Two years! How did that happen?

Happily practicing piano, a photo by LugerLA on Flickr.

If year one was dominated by colic, year two was completely different. We have ourselves an almost ideal toddler. We joke that when we take him out he is a walking advertisement for having a baby. He is happy, likes exploring, babbles, and does not go out of control, and is generally enjoying himself and being with us.

My wife is fully into the chinese mom thing of drilling letters and short words. I am more lazy and worry about things like counting animals and fruits and taking him to museums. The art museum staff get amused as he does things like walk up the stairs (there are a lot of stairs) and pick out pieces of artwork to stare at for a while (and just generally want to walk and run around. The Carnegie Museum actually has a very good run around room. Very convenient when you have a toddler along) (the Museum of natural history and science center are full of kids, so they are not nearly as impressed) And when we have lunch together, I regularly get comments about how well behaved he is when we are eating.

Favorites:

Movie and songs to dance to: Sound of Music. He can sing and dance along with most of the songs.

Book: Brown bear, brown bear what do you see? He not only turns pages, but he can read it to us. And he can improvise at random moments. Runner up: Little Pea

Song to sing: The alphabet song. We actually were not trying to teach him this. I used this as a song to wash hands too. Now he uses it whenever he really does not know what to do. Runner up: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Toy: Choo-choo. We have a little wooden train set. Plain as can be from Ikea. Actually, mommy and daddy are his favorite toys. Grandpa is not too far behind.

Candy: Bleh! Yuck! Somehow, we have a two year old that does not have a sweet tooth. Today, with a cake right in front of him with nothing in the way, he went for the apples because he wanted a snack.

Food: Bananas and Cherios are constants. But he does eat almost anything (but maybe not on any given day)

Drink: He has recently learned how to say chocolate milk. We consider this to be the big guns if he is upset and we are serious about getting him out of it.

TV: Ni hao Kai Lan! is still the top, but Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is now on the request list.

Ways to get out of naps: He is still not a good sleeper, during the day or night. Recent tricks are to say '(I want to) Study' which is guaranteed to work with grandma and grandpa. Singing the alphabet song is also a good way to convince us to not to try to get him to do something. Clearly, this is a toddler who is figuring out his parents and grandparents buttons.

Having grandparents around has been a great help and I think everyone is enjoying each others company. A very good year.  Now we are not worried so much about survival or health (although he still gets sick and is always on the lookout for something to eat), but our thoughts turn to the raising of a child.