Frazier had a mini meltdown in the checkout line at Brookshires yesterday. I can't even remember what it was about now, but when we got up to the register the cashier said to him, "You were acting a little bit two-ish just now. How old are you?"
I suppose there was no real hope of escaping it. The kid was going to be two. And evidently, even the most perfect babies become...well...toddlers. I shouldn't complain because he's still a pretty good kid ninety-something percent of the time (that number varies daily). He just got so opinionated. I don't believe I fully appreciated the time I got to think for him.
Even so, I continue to like each stage even better than the last. And I really enjoy having an almost-two-year-old. He's always played well alone, but now I feel like I can actually let him without having both eyes on him every second. Like now, for instance, he is riding his firetruck around the house so I am free to blog.
He's always on a little mission and I love his creativity. He's the kind of kid that takes one thing and sees how many different ways he can use it. He's so independent and resourceful. He will push a chair or his stool to the sink, stand on it, and wash dishes. (Like literally rinse dishes from the sink off and put them on the drying rack.) He also pulls a stool up to the side of his high chair, climbs in and puts on his bib (I always keep one hanging on the back of the highchair). He can also climb on his changing table. If I suggest we change his diaper and then don't go directly to his room- he goes ahead of me, climbs up on the changing table, and assumes the diaper changing position. He goes behind me in the bathroom and kitchen and closes cabinets and drawers I leave open. If I leave things out of place, like shoes or a drinking glass, he brings them to me. One morning, I set him up with a TV show and jumped in the shower. A minute or two later, he opens the shower door, hands me a glass of water I'd left on bedside table and shuts the door. Really made me laugh.
His vocab increases daily, but he has yet to string any words together to really form phrases or sentences. And sometimes communication is a real source of frustration since a lot of his words sound very similar and I'm not a mindreader. Yet.
I think, overall, I enjoy every day more than the last because being a mom seems to get easier. Or maybe I'm just getting better at it...or more used to it. Or maybe I just love him so much more every day that no matter how hard it was it'd still be a pleasure.
I took this picture the night Frazier fell face down on our patio and I thought he'd knocked out a tooth or two. Fortunately all teeth were accounted for, but the lip didn't fare so well. I suppose it would have been too much to ask that we make it to two without a busted lip. Really, the way this kid climbed all over the place it's a miracle we made it this long without any real injury to speak of or stitches. So there's that. But the busted lip was pretty sad...and traumatic. Mostly for me, but it wasn't great for Fraz either. It's all well now.
This was VBS week and I was a crew leader for the preschoolers (so I spent my week with 8 4-year olds) and Frazier got to go to his nursery class every day. It's been a long week, but we had a good time. Maybe now that we'll have our mornings back next week, I'll get some more blogging in!
I look forward to the few weeks out of the year Texas Red grapefruits are in season. I can have apples all year 'round...so an apple's an apple, but I savor every bite of every one of those grapefruits in every bag I buy. I look forward to the day they're available and I anticipate with sadness they day I eat the last one until next year. Josh's Aunt Julie says that families aren't meant to be so very far apart, but I know now that they're like those grapefruits...being apart makes every minute together thicker, more meaningful. Knowing your time is brief with long stretches in between makes it that much more lovely to bask in their presence and and that much sweeter to revel in their warmth.
My Mom did a good post on my dad (and rightfully so...he's certainly blogworthy as dad's go) two years in a row...so I defer to 
Me and Fraz:
I'm pretty sure we ate several handfuls. Berry picking makes you hungry.
Aren't these beautiful? I loved all the different colors in one cluster.
In the end, here's what we got among the three...er, seven...of us. Being that three of the seven were under two- I'd say that's a pretty good harvest. I was determined not to leave without my bucket filled. Mines the one on the right. :)
Blueberries are better with friends. Like most things. 
This was about as close to a group picture of all the kids as we could get. At least they're all in the frame:
Then Frazier ate blueberries out of our flat ALL the way home!
All the frames came from my thrifted frame collection which lives in my garage waiting for paintings and projects like this. I didn't paint any of them really, the yellow one was actually already yellow though obviously I painted over it a few times to get just the right Goodnight Moon Yellow and to add the scroll-y stuff. It was also almost the correct dimensions (I measured several throughout the book to estimate the right ratio). *Goodnight Moon Trivia: No two of the pictures of this cow jumping over the moon are exactly the same in the book and this picture is also in the picture of the three little bears sitting on chairs.* I chose to replicate the one on the two page spread of the great green room and I just freehanded it, but was quite happy with my estimations.
I just photographed a page, blew it up, and printed it out on some cream colored linen cardstock. It says "A dream is to look at the night and see things". It was hard to choose just one illustration and sentence, but I thought this was an appropriate one for a bedroom.
The "V is for vegetables" frame is also one I painted myself. I kind of wanted this frame to reflect another book, but decided to use it as an opportunity to incorporate the new 
