22 Months Old!

Twenty-two months, and boy is he acting like it! This little boy is becoming bigger and seeming older every day. The new things he does, every day, are becoming a blur. I know that I am forgetting so much, but as life with a twenty-two-month-old speeds up, I find myself being reminded to slow down. To pay attention. To soak up each moment that I am blessed to spend with this sweet boy. For before we know it, we will realize how few those moments will be. So now, we stop. We close the computer, put down the phone, quit thinking about the to-do list. We do what we can to stay in the moment, to not miss these precious days. Days during which:

- He is talking so much more! Some new words: Airplane, not nice, snow, off, open, car, gracias, jet, mine. He's even starting to say people's names now, which is so sweet. In the last two days, he's begun repeating nearly any word we ask him to. A verbal explosion seems to be on the horizon!

- At bedtime, I always tell him that "Mama loves you and Daddy loves you," before I kiss him and lay him in his bed. A few weeks ago, out of the blue, he followed "Mama loves you and Daddy loves you" with "Jesus?" Boy, did that make this mama smile! "Yes, baby, Jesus loves you!" I told him. And not a single night goes by that he doesn't remind me.

- He also repeats "amen" after me when we finish praying at bedtime now, though it's usually quickly followed by a request for "more!" And so we pray again, as many times as the sweet boy asks!

(As you can see, I'm having some manual focus difficulties lately...)

He won't be two for another two months, but James ordered his gift early (and may or may not have had it put together before we even left for NY), so we gave it to him the morning after we arrived back in Hawaii. His reaction:

Followed by a big smile... Because of the balloons.

Yep, he hasn't even noticed the kitchen yet!

Oh, hey, this is kind of cool...

Finally actually playing with it.

Whoa! The oven knobs make noise?!

Signing "thank you" to Daddy.

Playing again later that day, after pushing the whole kitchen to the middle of the room.

Did you know that there are many alternate uses for a kitchen? Let us give you an example:

Why yes, this lovely kitchen does make a perfectly good step stool.

And wouldn't you know, our sweet order-loving boy always keeps his kitchen perfectly neat and organized. That is, when it's not being used for looking out the window, of course.