terrible twos hit hard this week

There's been a lot of drama lately with the terrible twos. Mercer's mood changes at the drop of a hat... just one little thing goes against what he wants and he flips out. Screaming... throwing tantrums... this part of parenting is NOT fabulous, but there are good times mixed in, so thus far, we're getting through. We know it's a phase and will (hopefully) have an end in sight. At the same time, Mercer's been more clingy as well. There must be a lot going on in his head these days.

There are good days too - like the day Todd introduced him to tee-ball. Mercer sort of got the hang of it, but would sometimes just hit the ball off the tee with his hand. The tee also converts to a golf club, so Mercer gave that a try as well.

Last weekend, we went to something called "touch-a-truck" day (a free event that 2 municipalities in the metro-Atlanta area have once a year). They basically bring out utility vehicles and let the kids climb in them. They had bulldozers of all sorts, a concrete truck, a school bus, and rescue vehicles. We thought Mercer would be BESIDE himself, but he just seemed somewhat entertained. He didn't get overly excited - as we would've expected. He actually seems to get more excited to see them as we're driving by somewhere. Maybe the association of seeing them (static) in a book is the same as seeing them (static) as we drive by a job site. We're sure that next year, he will be way more into it.

He did get to check out a new playground while we were there. There was a toddler slide but he passed right by that and climbed higher. There was a medium-high slide. He passed right by it and climbed higher. He went right for the 8' tall slide again and again. I think we're going to have a dare-devil on our hands.

To top off touch-a-truck day, we went to a birthday party that afternoon. He had a good time playing in the sand with his buddies Jackson and Brody. Both are just a few months older than Mercer. It's pretty cool that there are kids so close in age all along the street.

He also spent a little time (after jumping in the bouncy house at the party) relaxing on one of the lawn chairs.

Child's Play

It's been a busy couple of weeks. I was out of town (as noted on the last blog). Then Todd had a deadline. Then Todd went to Asheville for golf. Then I had a deadline. Then Mercer had a bad night (a painful ear infection). We're ALL pretty worn down.

But, there's been time for play too.

Mercer and I have checked out a couple of different playgrounds lately as the weather is getting nicer. A dare-devil has emerged - no doubt. Going down BIG slides all by himself (after watching another / older kid doing it) and climbing up metal and rope ladders with a little bit of help on those. Note - this big slide is 10' tall!! This past weekend, it wsa rainy and cold, so we didn't got to an outdoor playground. Instead, we went to the Georgia Aquarium while Todd was out of town... sort-of like an underwater playground with fish! He did really well this trip.

Tonight, we went to another indoor playground -- we went to Chuck-E-Cheeses. His daycare was having a fund-raiser. I haven't been to C-E-C since my 21st birthday down in Savannah. I was really excited to take him for the first time. We think he enjoyed himself, but it's definitely lost some of it's allure for Todd and me since we visited the one in the "low-country." The pics here are taken in the little kid's section. But, he wanted to play some of the games in the big kid's section too. It was pretty amazing how quickly he got the hang of some of the games by watching us or watching other kids. One thing that was cute: how he got excited when he saw his classmates in a non-school setting.

Other things he's picking up on quickly: he knows what a stop sign is and when we get to them, he yells "STOP." He says "this is a floor, this is a wall," pointing to them as he shows off his new phrases. Todd taught him where the ceiling was too, but he'll say that one occasionally. There are other things he's saying -- and it's amazing to watch how rapid his development is.

He put on a shoe by himself (on the wrong foot, of course). He also fed the cat some of his food for the first time... he was sharing. I'm sure that he will do both of these again and again! Good times.

amendment to yesterday's post...

Forgot to mention:
Mercer got the green light to eat anything at his 2 year appointment. The doc suggests no peanuts yet because of a choking hazard, but regarding allergies - we can try any & all foods.

At daycare, he's learning how to trace things. I dropped him off late Friday after his doctor's appointment and got to watch the class trace: Oval, Circle, Triangle.

He's also recognizing adjectives which is pretty cool:
BIG. little.
under. OVER.
HOT. cold.
high.

Today is our 12th anniversary. Todd & I have both been too busy with work to plan a fancy dinner out and schedule babysitting - so we went out as a family. We're glad we did. Mercer was GREAT tonight. (well-behaved. ate well. no tantrums. entertaining and funny.)

Oh - and he had his first calamari tonight. He loved it!

an interesting week we've had

Todd has been working a lot - he has a deadline coming up. On Sunday, he was working - but I was heading out of town - so I decided to do something fun with Mercer for the first half of the day 'til Todd & I swapped.... Mercer and I would visit a new playground. We did that, then went out to lunch. It was a nice afternoon; I decided that we should visit new playgrounds every weekend if possible! I would like to make a "passport" or a formalized list (at the least) of the ones here in our city & county... as well as some cool playgrounds that I've seen or heard of. (One of them is near a small local airport/ kids can watch the airplanes take off.)

I went to Washington DC Sunday afternoon / evening for a speaking gig Monday morning. I had dinner with Todd's cousin, Tina, Sunday night and there was just enough time after speaking to pop into the city to visit the National Building Museum on Monday afternoon. I didn't have much time to visit too many of the exhibits, but visiting the building was reason enough to go. It's a beautiful structure built originally as an office for the US Pension Bureau - and provide space to host social and political events in DC. I didn't know this until I went and was told by the cute little gray-haired volunteers at the info desk, but it is the site of the presidential inaugural balls each year. They showed me some photos of past events and it is STUNNING when dripping with fabric, candles, flowers, etc. Check out this "virtual tour" link for a glimpse of the magnificent space: http://www.nbm.org/about-us/historic-building/360-degree-tour.html

Can you believe that this place was slated to tear down and re-develop? They charge $20,000 to host an event there!

My office was having our annual green building conference this week too. I missed part of it while in DC, but got to go the 2nd day and attend some great sessions. It was snowing most of the day Tuesday and Todd had to pick up little guy from daycare because it snowed AGAIN here / schools closed early. This was our 3rd snow... but also the shortest-lived. They played in it for a little while, but Mercer just wasn't up for it this week. Todd was going to build a big snowman, but only got the lower ball rolled before Mercer called it quits.

He does know "snow" and "snowman" -- rather "nomnan" (there's no S on the beginning and there's an extra N in there!)

Mercer had his 2 year old appointment yesterday. The pediatrician was only in the room for a few minutes and she gave him a new name (from "exhausting" as in his 15 and 18 month appointments to "wild man.") Ah. Yes. He is, indeed. We were in the waiting room for about 20 minutes, but in the exam room for over an hour. Trying to corral him in the 8 x 10 room for that period of time was crazy. The times that the nurse or the doc was trying to take his temp, measure the circumference of his head, his height, looking in his ears, down his throat, inspecting his various body parts, and giving him an immunization... he had to be restrained. I felt like I was wrestling with him... holding his head in a vice-grip at times... pinning his arms or legs down depending on what the task was. I can't imagine the "torture" it must have been for him.

By all accounts, he's extremely healthy. He has had congestion, but there's nothing we can do about it as he won't let us use the nose bulb on him anymore... and he "blows" through his mouth when using a tissue instead of his nose. She said we would just have to deal with boogers! He has some pretty severe eczema, but we talked about controlling it with some natural creams instead of steroid cream. His words are good. His motor skills are good. Problem-solving good. Putting words together in small sentences - good. His stats: almost 35" tall, 29 1/2 lbs in weight, and 19 1/2" head circumference. He's close to 75% on everything... a little on the large side of other kiddos who just turned 2.

Enjoy these pictures scattered throughout. Mercer found a big box upstairs full of "bubbles" (packing peanuts). I want to recycle the peanuts, then turn the big box into a play-house for little guy... another day.