This is going to be a hard blog to write. Having Wyatt has so clearly emphasized how far Logan has come in 2 years. He is the most amazing little boy and he surprises me every day with things he says and does. It is hard to believe that 2 years ago he was a useless blob and now we have whole conversations over dinner. This year (from 1-2) was the coolest by far. I am not a tiny baby person and it takes so long in the first year to get their personality. In my opinion, you really don’t get to know them as well until they can talk. And TALK Logan has, for most of the last year. He didn’t develop his first words super early (had 6 or so just around 1 year), but he quickly took off and was advanced in his language by 15 months, with a vocab of probably around 50 (the goal for a two yr old!). It has continued to grow and now he speaks in full sentences and has an enormous vocabulary and an insatiable appetite for learning new words. It is unbelievable how quickly he can pick things up. If you tell him something once or twice, he can remember it days later. Although this year was filled with growth in many ways, language is definitely what defined the year and our experiences. We really became a family this year, enjoying traditions and routines and talking about what we liked together. It was such a special year and I hope the memories from this year never fade! Logan is such a sweet, energetic and happy kid and I love every moment I share with him (okay not every moment, toddler tantrums are less than fun, but pretty much every moment ;P).
Physical
Logan is a high energy and active kid. He was a little late walking, but made up for lost time and is now a great runner. He loves to spin and jump and he really enjoys his mygym classes. He can kick and throw balls and likes to pick up and carry all sorts of things. He is also a good climber. Though we lucked out and until a few weeks ago he never climbed out of his crib. Even though he can easily climb out now he doesn’t until we come in to get him so we are keeping the crib for the psychological boundary as long as it works. He has also been telling me that he wants to climb trees when we are outside, so I think he might be a little monkey in the making. He loves to be active and loves to run around outside. Most of the summer and fall (anytime Papa was over) he would play outside as long as Papa could stand it. When it was below freezing, Logan never seemed to mind! I’ve continued the tradition, taking him outside when I can.
He is also good at the smaller skills. He can stack legos and megablocks and he can buckle himself into his high chair (after climbing in on his own too). He can play cell phone games dragging color circles to their proper spots and he can drink out of big boy cups and use utensils very well. He eats cereal and soup and anything with very few spills.
His high energy has led to his only real discipline problems. When he gets overly whipped up, he tends to make worse choices. He likes to roughhouse and will get himself in to trouble by headbanging or biting. This has really improved recently as he has learned more about emotions (see below), but mostly we managed by making sure he didn’t get too whipped up or providing good outlets for it. He experimented with biting a bit but again he has curbed that behavior, thankfully. I have also read a few toddler books (or parts of them), so we are working on our responses to help him deal with these behavior issues. Seems like it is all working as his behavior has been amazing in the last few weeks.
He loves to rough house and be tickled. One of his favorite activities is still the “blanket game” which has many iterations, but involves a big blanket in the open part of our living room. Some versions involve spinning, some picking Logan up upside down, some where Logan just walks around with a giant blanket over him. He loves when his friends Richie and Addison come over because they all rough house together. He also likes any adult who is willing to roll around with him and tickle him. He is pretty easy to win over with a little physical play!
Communication
Logan speaks in full sentences primarily now. Gone are the days of yelling out one word. He will say “I want to go throw the yogurt ball in the bushes.” Or “I just want to play trains.” Or “I want to eat a muffin.” He also says “I don’t like it” instead of “no.” It is interesting because he will say “I don’t like it” even when he definitely does like it, but doesn’t want it right now. An interesting glitch in his language too is that he’ll say “I don’t like it muffin” or “I don’t like it football.” He leaves the it. It is cute. Last blog I think I talked about him picking up inflection and adjectives. It wasn’t just a big ball it was a “biiiiig ball.” Now he is picking up expressions like “I forgot to.” Or “maybe we’ll” or “I just want to..” or “actually, I” He picks things up here and there and will use them lots. They don’t always fit, but it is funny seeing him try to speak like we do. He also only recently started saying yes. It was missing from his vocab. He would repeat the item if you wanted it. I would say “do you want some cereal?” and he would say “Cereal.” Briefly it turned into “ok” and now it is “yeah” and sometimes “yes.”
Logan really enjoys the power of language and how it allows him to ask for what he wants. He can express himself so well that he can almost ask for anything. Of course if he has a toddler meltdown, then then his communication breaks down and so we can’t get much out of him. However, most of the time it is easy to understand what he wants (even if it isn’t a good option). The more he understands, the more he can also understand why we say no. It doesn’t help always, but it can be very effective sometimes.
His recall is still great so it is fun sitting down at dinner and asking about his day. He will tell us what they did at gymnastics or who they saw that day. It is so fun, I didn’t realize we’d get the dinner debrief this early! Our nanny and her boyfriend (Kevin) babysat the other night and in the morning, when we asked if he had fun with Kevin, Logan replied “I tackled him. Balloon popped.” Our nanny had said he spent most of the night tackling kevin and they were playing with a balloon and it popped. On another interesting note, he is obsessed with Kevin, even though he’s only seen him 4 or 5 times. However, he seems to realize that Julia loves him and Julia loves Kevin and therefore Kevin is someone he should love. It is so interesting how he picks up on the social dynamic!
In addition to a crazy vocab he also loves to learn songs. I have lost count of them all but his favs are happy birthday, soft kitty, you are my sunshine, the hand washing song, twinkle twinkle, row row, this old man, ring around the rosie, and abcs. He will often sing along with us as well. Hearing him wake up in the morning and sing to himself is one of the best things in the world. He will also sing to his brother when he is upset!
Because they are cute, here are a few of his logan-isms. Instead of pumpkin he says “fumpin.” And he uses it a lot because he and his daddy cooked a lot of pumpkins and he likes all things pumpkin. He also recently learned the word airport because his train set has one and he calls it “oarpit,” reversing the first and last vowels. He also says some words only as half, so “simmons” is “persimmons” and “nola” for “granola” and there are a few like that where the pickup sound is not associated with the words. Every doctor he sees is AMAZED by his language, not only how many words he has, but how good his pronunciation is. The goal is that 50% of their words are understandable by a stranger at 2 years, and he is well above that.
Emotions
Stranger danger has been a strong presence this year. He developed it a little into the year and hasn’t completely grown out of it. It is SIGNIFICANTLY improved, however. Interestingly there are still things that bother him. At gymnastics, he lets one of the instructors touch him but doesn’t like the other one. (update between when I first wrote this and when I am posting, he now loves Patrick and gives him multiple hugs per session!) He now likes all of our friends and isn’t afraid of meeting new people. When Kevin and Tara came to visit for thanksgiving he was not shy at all! It is easiest if we talk about the person ahead of time and build the excitement. This helps to overcome the anxiety. Discussing ahead of time worked great for his first dentist appointment. He was so excited to go and he did so well.
He has started feeling more emotions as he approaches two and will cry and whine more. One of the funny things is when he says “logan cry.” He doesn’t actually cry he just wants us to know he is sad. Though today at the dentist he told him “I’m not going to cry.” I wonder if he was slightly scared but since we had talked about it so much he was able to cope. Since Wyatt was born, he has certainly been more interesting in crying as a tool to get what you want, rather than just a result of being emotional. We have been explaining that Wyatt can only cry but Logan is older and can use words to ask for what he wants which means he is happier! It is working but it is interesting seeing him try to piece it all together.
He’s really developed empathy with Wyatt and although we worked on “patting” versus “hitting” before Wyatt was born, Logan is so unbelievably gentle with his brother. He likes to hug him and touch his head but he is so careful with him and he doesn’t seem to have any jealousy issues. He is the best big brother. We didn’t know what to expect and Logan has surpassed any of our wildest dreams. He seems genuinely interested in his brother. He is understanding too about if we need to do something for Wyatt, but we also make sure he understands we are willing to prioritize him over Wyatt as well. He tells us when his brother is crying and will even help. He will put in his pacifier and turn on the bouncer. He will also rock the bouncer or the car seat to stop him from crying. It is the best!
It seems to be like having Wyatt has made conversations about biting and sharing more effective. He seems to understand more that there are other people in the world and it isn’t all about him. We recently went to Ella’s 2 year bday party and he did a great job not opening her presents or taking her toys. When she had a toy he wanted to play with he would wait until she was done and then ask us if it was okay. I am so impressed with how he is learning to engage politely with the world. I know there will be a million challenges as we go from 2-4, but he is clearly such a sweet and loving boy and I know we will weather the storm!
Favorites
Daddy! Don’t need to say much more than that. Daddy is Numero Uno in his book. He loves me and Julia and Mimi and Papa, but Daddy is the best. He has been all about daddy for most of the year and it doesn’t show any signs of waning. They have a great time together. Interestingly, as he has gotten more emotions, this leads to some odd interactions where logan will be fine with me but start crying as soon as Charles gets home. I think he feels like he can express himself more with his dad (something I need to make sure he feels comfy doing with me too) and so he melts down when he sees him. It isn’t the most fun for Charles but we are working on how to help Logan figure out what he wants and communicate it to us. Julia and I are also much more about routines and Logan has to play more by the rules. Charles is kind of a push-over but I think it gives Logan more room to express himself, for better or for worse.
His favorite things are cars, trains, planes, helicopters, food, stacking, rough housing, jumping, and the outdoors! Most of his new toys revolve around these things and he loves them. He is getting better at imagination play and really likes to create various games. We went through a phase where after every nap and every morning he would stay in his crib and want to line up all his cars on the rail of the crib and knock them off one by one (sometimes using a giant salad fork for emphasis). Right now he loves his glow worm and it needs to be at the table for every meal with a bib on and strapped into the booster chair. It is pretty adorable.
We make sure that Logan gets to do plenty of activities out of the house, as well as in the yard and just playing inside. This variety seems to keep him interested. He has also developed a taste for tv and cell phone games. This isn’t my favorite, but given the fact that we have two kids now, the occasional moment in front of the tv is appreciated. It comes up most when I am nursing Wyatt on the couch. Logan will crawl up and ask to watch tv. Most of the time we can distract him away, but occasionally he melts down. Overall we keep it to much less than 2 hours a day, and sometimes he goes days without watching at all. If given the choice between playing outside and tv, I think he’d chose outside 9/10 times. His favorite shows are dinosaur train and the Grinch. I have watched the Grinch about 25 times since beginning of December! Logan calls it Christmas and will yell “Watch Christmas. I just want to watch Christmas.” We have recently fallen into a routine where the hour or so between Julia and Charles he watches tv. I feel lazy, but it is nice after a long day. Once I’m working all day I may be much more assertive about wanting to play (or more tired and up for tv, who knows).
Friends/Family
In addition to our friends kids (Ella, Richie and Addison), Logan has a few friends of his own. George and Mason are his two friends. He goes to Mason’s every Monday morning with Julia and they enjoy playing there. George is his bestie from gymnastics and they meet up elsewhere or hang out occasionally. He really enjoys seeing his friends and playing with them. It is great to see him develop these friendships. He is a really social kid and will ask to see his friends. The other day at breakfast he said “Richie, addison, come over!” He also likes our friends chris and mo and will ask for them as well even though they are adults (well chris is ;)).
He also really enjoyed his “cousins” coming over or Christmas and his birthday. We saw them briefly around thanksgiving and talked about them coming back and he was SOOO excited. He also loved getting to wrestle with his uncle kevin.
He also loves skyping with his family. We skype most with Mimi Maria and Auntie Tina (Aunti ti). He loves to skype during meals and will talk to them and pretend to share food with them. He will often request them even when we don’t bring it up. I wish we could be closer to family but I am grateful for this connection and it is great to see him develop a relationship with family who doesn’t live nearby.
Don’t know where this fits but this kid gives the best hugs ever. Not sure there is anything in the world I’d rather do than get an enthusiastic hug from him. Often when I come to say hello during a break from work, he will see me, stop what he is doing, run over to me and enthusiastically hug me. It is so wonderful. Usually there is a high pitch “mommy!” when he sees me as well! Wow if you could bottle that stuff, no one would ever be depressed!
Well I can’t think of what else to write but at the same point this blog post doesn’t nearly capture the amazingness that is my little Logan. He’ll charm the pants off anyone in a short period of time and will surprise you with his thoughts and kindness. I’m so proud of him and I’m so excited to see what the next year brings!
