Thank you, A-ma!

My mom, Vincent's A-ma, was here this past week. She was here for 8 days! It was great to have her here. Unfortunately for her, she just missed the snow (again!). Like me, she did not grow up in snow, so she finds it to be a novelty. This has happened a couple of times now, where she'll be here, and soon after she leaves, it'll snow. Oh well. I'm just happy it's not heavy snow like a few weeks ago.

While here, we took Vincent to the Children's Museum. She got a good family picture of us outside at the Seattle Center.
She also had the chance to visit Vincent's preschool one day, and his Mandarin class on another day. We went to Miller Community Center twice as well. She said that she has not spent so much time with so many little people in so long. I think this has been the busiest visit for her since he was born. It was really nice to have her help getting up and down our steps outside with Vincent, diaper bag, groceries, and whatever else we had to lug up and down. And, she made dinner a few times, or we would tag-team the cooking on other nights. On top of all the help, Vincent's Mandarin improved quite a bit over the course of her stay.

And, one of the biggest things she did for us was let David and I go on an overnight date while she took care of Vincent. We just went downtown and stayed at the Inn At The Market and had dinner at Cafe Campagne. Our hotel room had the latest copy of Seattle Magazine, and there happened to be a page about good deals on eats at Pike Place Market, so we made sure we had a couple the next day as we wandered around the market. I had forgotten how much I truly love Pike Place Market (for the record, I did vote for the renovations).

Okay, so here's one more picture my mom took. She wanted to make sure that Vincent saw one day how pregnant I was, but still strong enough to hoist him up on my shoulders for a ride through the kitchen. And, since I haven't taken any belly pictures since I was about twenty-something weeks along, here's the latest look at the baby bump (33/34 weeks).

Our Big Boy

I'm still trying to recover from the shock of my little boy turning two years old! He's totally a toddler now. And, not like the toddler he was just a months ago; heck, even a few weeks ago. He's like a little boy!

Much has happened in just the past couple of weeks, but I'm not posting all the photos. The biggest thing that has happened here is Vincent's bedroom undergoing the switch from baby nursery to big boy room.

But, first, here's a photo from New Year's Eve, just before we went out to dinner at Lark.

Here are the photos of his new room. Notice the stark white walls. We're waiting to see what will go up in those spaces. And, we'll probably move those cubbies to a lower spot where he can reach them to put things in and pull things out by himself. We've kept his baby comforter for the bed for now, as the twin-sized ones just seem so big. And, yes, that's Thomas the Tank Engine sheets & pillow case you see. He picked them out himself.

So, how was the transition? Well, it was better than expected, but still a little bit of a work in progress. We made a big deal about shopping for the bed and the bedding. We kept him out of the room all afternoon as we set it up. We also made sure not to make a big deal about the "missing" crib. In fact, I'm not sure he even noticed that it's gone. When we were all set up, we made a big deal about him seeing his new room & his new bed. He loved it. He was WILD with excitement, actually! I find that getting him down for naptime is harder than bedtime. I think mainly because he's tired by the end of the day. And, even though he can now get out of the room whenever he pleases, it's really cute in the mornings when he comes out. This morning, we heard him open and shut his door, and then we heard a knock on our door. A KNOCK! He didn't just barge into our room. So cute. The other morning, he came out, and just sat on the sofa in the dark until we came to greet him.

Other fun things: At his 2 year check up, to keep him distracted while waiting for the doctor to show up, David was looking between Vincent's toes & telling him about "toe jam." They had a whole little conversation about "toe jam." Now, when he takes his socks off, he wants the "toe jam" (which is just sock lint) cleaned out. Or, if he goes into the bathtub and the "toe jam" ends up in the water, he will stand up and say, "toe jam, toe jam, toe jam..." while pointing at it until one of us removes it from the water.

We bought Vincent a safety set for when he's on a wheeled vehicle, like his razor scooter or tricycle. It's more to get him in the habit of it now, rather than to try and keep him safe. He doesn't got that fast overall. But, since he's getting more coordinated and such, he's getting faster, and with David's track record for head injuries as a kid, we thought we should start getting into safety habits now.

Two Year Check Up

Happy New Year!

The year ended with us taking Vincent to his two year check up. It went very well. He got to stand with shoes & jacket off, but the rest of his clothing on, on a regular scale, and get his height measured while standing up against the wall ruler. He liked the scale, but not the ruler. He weighed in at 25.8 lbs, which is 50.75%, and he is 35 inches tall, which is 75%. His doctor said that he can now go on either 2%, 1% or fat free milk - our choice. David wants to stick to 1%, but I do the shopping around here, so I voted for fat free. I've been looking forward to buying just one type of milk! Fear not, my love, David, whole milk will be back in this household again in just over a year - unless baby #2 is allergic to dairy.

The cutest part about this two year check up is this: