Alex is 2!

I can't believe Alex is two already. I also can't believe how much he has changed in just the last few months. Just a few months ago, he was sleeping in his crib, refusing to let me take the front gate off, not talking, not climbing the stairs, and not even interested in potty training. He has become such a big boy lately. It started with the crib. He finally let me take the front gate off his crib, so now it's a "toddler bed". I know the crib was sold as a convertible and toddler bed was one of the options, but it's not that great as a toddler bed. It is a little too tall. He has to get a running start to get in it. He runs to it and then kind of jumps up to throw himself into the bed. It's kind of funny. We don't have another stool though, so he just deals with it. He has another toddler bed in Claire's room. But whenever we ask if he wants to sleep in it, he says no. It's not critical yet, so I'm not worried about it.
He's also talking up a storm lately. He's really picked up a lot of words in the last few weeks. He's nowhere near Claire yet, but he is using short phrases and tries new words all the time. It's nice that he is learning to communicate. We have fewer tantrums, but he is still a lot more dramatic than Claire was. He pouts a lot and still throws himself on the floor sometimes.
I've also started letting him climb the stairs on his own. It's been partly necessity. I can't really comfortably carry him too much anymore. I do, but prefer not to. And part of his talking has been an evolving state of independence. A lot of the time, he tells me no help when we get to the stairs.
And the biggest thing is potty training! About a month ago or so, I saw someone in the mother's room at church and we were talking about Alex and the new baby and I said I kind of hoped Alex would potty train before she was born. The other lady said "good luck training a boy before he's two." I guess he took that as a challenge or something. He just decided that he didn't want to wear diapers anymore. So we went with it. He's done really well with it. He's pretty good with peeing in the potty. He still gets more pee on the floor than in the potty sometimes. I blame Daddy for that. Daddy taught him to shake when he's done. But Alex doesn't always wait until he is done to shake it. Or he just doesn't push it down far enough. I had honestly forgotten about this early stage of potty training and how frustrating it can be. I've been dealing with Miss Claire and reminding her to wipe and flush. Otherwise, she can go by herself without help. He wants to do it all by himself, but he just can't yet. He doesn't quite understand all the steps yet. In the last two weeks, he has gone from pottying on my command to being able to take himself when he needs to. Mostly he gets there in time. I've also noticed that pull-ups or diapers seem to confuse him. I will still put him in one for naps or for long car rides, but if we are running errands, I just take him in his undies and make sure we go to the potty often. Claire wasn't like that. She was not trustworthy out and about for a long time. So that's been nice, but the downside is that he doesn't always use the potty for #2. So we had a bit of a mess to clean up at Walmart the other day. That's frustrating. But overall, it's gone really well and I'm quite happy. I'm glad to be mostly done with diapers for a month or so anyway.

As far as his birthday itself was concerned, it was a pretty good day. We got to spend the day with daddy, so that was nice. I had a doctor's appointment, then we went and looked at houses with Alann. We had a fun picnic lunch and played at a park for a while. Alann's investor came out and looked at some of the houses with us and ended up putting in an offer on one of them. We ended up eating at Ruby Tuesday for dinner. It was the only place that had both "fries" (Alex's request) and "spaghetti" (Claire's request). I used to like Ruby Tuesday, but the last few times it's been pretty bad. It just has changed so much and they seem to change every time we go in there (which isn't often). Plus their salad bar is tiny now, which was one of the main reasons we liked going there. Anyway, usually we would have just let Alex pick somewhere, but Claire had been so patient and good all day, and requesting spaghetti was something new. So we tried to make them both happy. And it worked out okay. Then we went to Target because I realized that Claire is old enough to pick out a present for Alex, but I had neglected to realize that until the night before his birthday. So we all went to Target and I helped Claire pick a present for him. We came home and had cake and presents and had a good time. It was a long day being out, but the kids were pretty good and Alex seemed pretty happy with everything.

Birthday dinner

Robot cake, per Alex's request.

He's wearing his robot shirt too. The boy loves robots, we aren't really sure why.

His favorite part? The M&Ms.

Waiting to blow out the candles.

Only a little blue from the frosting.

All of his presents.

The rag quilt I made for Alex, plus Grandma's singing card. He loves both.

This is a motorized train/track set from Dinosaur Train. I somewhat regret it. I keep forgetting that the kids are too little for motorized stuff, or trains that require tracks. Luckily this one also runs on the tile floor, but alex doesn't understand that he can't run it on the carpet. I'm guessing it will be broken soon. At least it was on clearance. He does like all the dinosaurs though, so it works.

All in all, he got the rag quilt from me, a Boots the Monkey doll and a Swiper the Fox doll (which Claire has absconded with. I'm not really sure where they are) from Nana. And a movie about big machines from Nana. Grandma and Grandpa sent the cool singing card. We haven't spent the money out of it, but can't think of anything he really needs yet. Then he got the Dinosaur Train from me and Alann and another set of dinosaurs to go with it from Claire. (That's what she picked for him.) Aunt Teene sent him some wooden magnetic trains. I can't believe we haven't gotten any of those yet. He really likes those. At Target, he was playing with a whole bunch of them while Claire was picking out his toy, so it was good that she sent that.

He's such a sweet kid and is so loving. I'm so glad to have him. Happy birthday baby! (I'll admit, I'm sad that he won't be my baby for much longer.)