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Thomas finishes his "foo foo" (peanut butter and jelly sandwich), holds out his sticky hands and says, "Oh, no!"
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The Cookie Monster dvd freezes because, as I discover a few minutes later, there is peanut butter on it. Thomas points to the tv and says, "Oh, no!"
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Thomas methodically takes out each of the pegs in his pound-a-peg toy. Then, he picks up the base, holds it up to his face and says, "Oh, no!"
So, I sort of forgot I had a blog. Um, maybe intentionally. But maybe not. Just halfway intentionally.
Here are two cute videos of Thomas. Maybe I'll get back into the swing of things.
Thomas Outside from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.
Thomas in the Tub from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.
Thomas has another little friend.
This is Everett but he doesn't look like this anymore. He got his first haircut for his 2nd birthday last week. Now, he looks like a tiny version of his dad.
Everett and his mom Lauren come over once or twice a week. Lauren is super nice and seems to get dressed every single day which completely blows my mind.
Thomas and Ev mostly like having access to each other's toys but they're also starting to play together.
Saturday Night
Me: Thomas come give mama night-night kisses. It's time to pick out a book and go night-night with daddy.
Thomas: NOOOOO!
Many no's have followed.
Cars from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.
Li = Lightning McQueen
Sashe = Sally
Looking back through the last couple of posts, I realized that it looks like we only dress Thomas when he leaves the house. Which is basically the case. In our defense it's regularly been over 100 degrees here. It was 104 on Saturday. We don't turn the air conditioning on unless it gets over 95 and even then we only use it for an hour or two during the hottest part of the day. A minimum of clothing is required.
However, fall is finally here! The high today is only 72. We're going to have to pull ourselves together and wrangle some clothes onto the kid.
Thomas and I found these tiny Sesame Street figures while we were clearance hunting at Target today. He officially loves them. I asked him where his Sesame Street guys were at one point today, so now he calls them guy. (He's not so big on plurals.) It's just one of the four words he started saying today.
Guy (24)
Melmo = Elmo (25)
Out (26)
Dow = Down (27)
(Yes. I'm still keeping track. It should surprise no one that I have spreadsheet for this very purpose.)
He's super cute wandering around saying cookie all day. Nevertheless, we've cut way back on his tv time. He was watching around an hour a day which doesn't seem like a lot but frankly it turned him into a huge jerk.
He screams when I turn the tv off. He doesn't cry; he literally screams. In the last week or so, he also started screaming at us whenever the slightest thing didn't happen exactly the way he expected/wanted it to happen. I finally realized that when he watches tv his default reaction to frustration for the rest of the day is to scream in my face. So, we're taking a break. It's a bummer because I was really hoping Big Bird would teach him the alphabet.
Thomas makes dinner.
Pour in the Rice
Add the Spices
Some Water
Black Beans
New Tool
Measure the Tomatoes
Give it a Stir
Cover and Simmer
This ... This ... big jerk is luck to be alive. If I hadn't poured milk, blood, sweat and tears into this kid for the last two years, I might have killed him today. He locked me out of the house! Twice!
While I was in the garage this morning doing laundry, Thomas locked the door. Only, he doesn't know how to unlock it. I went outside to an open window and told him to go open the door for mommy. He just stared at me. He wouldn't even go over to the door and try to open it. So, I went back into the garage and knocked on the door. Nothing. When I went back to the window to see what he was doing, he was sitting on the couch watching Sesame Street.
Fortunately, I found a way to take the screen apart without ruining it. I climbed in through the window. Thomas didn't even blink an eye. I turned the television off and told him not to play with the door anymore. I put our extra set of keys in the garage. Then, I went outside and fixed the screen.
A little while later, I went out to hang laundry. Thomas's laundry no less. I was just thinking that I needed to go inside to check on him when I looked up and noticed that the door from the garage to the backyard was closed. We leave it open all day long to keep the garage from getting too hot. I walked over and it was locked. Thomas had gone out into the garage, shut the door and locked me out. On purpose.
I looked in the window to find Thomas. He was, I kid you not, sitting on the loveseat flipping through a magazine. When I called through the window to him, he wouldn't even look at me. So, I had to take the screen apart all over again.
And to think I was planning to write a nice post about what a good sleeper he has turned into and how he likes to play in his crib and what a nice change that is from when he spent most of his time in bed screaming. There will be no nice posts about Thomas today.
Thomas has fallen in love with bubble baths. He stands in front of the sink and stares at the bottle on the counter while I start his water. He wants to make sure I don't forget. He even says bubble now, the whole word. (It's number 22. Yes, I'm keeping track.)
Walmart put their summer toys on clearance two weeks ago. I've been stalking the aisle ever since. Yesterday two of the things I wanted finally hit rock bottom. I got the little Tadoodles boat he's playing with and a 3D Sidewalk Chalk set for $2 each. I love getting good deals.
Thomas changed from a no-tv-kid to a television lover almost overnight.
When we bought the Cars paraphanalia for his room, we thought he should probably see the movie. So, we used some of his birthday money to order the dvd from Amazon. After I ordered it, I thought I should try to get Thomas used to the tv. I'm all about value; I wanted to get our $16.95 out of that dvd. So, I found a Thomas the Tank Engine movie on Netflix Watch Instantly. I set it up on the Roku for Thomas to watch. He hated it. He seemed frustrated that the pictures moved before he could get a really good look at them. I had to turn it off because he was whining and crying. So, when the dvd came in the mail, I wasn't sure it was such a good buy.
There was nothing to worry about.
Thomas Watches Cars from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.
Around the same time, Thomas found my old collection of Sesame Street Treasury Books on the bottom shelf of his bookcase. He started choosing them at storytime before his nap and at bedtime. So, I recorded a couple of episodes of Sesame Street. And that's when his conversion became total. After that first episode of Sesame Street, he literally stood in front of the television and demanded more!Cookie from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.
Apple EaterI forgot two words:
poo poo
bye bye
That's 21! Take that so-called child development experts!
Thomas had his 2-year-old checkup yesterday. He weighs 27 lbs 1 oz and he's 33 and 3/4 inches tall. He's just below average in weight, right at average for height, and just above on head circumference. He also got his last two shots until Kindergarten (except for annual flu shots). Yay! Shots are horrible.
At each checkup, I fill out a developmental checklist. The speech requirement for 2-year-olds is a 20 word vocabulary. I was shocked. I thought Thomas's speech was still way behind. Not so; he has a 19 word vocabulary. He says:
Dada
Sissy
ruah = truck
argh = quack (and lion, tiger, bear, dinosaur, etc.)
moo
hoo hoo (owl)
mo = more
pway = plane
uh oh
ahh = all gone
wa = water
tee = teeth
ju = juice
shoes
ca = car
ffuu = fan
cook = cookie
oh wow
pea = please
He'll also repeat just about anything you ask him too.
I'm glad he's not too far behind, but I'm also a little angry. Maybe he wouldn't have caught up without speech therapy but given that he never freaking talks at speech therapy, I think he probably would have done it on his own. We've worried about him so much over the past year. For most of that year, I've thought that we're just caught in a particular moment in time, when everyone is on the lookout for speech delays. Ten years ago (and likely 10 years from now), no one would have thought twice about Thomas's speech at 14-months-old. And while speech therapy certainly doesn't hurt him, I hate it. The only time I've ever really thought there might be something truly wrong with Thomas was during a therapy session. So, I don't take him anymore; Jeremy does. I couldn't take it anymore.
I'm rambling. I'm just frustrated because I think we could have avoided this whole stupid thing.
Thomas is two! I have no idea how that happened. Pictures from his actual birthday are up at our flickr page. On his first birthday, he started walking. We had hoped he would start talking on this birthday but no such luck. However, he did score lots of great loot from his birthday money. First, we bought him a sandbox and some sand toys.
Then, we found an awesome lot of Cars stuff for his room on Craigslist. There's a rug with a track on it to play cars on.
And a sleeper sofa that he loves.
We also got a traffic light and a little book case to go with them. He likes to turn off the lights in his room, sit on his sofa and look at the traffic light. The woman who sold it all to us threw in a bunch of books too.
Thomas also got clothes and cars and new shoes. The shoes were surprisingly a big hit. I guess he really didn't like the sandals he'd been wearing all summer. (I got new shoes too.)
My dad bought Thomas an electric four-wheeler for his birthday. Thomas was afraid of it at first. However, after three days of this (check out the look on his face):
We got this:
Thomas Rides from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.
Yay!
I've gotten behind transferring videos from the camera to my computer. Here are three from last month.
Thomas loved this Barbie for about three days. Then, he threw her over for a less traditional, American Idol style boy-girl singing duo.
Thomas's Singing Girl from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.
RIP MJ from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.
Ipod Dance from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.
