Here are some pictures from Jake's second birthday party, which was held a few days late (one day before my own birthday) because I was traveling on his actual birthday.
Jake really enjoyed opening his presents this year.
What do you get the third of 3 boys whose birthday is 2 weeks before Christmas? Since we figured we had enough toys already, Mike and I decided to get Jake his own real putter. He was definitely excited about it, and wanted to head downstairs to the putting green to practice right away. In fact, it took A LOT of convincing to get Jake to come back upstairs for cake. He must be his father's kid!
Jake decided he wanted an Elmo cake for his second birthday. Amazingly, I have never done an Elmo cake before. I didn't want to do the entire cake in red frosting, and I found this great YouTube video that showed an alternate way to do cakes that allowed me to just do Elmo's face on a regular 9x13 cake. It worked very well and I was happy with how it turned out. Jake was thrilled with it and still talks about it, so I'd consider it a success.
Really, though, can somebody please explain how we went so quickly from this
to this????
Is it possible that 2 years have already flown by?? My little guy is so big now. I just can't believe it.
In fact, at his doctor's appointment (which was about a month after his birthday, due to a big winter storm and the holidays) we found out that Jake is 26 lbs 6 oz. (Drew was the same weight at 2 years; Zach was 4 oz. more), which is just the 27th percentile for weight. That is the highest percentile he's been in since 4 months, though, so I guess that's good. He also is 36 inches tall, which puts him in the 82nd percentile for height. That is 2 whole inches taller than Zach was at 2 and one inch taller than Drew was, and it means that Jake grew 3 inches in 7 months! Maybe we will have one tall kid afterall.
As far as what Jake is doing these days, hmmm, that's hard to say. He talks all the time, knows some of his colors (green, blue, brown, sometimes red, though usually he calls it blue), a few numbers and letters (but can't actually count beyond 3 or clearly say the entire alphabet from start to finish), loves Mickey Mouse, the Avengers, sports, and whatever his brothers are playing with. Usually when you ask Jake how old he is, he either happily replies with either "Three!" or "Nine!" I'm not sure where he got those two ideas in his head, but it's especially funny when he tells random strangers that he's nine.
Jake is also still quite opinionated. He gets mad at Drew most often, and probably me a close second (it's probably no coincidence that he spends most of his time with Drew and me), and can often be heard saying, "Bad Drew!" or "Bad Mommy!" although yesterday he did say, "Mommy, you awesome." That makes up for him calling me bad, or, like he did today, telling me, "I not yike you, Mommy!" (Thank you, Drew, for teaching him that one.)
Jake has also gotten the hang of time-outs on the steps and no longer needs to sit on the barstool (where I used to put him because he couldn't get down). He sits there for his 2 minutes and usually apologizes for his crimes upon my return. He probably deserves more time-outs than his brothers ever got at this age, because it seems like he is often hitting, pushing, pinching, or doing something to Drew (seriously, I have only seen him go after Zach a couple of times, whereas Drew is a couple of times every hour, it seems), but Drew usually deserves it, so I admit that I sometimes admit I saw nothing and just let the two of them work it out. Drew and Jake also play together really nicely a lot of the time, honestly. Sometimes Drew is a great helper with Jake for things like washing hands before meals and entertaining him so I can prepare meals.
Speaking of meals, Jake is a pretty good eater, though sometimes he just doesn't feel like eating whatever I've given him, and for some reason, Zach and Drew encouraging him to take a bite before the monster comes seems to get him eating. Am I the monster? I'm not really sure. His favorite foods are frozen blueberries and pomegranate seeds, and he loves toast with peanut butter. For some reason at the table he likes to lounge back in his chair or push away from the table, and he often complains that his knees hurt, even though they don't even touch the underside of the table. It's kind of his go-to complaint, just like Drew used to always complain (and still does sometimes) about his seatbelt being too tight. It's gotten better, but it used to be pretty much every meal we'd hear, "Knees hurt, knees hurt."
Jake still is a great napper and often asks to take his nap right after lunch. He never fights it, which is nice. He still uses his binky and wants his blanket for sleeping, though he recently switched to wanting me to lay out his blanket on his sheet so he can put his head on it. That is funny to me because I used to make my parents fold my blanket and put it on my pillow so the pillow wouldn't make my head itch. I figure we'll move him to a big boy bed this summer and get rid of the binky either then or by his third birthday.
We also aren't really tackling potty-training yet, though he does think wearing underwear (or underpants, as he calls them) is pretty neat. He still poops on the potty 98% of the time rather than in his diaper, but he is much better about telling me that he needs to poop than he is about telling anyone else. Which, works out pretty well for me, because it means I pretty much never have to change a poopy diaper. I think I could work with him on potty training, but I think it might still be a lot of work at this point, and I just don't really feel like dealing with it. I kinda figure in the next couple of months we'll tackle it, as my goal is to be diaper-free (except at night, I guess) by summertime.
Back to the birthday party- Jake got to sit by Uncle Sam for cake. We are pretty lucky to have all of Mike's family so close by and able to to celebrate the boys' birthdays with us.
And that was it. A wonderful second birthday for my littlest boy. And I got this post done just in time to prepare for Drew's birthday in a month. I have a lot more to post before then!
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