Highway to the Baby Zone: 23 Months

I just can hardly believe my little baby is about to be 2! These past couple years have really been humbling in that I finally realize just how fast time passes you by - the days might be long from time to time, but the years are so short. In two quick years, we went from this:

To this:

To this!

Sometimes I still can't believe this beautiful baby made me a mother. A MOM. Words I still can't quite believe when I utter them - this sweet, funny, smart and (borderline obsessive) car loving little boy is mine. He's pretty amazing.

Ronan's vocabulary continues to grow and he even speaks in some short sentences! He will say things like "mama take a shower" when he comes in our bathroom, or "what are you doing?" when he comes to find us, or "throw papi in the bed!" - which is what I was saying to him every morning. Which brings me to my next point - we have gotten Ronan (almost) off the pacifier. He began to bite through his pacifiers too quickly - I bought him a new one a few weeks ago and he chewed the tip off within 2 weeks. That really freaked us out, so we cut him off immediately to only nighttime when we know he won't be chewing on it. So his daily routine is to throw it in the bed as soon as I pick him up. It's become a fun game for him and I don't even have to ask him to do it anymore. It also makes him more willing to take a nap since he knows he gets his papi at nap time.

With Ronan's strong will has brought on the tantrums. He is still such a good boy most of the time, but when he gets frustrated - man, he will let it be known. Just Saturday night, he woke up at midnight screaming his head off. I picked him up and cuddled him, that didn't help, I changed his diaper, that didn't help....he was gripping onto his water and the cup was full - but I finally figured out that he wasn't able to get any water out of it so I ran to get him a new water and all was well again. We tell him to "use your words" but if he's already upset, it usually doesn't happen. So it can be frustrating to figure out!

I think Ro is also beginning to learn the art of manipulation. He uses his cuteness to get what he wants. He, at least once a day, will walk up to us and say "Watch Cars?" with his sweet little voice and a grin on his face. When we say "No Ro, we're not going to watch Cars." he will respond with "Watch Super Why?" grin still intact. It's the cutest thing in the world. Seriously. He can (usually) win that request, even though we hate to let him watch too much tv. At least Super Why is educational - that's what we tell ourselves. And I love to cuddle on the couch with him, not going to lie. :)