Christian Turns Two!

Our sweet baby boy turned TWO today. I suppose this milestone means he's no longer a baby, but he will forever be our baby.

As we are in between houses right now, we just had a small get-together at the new house. Liz and Terrill came over and we had pizza and cake.

I blew up a bunch of yellow balloons and had them on the floor when Christian walked in, and you would have thought he won the lottery. Christian LOVES balloons. It's nice that he's so easily amused (I know he won't always be).

I thought Christian would be more interested in opening gifts this year, but once he saw that Elmo DVD, it became his main focus. Christian LOVES Elmo.

Balloons and Elmo ... that's his life!

When I look back at the transition that has taken place with Christian over the past year, I am simply amazed. By his first birthday, he wasn't walking or talking, and that was a huge concern to his pediatrician. He's had numerous blood tests, a thyroid scan, CT scan, physical therapy evaluation, speech evaluation, etc. ... all to determine why he wasn't doing age appropriate things.

Everything turned out fine - Christian just wanted to do things in his own time. Today he's a walking, talking burst of excited energy!

We recently got inserts for his shoes (which actually look like mini-braces) to provide stability to his ankles (he has weak ligaments). We don't see a difference, but the Dr. tells us it's a long term solution, and we won't see short term results. He seems to walk fine either way, but we have the inserts and we'll use them.

Christian's speech has amazed us. He is finally imitating the words we say ... sometimes we say, "Christian, can you say _____________." And he'll say it. Other times, he will spontaneously repeat something he hears us say (we have now reached the point where we must really watch what we say around him!).

Of course, at this point, only a couple of words are pronounced perfectly, and we delight in the cute way he tries to pronounce words. His newest cute words to add to the collection are:

* "See you" ... this one is typically like this, "Bye bye, see you."
* "Easy"
* "Ahn-tee" (Auntie ... as in Auntie Liz)
* "Egg"
* "Wah-fo" (Waffle)
* "Mao" (Milk ... he also signs milk perfectly)
* *Washie" (Water ... last night he did the sign for water for the first time ... it came out of nowhere)
* "Bah-wah" (Bella)
* "Gen-tuh" (gentle)
* "Em-puh-tee" (empty)
* "huh-nee" (honey)
* "Pisa" (pizza)
* "Ow-s-eye" (outside)
* "Dad-dy" (we've been using Papa all this time - with the occasional "Daddy" thrown in, so we were surprised to hear Daddy all of a sudden)
* "All done" - This one is used in conjunction with the sign language for all done. This one amazed us! We'd been doing the sign for all done for months, but wouldn't do it himself. Then out of the blue, he started doing the sign, and saying all done when he was through with eating and wanted down. I had to laugh the other day when we were in the kitchen getting ready to go somewhere, and I was trying to make him eat and fill up his tummy before we left. He wasn't wanting anything, and I admit I was being too persistent. Suddenly he looked at me, did the "all done" sign and firmly said, "All done."

We are so incredibly delighted that he can communicate his needs either via words or via sign language.

And his ability to read words is just amazing to us. That "Your Baby Can Read" program we've been doing since earlier this year had done incredible things for Christian. I have so much to say on the topic that it must be an entire different blog entry! For now, let me just say that Christian can now read words that were NOT included in the Your Baby Can Read program. New words! He catches on very quickly.

Christian knows his colors, numbers 1-20 and the entire alphabet, too!

You know what? I could go on and on about Christian. He is the most amazing, adorable, wonderful, bright and loving little boy we could every hope for - a true gift from God. But I'll reserve the rest of my raving for future posts so you can see some pic and some videos from his birthday.