired white rice. I threw in some bath toys and he loves it. Who needs TV when you have rice and a vacuum cleaner?

Countless minutes of fun playing with food.

As a first time mom, it’s so much fun watching Koen’s personality come out. The picky eating, fits, and boundary testing I could do without. Today, I went out for breakfast with a friend and it’s the first time I’ve felt embarrassed by my child. He was a little monster. He didn’t want to sit in the high chair so he was fussing, then I took away the crayons that he was eating, which made him mad. Everything within his reach promptly got thrown on the floor. I let him walk around a little bit thinking that would help and within a minute he walks over to my friend’s drink and pushes it over. Luckily she has a three year old boy and understands… the final straw is when the food came and he took the ceramic plate in front of him (I know, I should have seen it coming) and chucked it on the floor. JT and I are trying to use the Love and Logic principals, which are non-violent and rely on keeping one’s cool, but it can be really challenging, especially when you’re that person and everyone in the restaurant is looking at you. I tried out the L and L method for public fits and gave him “room time” in his high chair facing away from us and it sort of seemed to work. The hardest part was letting him cry/scream in public while I ignored him. Needless to say, our next get together will be women only.

Back to the positive, K’s really into letters lately. He got some alphabet magnets for Christmas and was surprisingly interested in them. One day I noticed he was taking the magnets off of the fridge and matching them with the letters on this talking Leap Frog toy. He knows a lot of the letters now and like to point them out when he sees them around town. Seeing your little baby turn into a real person is so cool, but definitely strange.

Happy boy at 21 months.

Speaking of time flying, I’m almost halfway through this pregnancy. The baby bump is starting to look less like a beer gut lately and I’m finally starting to feel some real movement. I’m starting to waiver on not finding out the gender and actually looked up some ultrasound clinics in the area. I think having such a low tech first half is making me extra impatient to take a looksie and make sure things are going well. I’ll have my first official prenatal exam this week (at 19 weeks).

For Mother’s Day, our little family plus my mom and her husband went to Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead. Koen got to see all of the animals from his farm books in person. We had a blast. Some highlights were feeding the kids with little bottles (which he tasted), watching chicks, and feeding the goats.

This was our favorite goat at the farmstead. He butted other goats to get to the food.

 

I'm not sure who had more fun - grandma Pam or Koen.