"It's nice to meet you"

Last night we were talking with Finn about names and Ben was telling him that his name was Daddy, but that his name was also "Ben."  As he said "My name is also Ben," Finn stuck out his hand to shake his Daddy's and said "It's nice to meet you."

Counting and other cute things

Finn has started to learn how to count to 10 and it is one of the cutest things I have ever seen. I love how he yells out the numbers that he is most confident about (3, 6 and 10), whispers the ones he isn't so sure of (5 and 7) and he never says 9.

He is learning about the concept of the bargain. So at breakfast when he says he's "done, done" after only a few bites of toast or yogurt and not touching his eggs, we tell him he has to eat one bite of egg and then he can be done. So he grabs up a big handful of egg and takes the tiniest little bite out of it. Its hard not to laugh as we tell him, "No, that wasn't enough."  Sometimes, when Finn wants to watch a video, Ben will tell him that he can watch it if he counts to 10 first (which he will promptly do perfectly, except for 9, of course). Today we were supposed to meet friends at the park to play, but Finn wouldn't go down for his nap, so I took a chance and told Finn that unless he napped right now, we would not go to the park to play.  He looked at me for a good minute as if sizing me up and must have decided I would make good on my threat (nope, I was bluffing) and went to sleep shortly thereafter!

Finn is using lots of 2-word sentences now and is even starting to break out with some 3-word phrases. My favorite is "Come on, Dadda!" He also says "I like park/zoo/Mama" and "Avo truck noisy" as he's banging it on the table. He's becoming a great mimic and is learning words quickly. Now, Ben and I don't swear at home but I do say things like "shoot" and "darn" and for some reason Finn latches on to these words and says them over and over, loudly.  And, unfortunately, "shoot" in the hands of a toddler comes out "shit." I'm not sure what my neighbors think of me as they hear Finn yelling "Oh, Shit" at the top of his lungs.

Alone

Ever since Aunt Lisa left a few days ago, Finn has been walking around saying "Alone" over and over again. This has been making me sad and wondering if he feel's lonely. Of course, I know that's silly since he can barely verbally express which toy he wants to play with, I know he couldn't possibly verbalize his emotions. But still, it does break my heart to see him play by himself while saying, "Alone," and I keep hoping he's really saying something else and I just don't understand what it is yet.

Today I solved the mystery.  He is in fact saying, "Alone." I discovered this as Finn was trying to pull the baby gate out from behind the couch and I absentmindedly said to him, "Leave that alone!" To which he started repeating, "Alone" over and over again. Apparently, "Leave that alone" has become my new "no, no, no" and just as he walked around saying "no" to everything 6 months ago, he now says "alone" to everything. That is, until I come up with a new way to suggest he refrain from tearing the house apart.

2 year check-up

It's been six months since Finn has been to the doctor and nearly a year since he last had shots and I had hoped that would be enough time for him to forget, but it was not. As soon as we walked back and tried to weight him, he started sobbing. We got it done though. He was 25.5 pounds and 35 inches. For weight that put him in the 20th percentile and for height he is in the 70th percentile. So, for the first time in a long time, his weight was not a concern at all! 

He started sobbing the minute the doctor came in but wouldn't let me hold him. He just stood at the door crying to get out.  Finally, he let me wipe his nose and then asked to be picked up. So I was able to hold him while the doctor and I talked which calmed him down. Then as it came time to examine him, he started to cry again. Fortunately their new office overlooks I-8 and so Finn and I stood at the window and looked at all the trucks, cars and motorcycles go by and this distracted him enough that he stopped crying and let the doctor do her exam. I think this is the first time she's been able to listen to his heart in well over a year. No shots this time, thank goodness, and we're good to go for another year. 

Potty Training

We have unofficially started potty training Finn. Several months ago, we started taking off his diaper before bath time and trying to get him to pee in the toilet. It worked once. After that one time, he would refuse to pee in the toilet and as soon as I would give up trying to get him to go, he would walk over to the rug and pee on it instead. Naturally, I got tired of having to wash the rug all the time and when I didn't have time to wash it, the bathroom would stink to high heaven, so we gave up.

But in the last week of May, Ben suggested that we give it another go. We had success right away and Finn was so thrilled with peeing in the toilet, that I thought, "Maybe we could try this during the day?" So anytime I was going to change his diaper, I said in a very excited voice, "Let's go potty!!!!!" Finn would race to the bathroom and wait by the toilet for me to get him up on the stool and get his diaper off. I started buying pull-ups to make the process go more smoothly. His control is getting very good. He definitely waits for me to get his diaper off before he starts going. I don't think he recognizes the sensation that he has to go, though.

Then, on May 31, Finn hollered at me and I could see that he was about to poop. I asked if he wanted to go on the potty and he pointed at the bathroom. So I grabbed him up with a book and ran off to the bathroom and he sat down on the toilet and had his first poop in the potty. He didn't seem distressed by it at all. Actually I think he found getting to read a book on the toilet highly entertaining because he often will grab a book and want to read it sitting on the toilet, even when he doesn't have to go.

On the next poop occasion, we didn't make it to the potty in time, but tonight as Ben and Finn were playing, Ben suggested that Finn might need to go. (I think Finn must have been doing a lot of tooting in Ben's face). So off we went to sit and read and sure enough, it happened again!

So we're feeling good so far by how stress-free its been for all of us. Of course we aren't expecting anything from him yet and he still requires us to help him with the whole process, but its a start and since my expectation had been that it would be absolute nightmare, I am pleasantly surprised and pleased that it has been so easy so far.

The one thing that I find funny about all this is that this is the first childhood milestone I haven't prepared for by reading a book or searching through dozens of online articles. I am flying by the seat of my pants for the first time as a parent. Hmm....Maybe I can follow my own instincts and my child's lead and everything will turn out fine!

The last few weeks have been rough as evidenced by this conversation

Ben (to Finn): Your grandma and grandpa need to come visit.

Me: You think we could convince your parents to come down this summer? (Pause) Or were those not the grandparents you had in mind?

Ben: I don't even care at this point.

Vitamins

I have been trying to get Finn to take a gummy vitamin for nearly a year now with absolutely no success. But recently Finn has started wanting to do everything that Daddy does. So, now when Daddy takes his gummy vitamin, he gives one to Finn, and of course Finn just gobbles it up and asks for another one. Somehow he knows that Daddy doesn't take the DHA gummy vitamin, though, and he has steadfastly refused to take that one. I thought maybe it was just a fun novelty to Finn and the new shine would wear off quickly, but so far we have a week of successful vitamin ingestion under our belts. We will have to use this Daddy magic to our advantage for as long as it lasts. Some day the tides will change and he will only want to do the opposite of anything his parents do.