Firsts:
--Sleeping in a "big boy" (twin) bed (as just a mattress on the floor for now)
--Wearing big boy underwear
--First time really playing in the ocean
--First trip to a zoo and an aquarium
Growth and Development:
Evan wears a mix of 2T and 3T clothes. He also now wears training underwear or pull-up diapers since we started potty training with him in December (while in Australia). Otherwise, he'll wear a size 5 disposable diaper at night, and he's weighing in around 31 lbs these days. He is still wearing his size 7 toddler shoes, but I am about to start shopping for size 8 shoes. In fact, I want to get him some snow boots so he can play in all the great snow we've had lately, and I have no intention of getting anything smaller than an 8 so he can wear them for the rest of the winter season at least.
His language is developing more and more, and he's definitely entered the stage where he can say the darnedest things!
Hanging out with Emma.
Meal time:Evan still loves breakfast. I think it's his favorite meal of the day. He started eating "rice bubbles" (or rice krispies as we call them here) when we were in Australia every morning with Nana. So as soon as we got back, I had to get some for here. That first morning home he woke up and asked for rice bubbles, and pancakes and eggs! (So he remembered his favorite breakfast foods that we often have here along with his typical breakfast in Australia!) He usually will eat a bowl (sometimes two) of rice bubbles, and then have a pancake or a whole grain waffle. Sometimes he'll eat scrambled eggs in addition to that, if we make them.
I have also noticed he eats better at lunch and dinner if we watch how much we give him for snack. Right now he really likes the following foods:
--"chewy bars" (what he calls the chewy granola bars we buy for him)
--"airplane" yogurt (he could eat bowls and bowls of this. It's just plain greek yogurt, which he must have thought plain meant plane. Haha.)
--foods that he can dip (he's even eating veggies now as long as I have a dip for him! Baby carrots, snap peas, and bell pepper strips have all been consumed as long as he has either hummus or ranch to dip them in!)
--pizza! He eats it now, but by picking off the toppings first, then eating the rest of what's left. His favorite toppings are pepperoni, beef, and black olives (who would have thought a kid would prefer black olives!?)
--candy (sigh...thanks Halloween) and desserts. I don't think he's tried a candy he didn't like yet! He loved some treats from Australia like banana lollies, lamingtons, caramello koalas, shortbread cremes, kingstons, tim tams, etc. He also just tried Samoas (a Girl Scout cookie with coconut that I don't like, but John loves) and he loved them too.
--cheese, fruit, and pasta are still his staples at any meal
Recently I made chili on a cold night, and he wolfed it down! I wasn't sure if he'd eat the beans or tomato chunks, but he was either hungry or he really liked it!
Sleep time:
Evan still sleeps well for us. Of course, jet lag caused there to be a few nights where John would have to sleep with Evan (and John had to sleep with Evan many more nights beyond when jet lag had subsided when we were in Australia, in part because it was a new bed/room/environment I think). Yet, he goes to bed pretty good by 8pm, and sleeps until roughly 7am. He is using his sound maker again, and doesn't need his twilight turtle starts on every night now. He does sleep with a flash light though, which he really likes to play hand shadows on the wall before bed with that.
He also still naps well, just after lunch for about 1.5 hours. There is the occasional day where he sits up and doesn't sleep for at least an hour (or at all), but that is fairly rare.
He's doing pretty well sleeping in his "big boy" bed too. We had a rail on the side of the mattress in Australia (it was a really deep mattress there!), but haven't put one on the mattress here at home. If we put the mattress on a bed frame eventually, we'll definitely put a rail on, but so far he hasn't really fallen off. He's also starting to use the pillow more now for his head, whereas prior to the last few weeks he'd still lay flat on the mattress.
Play time:
His current favorite toys are his Nabi, his Mr. Potato Head, his train(s), and blocks (to build a tall tall tower!). While in Australia he really enjoyed the legos that made tunnels (and to also build tall tall towers), and playing in the water outside, as well as his Nabi too. He hasn't been interested in puzzles as much the past few months until this past weekend when a friend of mine gave us a new puzzle for him. And now he is really into doing it, all by himself. He does a great job matching all the pictures to fit the pieces in, and he learned the value of "taking your time" to get the pieces to fit.
Putting together his new puzzle.
Evan building his first Mr. Potato Head creation
Right before we went to Australia we went to a birthday party for a boy that had a space shuttle theme. Evan brought home a blow up space shuttle and we were playing "3, 2, 1 blast off" with it over a week ago when I thought maybe Evan would enjoy seeing a real shuttle blast off. So I pulled up some videos on You Tube and they were an instant hit. For the past week, ever since that moment, he wants to watch it all.the.time. We downloaded his favorites onto his Nabi so he can watch them himself that way, but he still occasionally asks to play them on the TV too.
Showing his baby sister how it's done.
Evan also still really loves to dance and wrestle. This most often takes place in the evenings, which helps him get out the rest of his energy before bed I guess. When he dances, he often just runs laps around the living room ("I run in circles"). However, recently he's started trying to copy me when I dance with him, which is really cute. He'll wave his arms around more, kick his legs or do a bouncing or grapevine kind of move. It's really adorable, especially when he tries to do it for Emma (he'll go in front of her and dance for her, which she loves). One new move is "shake your booty". I did not explicitly teach him this one, but John saw him doing it one day and that's what we started calling it. And, for your pleasure, I did get it on video the other day. Enjoy! :) Video of Evan shaking his booty.
Current favorite books: "Snug as a Hug", "Little Blue Truck", "The Little Red Caboose" (a little golden book), "Mozzie". He also enjoyed "We wish you a ripper Christmas" when we were in Australia.
While we were in Australia, Evan also started really enjoying kids songs! Nana had a bunch on her iPod, so not only did Evan enjoy playing with her iPod, he used it to find the songs he was in the mood for. Some songs I heard over and over again were "Going on a bear hunt", "Fruit Salad", "Going to the zoo", and many more. A lot of them were Wiggles songs, and some others were classic Aussie songs. Evan even started saying things from the songs randomly. Example: he was swimming in the pool with me and started saying "stumble stumble trip" from Bear Hunt. Nana burned them all onto a CD for us and we listen to it on occasion back home too. Evan and Emma both like it when I sing "Splish Splash Splosh" from this CD to them. Evan also now sings with some of these songs ("Jump, jump, jump if you want to" or "Wake up Jeff" from the Big Red Car song) and he really likes to clap and say "hooray" (with his arms thrown up in the air) during "If you're happy and you know it". So cute. I can't wait for more singing and dancing.
Other tidbits:
Last month Evan really started to remember people's names. He quickly learned the names of family in Australia, and even picked up on the name of a guy presenting at the Otter presentation at Underwater World! The guy had just come out and introduced himself and then went back in to let the otters out and Evan was asking where's Dylan? I thought maybe he was saying Liam (as in his Uncle Liam), but then when Dylan came back out Evan said "There he is" and pointed the guy presenting the otters. In addition to remembering names, he also got in a phase of asking where people were all the time. "Where's Daddy?", "Where's Nana?", etc...he would ask over and over, even after you told him the answer too. So after awhile I started asking him back so that he'd have to remember the answer and tell me. This was the sad part about leaving Australia though, was hearing him ask where Nana or Auntie Sarah or Eva were and having to tell him they were on the other side of the world. :(
Last month he also started wanting to talk on the phone more (and being able to do it too). There was one time in Australia that John was out and called the house. Evan had the phone up to his ear and kept saying "Ummm, yeah. Ummm, no. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No." I thought he was actually responding to John's questions, but John said he wasn't asking him anything and was trying to get Evan to give the phone to me! I guess Evan was just mimicking what he overhears us say when we have phone conversations?! He also knows how to make calls with our cell phones and with his Nabi via skype. He tries calling me on Skype many times per day, and has used my cell phone to call John without me knowing and vice versa. He does usually say hi when it's answered though, so it's not a complete prank call. He also still loves to use our cell phones to take pictures. Most of his photos are dark or have his finger over them, but he actually got a "selfie" of himself with my camera (while he was on my lap) the other day. Too cute....especially when he holds it up really close to his face and says "cheese" while taking the photos.
Evan's selfie :)
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