Nose Like a Bloodhound

I was quite proud of myself when I feed John a green smoothie where the predominant ingredient was spinach. I even added sunflower seed butter for protein. I should know by now that whenever I feel proud of myself, it bites me in the tukus.

While I was in the bathroom I could hear John playing with a plastic ziplock bag. I couldn't imagine what he could have gotten a hold of in my bedroom that was in a plastic bag. As it turns out, Aaron had a bag of candy in his church bag. (It was for his primary class.) John had eaten a star burst and was working on opening a lolly pop. I promptly took away the bag of candy and moved on with my morning.

A short time later, Emma called to my attention that John had a bag of candy. So I took away another bag of candy that originated from Aaron's church bag. It hadn't occurred to me that he would have two bags of candy in his church bag. I don't think John was able to partake of his findings this time.

While I was making my grocery list, it was nice and quiet. At one point John came up to me asking me to open a life saver from it's wrapper. I took the candy away and put it on the counter and went back to my list. I figured the life saver dropped out of the bag when John was looking through it this morning. John wandered off and was super quiet. I managed to finish my list and carefully think through everything. It was that quiet. Then it dawned on me... it was that quiet! I went to find John in my room. As it turns out, Aaron had three bags of candy in his church bag. John had eaten several colored tootsie rolls. He apparently tried a chocolate one and spit it out on the carpet. I took that bag away from him and decided that I should search Aaron's church bag for a fourth bag of candy. No fourth bag.

John was quite the happy camper with his raid. I figured that I could laugh off his candy raids of the morning and we were done because I had removed all of the bags of candy. I was getting lunch ready when again John was quiet. I looked for him and he was at our desk playing with a marker. When I picked him up he opened his mouth and pointed inside signalling to me that he had eaten something. I smelled his breath. Fruity. I was struggling to believe that I had left candy on our desk. Then I remembered. I had seen a tube of cherry chapstick on the desk. Yup, I opened it up and the entire container was gone. What was left, were little teeth marks in the remaining chapstick at the very bottom. The remainder of the day, John had his hands in his mouth trying to dig out chapstick from his teeth.

Happy Birthday John!

John is officially 2 years old. We celebrated his birthday by taking the kids to the Children's Museum. The kids love the museum. John was particularly in love with the fire truck, and the pit of shredded tires and dump trucks. He would run back and forth from one area to the fire truck. The fire truck was definitely his home base.

For dinner we did waffles, yogurt and strawberries, since he prefers all carbs to anything else.  We also had cake an ice cream. I have evolved as a mother. It didn't occur to me to give Emma cake and ice cream for her birthday. We did Happy Birthday Guacamole. Lest I evolve too much, John got secretly healthy cake with zucchini and apple sauce and whole wheat flour. He was quite excited about the cake and ice cream. He did not however finish all of his ice cream. Nor did Emma. Nor did I give them Aunt Mary portions. I was shocked. As a kid, I would stuff myself full of junk food until it hurt. All in the name of treats. Glad my posterity has more self control than I did as a kid.

We got him a monster truck and a sandbox dump truck. He was in love. Emma was very sweet and wanted to wrap up gifts to give John. So she found a book and a toy to give to him. Once she realized how fun it was to cut wrapping paper and use tape without my supervision, she was feeling very generous. She kept finding toys until she had exhausted our wrapping paper supply. She was quite proud of herself. John on the other hand was confused as to why he was unwrapping toys that he already had. It was cute though to watch Emma enjoy giving presents.

John at two is a funny kid. He has a lot of personality oozing out of that little body. He tried to tell jokes and just laughs and laughs. He lives for trucks, trains, and anything with wheels. If he meets someone new, he isn't all that shy and just starts to tell the person all about trucks. Trucks are always a relevant conversation topic. John wants to drive just about anything he can see.

Sometimes when he talks he uses a growl to talk. He has essentially done this since he was a little baby. He has the communication skills of a teenage boy.

John loves to eat carbs, carrots, apples, and he has a 6th sense for junk food. At the grocery store I was purchasing Carnation Instant Breakfast for him. He is a little guy and the doctor recommended getting him some extra calories. He saw the box and knew he wanted it. How I will never know. He held that box throughout our grocery store trip. He held it as soon as we got home. He could hardly stand the anticipation of drinking it. I thought he would take off in flight because his arms were flapping and he was jumping as he was saying, "Drink it! Drink it!" Sure enough he was in love. Emma on the other hand saw the box and asked what it was. She was satisfied with the explanation that it was for John since he needed more food. She hasn't asked for any.

John is a picky eater. He doesn't like pizza (except the crust). We offered him a McDonalds hamburger and he looked at it and wouldn't touch it. The only thing I know he will eat is junk food and carbs. Since there isn't much junk food in our house, it is really carbs. And if John doensn't like a meal that he is offered (think every meal except breakfast) he can wait for the next meal.

John also loves books. He will sit for 20 minutes by himself looking at books. Then he will come to me and say, "Read it! Read it!" He could sit on my lap reading books for at least an hour at a time.

He is just starting into the "I do it" phase. The one exception is walking down the stairs. He wants to be carried.

John wants family and friends with him at all times. However it is insufficient to have just one person. He wants the entire family. If someone is missing he keeps asking for that person. He particularly loves Emma. They play very well together, except when they don't.

John is quite snuggly, particularly when reading books.  He does say, "No Hugs, no kisses, no zurberts!" He hasn't figured out kissing yet though. If you ask him for a kiss he will put his cheek up to yours. He will out of the blue say, "Mommy cute!" or "Emma cute!" 

John also likes animals and the sounds they make. He knows quite a few bizarre animal sounds like a macaw and a sloth. He is afraid of flies and bees. He isn't all that found of petting dogs and cats due to fear as well.

Overall, John is a funny kid. Very sweet, very interested in trucks and reading. Glad you are in our family John! Happy Birthday!

Crabs

The kids and I were walking toward the track by our house. The track goes around a drainage pond. Emma suddenly exclaimed, "Oh no! The crabs will get us!!" Totally out of the blue. We haven't even been talking about crabs lately. So I told her that crabs live at the ocean. She replied, "And at the beach!" My first response was to say, "same thing." However, upon closer thought, they are different. So I agreed with her, "yes, and the beach." To calm her pretend fears I said, "We don't live at the beach or the ocean so what does that tell us about us?" I was expecting an answer like we won't see any crabs or something along those lines. Instead I got "We are not crabs!" Yup, we are not crabs.

Ballet

Emma had her first ballet class today. She loved it. After she got out of class, she wanted to watch the older girls dance. This was a class of teenage girls and one boy. Once we got in the car, she asked me if the older girls had a prince in their class. It took me a while to figure out that she was referring to the one boy in the class. I tried my hardest to explain that he was learning ballet just like the girls. I think there was some refusal on her part to accept the idea that he wasn't a prince and just a boy learning ballet. Gradually she came to acceptance. 

No Copy

John was repeatedly singing the same phrase this morning while we were all trying to wake up this morning on Aaron's and my bed. Aaron joined in on John's singing. John stopped and said, "No Copy!"

We busted up and I don't think he liked that. It was the first time I have seen him embarrassed. He got it from Emma. Emma had a friend tell her that she always copies her. So Emma is now hypersensitive to anyone copying her. John copies her and he gets a complaint filed against him regularly. Emma is not sensitive to copying other people however.

Bread

John loves bread. That is the only thing (besides junk food) that I know he will eat.

This morning I was changing John's diaper and he said, "potty" so I dutifully ignored him thinking he just went, surely, he is just talking. He persisted so I took him. Sure enough he pooped! He looked at it and said, "bread!" That slightly panicked me. The last thing I want him doing is going to get some "bread" to eat.

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, Emma turned to me and said, "Mom, don't worry about the bad people, you are not their mother." Enough said.

Cute!

John opened up the Conference edition of the Ensign. He opened up the center-fold of the Prophet and Apostles and said, "Cute!"