May 17, 2012
Dear Nicky,
Two and a half…wow! You’re growing up so much my little man! Your independent streak continues. You want to do everything “by self”. You love to make your own dinner. You’ve mastered as much of “cooking” chicken nuggets as you can – you get them out of the freezer, pick them out of the bag, put them on a plate, put the plate in the microwave and close the door. When they’re halfway done you flip them over and put them back in. You are not a fan of me helping with any of those steps. You also insist on picking out your broccoli and carrots and would probably pour your own milk if I let you. If it were up to you, you’d probably have chicken nuggets every day of the week, just because you can be so involved in the cooking. Sadly for you, mommy does try to get some nutritious food in the rotation. We are really lucky in that for the most part you’re a very adventurous eater and you love your veggies. You insist on eating salad, we can’t shuck corn in your sight because you insist on eating it raw and you even threw a fit one day when I didn’t have any prepared steamed broccoli in the fridge at breakfast time. The other day I caught myself telling you “you can have more peas after you eat some pasta”…what an odd thing to say to a 2 year old! You try all kinds of food, from dim sum to Vietnamese. You LOVE spicy food. We’ve seen you abandon chips so you can scoop spicy salsa in your mouth by hand to speed up the process. If it’s really spicy you’ll have tears streaming down your face as you pile more in.
You love worms this month and are constantly looking for them when we’re outside. I’m trying very hard to not let my phobias color your discovery of the world. So far you haven’t started picking them up…we’ll see how well I do when you discover that trick. You say the funniest things, including telling us that you’re “so proud” of us for something or another. You love music and have several songs that you “my song”. You love some current pop music, Bob Marley and the All Things Considered jingle.
We went to Washington DC this month. We had so much fun seeing all of the extended family and they had fun seeing how much you’ve grown. It was the dream vacation for a 2 and a half year old boy…you loved the airplane and trains we went on and you loved that DC is pretty much one gigantic construction zone these days so there were tons of cranes and diggers to see when we drove around. It was a sad occasion that took us out to the east coast – your great grandad’s funeral – but it was a very moving service and burial and you were such a good boy for all of the important parts. You were very interested in the pageantry of the event, from the service and music to the gun and canon salutes at the burial. I’m so proud of how well you held up despite missing naps and jetlag.
Since I’m posting this letter 2 whole months late, you may not be surprised to learn that I’ve decided to switch to quarterly letters now that you’ve reached the 30 month mark. Basically, you’re so much more interactive and demanding now that you’re 2 and a half and I’m finding that I have much less time to write. Your development is just as exciting and enrapturing to me but much more subtle now. I love watching you learn new skills as you explore the world. I can’t wait to see what you discover over the next three months.
I love you,
Mommy