Happy 27th Month Birthday!

So, Andrew is now two years and three months old!! This is what our little 2 1/4 year old has been up to this past month.

Ever since our trip to Vegas, Andrew has been obsessed with Aunt Anh Thu, airplanes, and airports. He also loves the airports trains and buses. Drew is forever looking out and listening for airplanes in the sky. Sometimes, he can point them out faster than we can. And he is still very big into fire trucks. He plays with all his fire trucks that we have at our house all the time. Andrew also loves building with Mega Bloks and Legos. He is getting so good at making trains, fire trucks, and airplanes.But just when we think his preferences will turn to airplanes or fire trucks, he ends up going right back to trains.

Andrew really enjoys coloring and drawing still. He is getting much better at coloring the picture versus just little bits of it and moving on. Sometimes, he colors almost the entire page--usually with a green crayon. As for drawing, he has gotten really good about drawing trains and also has trying to draw airplanes too.

One of his favorite pasttimes as of recent is to peruse the Lakeshore Learning toys catalog. Andrea had told me how much Gavin loves to look at it and suggested I get one for Andrew, so I did. I had no idea how much he would like it. Andrew can look through the entire catalog looking for whatever he fancies--typically trains though. But he also looks for non-vehicular items such as bugs and animals. There were a few days straight that he and I would look through it for at least thirty minutes per day.

As for eating, Andrew has also truly discovered his affinity for potato chips. I didn't think too much about letting him eat them as he's had them before, but now he loves them!! And not just any kind, but he likes the spicy barbeque flavored ones. One of Andrew's new favorite foods is sliced cheese...like the Kraft American Cheese singles. This fool can eat like two or three in a sitting!He is also back into liking Jell-o since Ngoai makes it for him at her house including green lime-flavored Jell-o. But it's not too bad considering she will put fruit in there too. And we are realizing that our son takes after me in his love for ice cream. There are so many times Andrew will just say "ice cream" and run over to the freezer. We normally don't mind since it does have some milk and we would like him to gain some weight. But normally, we make him eat it as dessert or as a snack. Andrew has also been drinking lots of strawberry milk. Don't get me wrong, the chocoholic still loves his chocolate milk! But there are a few times as of late, he will pick strawberry over chocolate milk. But he always comes back to chocolate!!

In keeping with tradition of his fondness for green, Andrew will sometimes be very adamant about having to eat with green plates, spoons, and/or forks. Thankfully, we buy a lot of the Zoo Pals tableware, so we can oblige him. But it helps too in that Andrew is more prone to eat something if it's green like broccoli, guacamole, and peas. Thank goodness so many veggies are green! He is so big into green juice (AKA lime gatorade). It's more yellow in color, but it is the closest thing to green juice they have so we just go with it. We'll just say it's lime green instead.

In terms of dressing himself, Andrew has gotten much better at pulling down his pants and pulling them up. He even says "Drew do" and won't let us help! He still has a lot of trouble with taking off his shirt though. He can lift his shirt up, but he has problems when it comes to his arms. He has also learned to take his diaper off via pulling the straps. I do get scared he will undress himself one of these days when he has pooped in his diaper. But thankfully, he only undresses himself when we are getting dressed in the morning or at bath time.

Andrew hasn't gotten done anything in the potty since that one time. He will still sit on it, but gives up after a couple of minutes. But there are times, when he tells us when he's pooped. Then, when he is feeling gracious, he will go get his diaper and wipes and lay down nicely to be changed. At times, he will even tell us where he wants to lay down for us to change him.

At bed time, we still do our normal routine of night night books and prayers. Andrew loves to have one of his many blankets over his body, including his head. He will tell us all the time "under" meaning for his head to be under his blanket. But seriously, this kid has at least four blankets in his bed with him. And what's crazy is that he falls asleep with the blanket over his head and will sweat profusely. Usually, Daddy and I will go back into his room to uncover his head and grab his milk. I am happy to say that Andrew is taking less time to fall asleep (on the average). There are nights when it takes us less than twenty minutes, but other nights when it takes us over an hour before he falls asleep. And of course, Andrew will still walk out of his room to find us in the hallway in an attempt to stall going to bed.

Andrew also still likes his routine. He's not ridiculously crazy about routine, but he knows how things should or tend to be in his life. For example, Andrew doesn't like it when Daddy tries to drive Mommy's car. He is so used to me chaffeurring him around that he thinks that I am the only one that should drive my car. He always says "Mama drive." I joke it's because he knows that Mommy is a better driver than Daddy!

I have to admit that Daddy and I aren't too hard core about getting on Andrew to constantly clean up. We know that he will come back to playing with them soon enough. But there are times, we ask him to pick up his toys before he gets more toys out. And usually, he willingly does so without us having to ask a billion times--maybe twice or three times. And I love the way he always says "clean up" when he's putting away his toys. I think this has a great deal to do with Gymboree since we always have to clean up our toys at the end of class.

Lately, Andrew has been very big into brushing his teeth. At the beginning, he loved it. Then, the novelty wore off and it was like pulling teeth. But now, for some reason, he's back into liking it. Maybe it's because we sing our ABCs or we all do it together some mornings. But he's getting even better at imitating us. He will put his toothbrush under the faucet to get some water on it like Mommy does and he will also scoop water in his hand and put it on his face.

Sometimes, after brushing his teeth, Drew will proceed to brush his hair too. It's not the best job; sometimes, I think it looks worse actually. But I am just happy he's trying to do things on his own. I also love that sometimes when he finishes brushing his hair, he says "nice." I guess he's not the most modest of kids! Which reminds me...he also will sometimes say "nice" after he gets dressed. It's too funny. My little man has also paid me compliments by saying "nice" after I get dressed!! Too sweet!

Lately, Andrew has been very sweet when saying goodbye to Daddy in the mornings. Daddy gets his normal hug and kiss of course. But then Andrew wants to go outside onto the balcony to give him another send off, which includes waves, blowing kisses, shout outs, and saying "bye" and "love you." And normally, he doesn't want to go back inside until he can't see Daddy anymore. It's so adorable. I love how much Drew loves his daddy!!

Ah, yes--this brings me to something else that happened this month. Andrew now says "love you" and not "ya ya." It all happened one night when Aunt Monica was here visiting. We had taken Andrew upstairs for night night books; and of course, he asked for Monica to come too. She sweetly obliged him. Once we were done with our night night routine, she was going to head downstairs so he could go to sleep. We told Andrew to tell her "love you" and sure enough, the very first time he pronounced it correctly was to her. We all looked at each other in surprise not sure if we had heard it right. But we all had. I have to say I was a little sad that it wasn't to me, but I am happy he said it. And Aunt Monica has definitely paid her dues!! She should get something out of it, right!? Ha ha!! But luckily for me, he has said it millions of times to me so I am very happy with that!

Andrew's speech is still vastly improving. Hooray! He says so much and repeats a lot of what we say. He says things like, "red fire truck", "thank you", "Please, Mama, that one", "more Mama please", "Daddy sit down". Sometimes, he isn't so polite. We have heard a lot of "move" lately too as he pushes us out of the way too. Little punk! We are still going to speech therapy and credit a lot of his progress to that. I think Andrew's confidence continues to grow and with that, he will try to say more things. There are still lots of grunting, but we will ask him to "use his words" and that has been helping to decrease it.

Besides "love you", there have been other changes in Andrew's speech. Dada is "Daddy" now. I still like Mama and am not quite ready to let him move onto "Mommy" yet. But I know it's inevitable now. Normally, he says his name as "Drew", but we have also taught him that his full first name is "Andrew." We will ask him what Daddy's name is to which he replies "Babe." I guess I call James that too often! When we were in Vegas, Andrew started to call me NiNi since the kids still call me that. So we just told him that NiNi is my first name. We will tell him Sydney later on.

One thing that Andrew now that he didn't learn from therapy is "ummm". He totally says it at appropriate times like when we ask him a question and he's thinking of an answer. We didn't think that we say it that much, but now that we are cognizant of it, we totally notice how much. It's totally our fault. Hopefully, we can stop saying it and get him to as well.

Finally, after much prodding, Andrew finally jumps off with two feet instead of walking off things like the couch or an apparatus at Gymboree. I got him to do it by telling him to bend his knees before jumping. He would also jump with both feet when jumping up and down, but I don't know why he wouldn't jump off with both feet. And the fool still climbs like a maniac!! He will try to climb onto whatever he can get his little grubby feet onto!

And now, Drew is big into kissing his boo boos. He always wants me to kiss them and says "yes" when I ask if it is all better. But he will also kiss my boo boos for me when I say he hurt me intentionally or accidentally like when he bonks my head, pulls my hair, or hits me.

My dear son now likes to have back and ears rubbed just like his daddy--not so much the ears though. He will lift up his shirt to give us better access. One afternoon, he even made Ngoai rub his back when she was putting him down for naps!!

We are really seeing a stubborn side of Andrew. He can be so hard-headed. I usually quip that he takes after Daddy or Papa!! ;) I can't believe how stubborn a two-year old can be! Drew can be so willful. He really knows what he wants and that he wants it five minutes ago...especially when it comes to toys and shows...anything that he wants to do! What is he going to be like when he is a willful teenager!?

Here's a couple of snapshots of Andrew doing Arts & Crafts time with Ngoai, Aunt Monica, and Mommy.