Happy Birthday Makili.
I can't believe Makili is 2! Especially now that I am always holding his little clone. Have two years gone by already? One year ago he looked like this:
Some things about Makili. First of all, his cuteness is no longer fully captured in photographs, like it once was. You just can't see the expression on his face when he sees Dad come in the back door after work, or the way that he figures out new language configurations. I don't think I can actually capture his cuteness anyway, but lately I am especially disappointed in photographs of him in doing so. And I don't pull out the video camera enough to capture little moments like the one below which define our lives. Below he is showing us how a flamingo stands.
Makili is a BIG eater! He currently loves rice, pasta, ALL fruit (this is his mainstay), apple sauce, cereal, cinnamon sugar on toast, sauces of any kind, but he pretty much eats anything except lettuce. He's not a big greens fan. He makes a big mess as a general rule, though he is adamant about using a utensil to eat everything, which he is fairly adept at.
He sleeps from about 8:00 to 6:00 with some variation on both sides and then naps about 1.5 - 3 hours a day. Putting him down for a nap is torture and I'm not sure how that will go next week when I have two munchkins by myself, but we'll see. At nighttime, Makili is pretty good at going to bed, though we typically lay in the room with him until he falls asleep. Grammy has been in the same room with him now for a month, so I'll be curious to see how he does in the coming days.
Makili is a puzzle master. He LOVES puzzles. They are one of his favorite past-times, and I love it when he tries to pull me over saying "play puz." He has an amazing attention span and can readily complete puzzles that are well-above his age developmentally. Spatial organization seems to be a real strength of his.
Makili has well over three huundred words and speaks in sentences often. He most recently learned a lot of prepositions. "Lay next to baby." "Right here." and also adjectives, "this one" "that one" "huge" and "giant." After we dropped off Grammy at the airport last night, Makili kept saying "Grammy no ride airplane" over and over again the whole way home. He frquently strings together 5+ words in sentences. He knows his whole alphabet (capital letters), can count to 11, and knows most colors.
Makili is currently obsessed with tractors and can differentiate (and says all the words for) excavator, bull-dozer, loader, fork lift, mixer, roller, and back hoe. (There are probably more, as the kid seriously knows a lot more about tractors than I do.) He still likes balls, but his current favorite is golf, as Paka recently gave him a putter just his size. He walks around the backyard hitting his little plastic practice balls all over the place. I'm a little worries about the greenhouse. He has great gross motor skills (he's been jumping for like 6 or 7 months now, but has been getting pretty brave about it) and tries to climb on, jump off of all sorts of things that are inappropriate.
Here is Makili with his Ace bandage on, like Daddy. While Makili still has many many joyful moments, I think the addition of Remick into our lives has thrown him a bit. In the last two weeks, he has been shy around strangers, instead of his normal "HIIII!", shy about performing his tricks (he won't even do that adorable flamingo anymore), and tends to throw a fit when he doesn't get what he wants. He cries more easily when frustrated and we're trying to help him learn to express those feelings in ways that are a little more appropriate. Mostly we're trying to give him as much attention as we can. I got to take him to the ocean to throw rocks just the two of us both yesterday and today. It is hard to see him without his typical joyful self showing through at all moments.
We didn't get Makili any birthday presents for a number of reasons. First he gets "new" stuff from the thrift store all the time. Second, he doesn't really get that it is his birthday, though he will quickly tell you he is "two" when you ask him how old he is, while trying to hold up two fingers. Finally, we don't want him to be obsessed about "getting" with his birthday. So instead....
So instead, we tried to do some special fun things. Monday we went to Rumble Tumble with Nadine, Jack, Sam and Morgan. Makili loves those kids and it is fun to watch him interact with older kids. Jack and Sam were awesome about helping Makili through the climbing thing. (Thanks god, because those I climbed up into that thing when I was 9 months pregnant, I was really reluctant to do it again this week.) Nadine even went up there to help Makili go down the big slide - THANKS NADINE! Morgan and he are buddies and Morgan is super-cuter about asking him to do things with her.
Yesterday, we all went swimming at a local hotel that lets locals pay $5 to use the pool without actually staying at the hotel. Makili was extremely cautious as we went in and really wanted nothing to do with the pool, partly because it was extremely loud. Also, he was really uncomfortable with me taking his diaper off, since he is now very aware of when he has to pee. Since Raph is gimpy and my mom is my mom, I ended up having to put on a bathing suit to bring help him get into the water. Let me just say right now that it was totally worth it, but I am going to hold it against Raph for a while that I had to put a bathing suit on a week after having a baby. I slowly convinced Makili to put his feet in the water and before long he was a total menace, running to jump to me in the water. It was TERRIBLY cute. Raph did eventually get in the water when the baby needed me and Makili wasn't done jumping in, so he redeemed himself a little bit, though it would have been a lot better BEFORE I bared my post-pregnancy body to the world (in the Microtel Hotel).
Last night we took Grammy to the airport, which is going to be a tough thing for Makili since he loves Grammy and she has been sharing a room with her for a month now!
Today is Raph's first and only day of vacation, since he starts his summer job on Monday and has to go to training for his new real job on Friday. And the weather is supposed to be nice! Fort Foster here we come! Welcoming in Makili's 3rd year right!
He is still completely. and totally. TRACTOR OBSESSED! Here you see him modeling the tractor towel I made him for Xmas which we opened a bit early. I have learned so much more about tractor than I ever hoped to. I'm really tired of reading tractor non-fiction books too. When will he move on?
Makili's favorite thing to do in the snow is to have me draw tractors. He likes to go outside, but really only if I go with him. He has gotten quite needy all of a sudden this week. We went to a Xmas eve party tonight and he practically had to hold my hand the whole time. He freaked out (and cried) when "Santa" showed up. He has been hesitant about a lot of things lately - ice skating for example. He talks a lot about doing it, but when the time comes, he is not so confident. He is funny though because he knows when we want him to do something and will tell us, "I'll do it tomorrow." For example, "I'll poop on the potty tomorrow." or "I'll blow my own nose tomorrow." (These would be conversations with Raph, fyi.)
I can't believe in all my recent pictures of him I don't have a single one of his radiant smile. I'm going to have to work on that. In any case, he seems to be growing a lot recently too. He has just about lost his toddler belly and is growing into a kid body. Boo hoo. (Thankfully, Remick has a whole lot of belly left.)
Makili continues to love puzzles and be awesome at them. I can tell him (sometimes) to go do a puzzle and he'll get out one of his 24 piece puzzles and do it himself (too fast) and say, "I did it!" He also continues to be super-coordinated. He is awesome at soccer (confirmed by several sources not related to us!) and loves to try to hit a ball (we have a whiffle ball tied to a tree that he hits frequently.) It is a daily battle to get him to not throw things in the house.
