Saturday Porter officially turned two and a half years old.  Aaron and I had the following exchange while out to dinner that night.

Me: Can you believe that he is two and a half already?!  We’re halfway to three!

Aaron: We’re half way to five!

Me: jaw hits floor

And scene.

What Porter is Wearing:

• Finally graduated to size 5 diapers!
• Finally has officially outgrown the remaining pairs of 18 month size pants!
• A few 24 month and 2T shirts are getting a little small, but it really depends on the brand.

• He actually ate cantaloupe this month!
• Still completely uninterested in typical toddler favorites like pizza and macaroni and cheese.
• Still loves his tacos and guacamole.

With each passing month, our baby is evolving into a little boy.

What Porter is Wearing:

• Still in size 4 diapers.
• Just graduated to size 7 sneakers.
• Shirts range from size 24 months through 3T (depends on the brand.)
• Size 24 months in pants.
• His size 24 months hoodies still fit, but he’ll probably outgrow them before we get to winter.

I’ve thought long and hard about what to write in this momentous 500th post.  I have written several posts, gotten half way through, slept on them and then the next day promptly clicked the “Move to Trash” button.   With the school year/theatre season just about to start, our life is transitioning yet again.  New/old routines are being established and adjustments are being made to ease into them.  Our life as a family and as individuals is always evolving.

This blog, too, has evolved.  When I started this blog, never did I imagine I would still be posting on it almost three years later.  The blog has been such a blessing.  It has helped me talk through so many feelings.  It has helped me connect with so many people–people I have known for years and people I have never met.

This truly amazes me.

I am very grateful that you continue to stop by and stay awhile.  Thank you.

I can’t say that I think that this blog is going to make it through another 500 posts.  This blog will someday have an end.  And knowing that breaks my heart a little (and by a little, I mean a lot.)

Monday is a big day for our little man: he returns to daycare full-time today and he also officially turns 28 months.  Gosh, he’ll be two and a half before we know it!

What Porter is Wearing:

• Still in size 4 diapers.  We give the new Pampers Cruisers a thumbs-up, by the way.
• Some size 24 month/2T shirts are starting to get a little snug–a few 3T ones too.  Just now sprouting out of some size 18-24 shorts.  Probably only have a month to go before we are in size 3T pajamas.
• I think we need to shop for some new shoes.  His size 6 sneakers just fit.

• Check out last week’s post “Words and Phrases”  for some laughs!
• Last week he scrunched up face while pinching his cheeks and said, “Cheeks are AMAZING!”
• Last Monday he came home from daycare and started telling me all about his day, without me asking him first.
• Sometimes he adds an “-ee” sound to the ends of words, like milk becomes milky.  Not sure why…
• His teachers at daycare are Ms. Tracy and Ms. Jasmin.  Last week he referred to them as Tracy and Batman.
• And I forgot this one last month, he is using the word “too” correctly.
• “See you soon!”  Porter says this all of the time, when he leaves the room, when we are leaving a store and he is saying his farewells to everyone in the store…
• “I had a good nap!”  Not only does he say this after he has taken a nap, but he says it to us when he has decided not to nap and instead played in his room for an hour or so.  He even says it to us when he wakes up in the morning.

• His new train table!  Post coming soon.
• Hero of the Rails.  We watched this like 15 times last week.  Thanks, Netflix.
• Singing.  Wow, so much singing, you guys…and humming, too.
• Puppets, or really just my hand pretending to talk to him.

What Porter Doesn’t Like These Days:

• Naptime.  It has been such a huge struggle the last week or so.  He has been napping only a few times a week, each time falling asleep around 2pm–a full hour later than usual.  And we only let him sleep for an hour to an hour and a half so he’ll fall asleep at a reasonable bedtime hour.  Not sure how he will adjust to napping at daycare five days a week again.
• The potty.  Won’t wear underwear.  Won’t sit on the potty.  He has even said in regards to the potty, “No, not yet!’
• Eating dinner that consists of something other than hot dogs or chicken nuggets.
• Because he learned to drink from a straw a few weeks ago, we bought him some straw cups with the hope of phasing out the sippy cups.  Now sometimes he throws a fit if he wants a sippy instead of a straw cup.  Good times…

• Have I mentioned singing?  He sings a lot.  And hums a lot too–mostly Twinkle, Twinkle.
• Playing with his trains and track on his new train table.
• Practically running Netflix on our Wii all by himself.  He can definitely start new episodes on his own.
• Climbing the hill in the backyard, getting to a point and then triumphantly yelling, “Climb up the rocky hill!  PORTER SO TALL!”
• Practically kicks Aaron and I out of the house when the babysitter shows up.

What We Are Working On:

• The potty.  I’m sure I will have more to report on this next month since starting on the 29th Porter will be moved into a daycare room in which they have every kid sit on the potty everyday.  Hopefully seeing his peers do it will make Porter want to do it too.

Improved Since Last Month:

• He can use a straw now!

I was one of those weird kids that really liked school.  I didn’t always enjoy all of the homework and I hated middle school, but in general I really liked school.   Back to School time reminds me of a fresh start, even more so because my birthday falls around the time classes start up again–new year of school, new year of life!

Aaron starts back to school next week, though he doesn’t start teaching again until a few weeks later.  I start work on my next show next week which means Porter is going “back to school” too–he will be returning to daycare full-time starting next week!

We are all very excited about this.  Porter LOVES daycare.  He has been going one day a week since February, when we took him down from five days per week attendance to one day a week due to my lack of work (and therefore lack of money.)  But work has picked up for me for the fall–booked straight through January, in fact–so back to daycare Porter will go.  For two weeks he will return to his usual room with his usual buds, but on August 29 (my birthday) he will be moved up to the Older Toddler room!

A lot of his friends who moved up earlier in the year will be there.  I’m excited and nervous for his move.  I love his teachers in the Young Toddler room.  Love them.  And they love Porter.  I don’t really know the teachers in the other room so I am nervous about how Porter will like them.  Secondly, a whole lotta potty trainin’ goes down in the Older Toddler room.  I am excited and terrified about this.  I am eager for Porter to be surrounded by kids who are successfully using the potty, however I know that he is very much not interested in doing anything other than sitting on the potty fully dressed.  I don’t want them to push him too hard, but I also want them to work with him and encourage him.  Overall, I don’t want him to be overwhelmed by all of the change.  Then again, maybe I am just projected my anxiety on to him?  Anyway, it all is still exciting nonetheless!

So I guess next week marks the end of The Summer Switch.  Aaron will be back to work (and then some, besides running his program he is also teaching online classes for the university where we worked in Florida,) I will be back to work on a fairly regular basis and Porter will be back to daycare.  And just like that, life changes all over again.  Cheers to new beginnings!

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of our move to Pittsburgh–can you believe it?!  Sometimes it feels much longer than that.  Sometimes, especially when I’m lost in some new-to-me part of town, I feel like I just got here!

How did I decide to celebrate this momentous occasion?

I celebrated by unpacking.

Yeah, after living here one whole year we still have about 25 Rubbermaid bins full of stuff, neatly stacked in our basement!  Granted, three or four of those are probably holiday decorations and not all of them are packed fully, but still–that’s a lot of stuff.  And if we lived without it for a year, do we really need it?  No.  So I have decided to start picking through things to figure out what we really need and what we obviously can do without.  But before I got all carried away with the sorting and organizing, I decided to do one thing that I had been longing to do since we moved here…

I made this:

Well to be honest, I’m still making this.  I am slowly finding more and more of our framed family photos and putting them up, so if it looks a little lop-sided in the photo it is because I am adding more!  This is in our dining room (check out the 1950s chandelier–original to the house.)  And sorry for the photo quality, this is a phone photo.

I understand that it may be a little weird to celebrate a move by unpacking a year later, but it is like I am finally giving myself permission to settle in and stay a while.  I like it here.  And when we do move again I hope that it is only across town, for the last time and with less stuff!

Since our backyard camping experiment was such a success, we decided to brave camping in the Great Outdoors last weekend!  We found a state park about an hour drive away, invited some friends who also have a toddler and set out for a camping adventure.  Overall, it was a great time.

We got to the campsite early and set up our tent before our friends arrived.  This allowed Porter some time to get use to being out in the woods.  It also was mid-afternoon on a Friday so the other campsites in our area of the park weren’t filled.  This allowed Porter some freedom to explore a little more.

He just loved walking around in the woods, kicking through leaves and pointing at all of the cool stuff he was discovering.  We saw deer–not in our backyard or at the zoo, but in the woods!–so that was fun.  And loved snack time in the park too.

After our friends arrived with their toddler (just six months younger than Porter) we quickly learned how important it was to have an adult available to wrangle the children!  For the remainder of the evening one, or sometimes two, of us had to chase down the kids.  No doors or gates around to keep them in one area, but we had a lot of fun just hanging out, eating hot dogs and making S’mores.

And then bedtime came.

Obviously, the kids did not want to go to bed.  They took turns screaming from their respective tents, each with parents by their side trying to console them.  Porter’s friend Maria fell asleep much more quickly than our guy who was just so excited to be sleeping outside in a tent again…well, after he stopped crying.

I stayed in the tent with Porter trying to get him to relax and go to sleep.  What followed were some moments I hope to remember forever.  He asked me questions about the sounds he heard–the fire crackling, voices from neighboring campsites, the steps of raccoon outside of the tent (REALLY.)  We talked about the moon.  I recited bedtime books to him.  He looked out the screen window and pointed at the fireflies.  He eventually cuddled up close to me and said, “Goodnight, sweetheart.”  I said, “Goodnight, Porter.”  He said, “Goodnight, buddy.  Sleep tight.”

And my heart melted.

He did fall asleep–on me.  I tried to gently remove him from me, but he somehow managed to fling his body completely across me.  I got very little sleep that night because Porter was just flinging himself all over the tent in his sleep–always ending up on me and taking all of the blankets!

The next day, we made pancakes and went to the lake to swim.  Porter absolutely loved it!  It was his first time in a lake.  He called it the ocean!  After that, we all went out to lunch during which Porter sat in a booster seat not a high chair and he finally figured out how to use a straw!  We think that letting him try to drink from our Camelback water bottles helped him to learn what to do.  On top of those two major achievements, Porter also managed to take Big Boy bites from his chicken fingers!  Epic mealtime milestones all around!

It really was such a good time.  Aaron and I haven’t been camping since the summer I got pregnant back in 2008.  It felt good to not only be back in the woods again, but we also got to share our experience with our son for the first time and with our friends.  I can’t wait to do it again!

I have a lot to tell you about, dear readers, but all of the topics are getting jumbled in this brain of mine.  I think it is the summer heat…but anyway, let me start with this:  Porter is starting to drop naps from his schedule.

In the last week he has dropped three naps.  Prior to this he would take a nap everyday from about 1pm to 3pm.  Lately he just doesn’t see the need for an afternoon snooze.  He just rather stay up and play.  We just can’t keep him in his bed.  After about 45 minutes of us putting him back in bed, we give up and let him play in his room quietly until 3pm.  And that is all fine and good…

…until about 5pm.  That is when Epic Toddler Meltdown commences.  An ETM.

Last week we had an ETM that lasted about 2.5 hours.  This meltdown consisted of whining, crying and pouting in every conceivable combination.  Huge, dramatic tears fell out of puppy dog eyes, like we were the meanest parents in the world because we gave him milk when he asked for milk but he changed his mind and wanted juice.  Finally after being miserable all through dinner and bathtime, he fell asleep before 8pm and we felt a bit of relief.

This all happened again this past Sunday, but for a longer period of time–and this time, I wasn’t home.  Poor Aaron had to manage this ETM all by himself while I was at work.  This ETM included a lot of misbehaving by Porter on top of the usual whining, crying, pouting.

Yesterday, again no nap.  AND Porter managed to figure out how to open his bedroom door by himself!  So instead of playing in his room, he decided he was done with that and sauntered out into the living room.  Again, I wasn’t home for this instance either.  But the one solace we have found with these no-nap enduced ETMs is that it usually guarantees an early bedtime…

…but not yesterday.

I have to say that despite no nap, Porter was in a pretty agreeable mood yesterday afternoon and evening.  We figured that for sure P would drift off to dreamland shortly after his 8pm bedtime.

Nope.

The kid was up playing in his crib until 9:15pm!

So we thought for sure that this would mean that Porter would sleep in passed 7:30am.

Nope.

Porter woke up sometime before 7am.  I guess he played in his room for a while, but soon got bored with that.  He used his new found knowledge of how to work door handles to exit his bedroom.  Then, he proceeded to climb our steep, hardwood staircase with wrought iron railing only on one side all by himself (totally forbidden!)  He approached the pair of slatted doors that close off our bedroom, but found them hooked shut on the inside.  So he proceeded to pull on them and call to us until we woke up.

Around 7am I groggily woke up.  The box fan was on, but I could faintly hear Porter–I thought his voice was coming from the baby monitor on Aaron’s side of the room.  It took me a second to realize that Porter’s voice was coming from the hallway.  I thought he could be at the bottom of the steps.  I sat up in bed and realized that it wasn’t the cats pulling on the slatted doors (It is how they tell us they want breakfast.  If we don’t latch the door shut the cats come in at 5am and swat at our faces) but it was indeed Porter.  I could see his little silhouette on the other side of the door, backed by the morning sun.  I got up, unhooked the door and to my shock/disbelief found my son wide-awake and so very proud that he made it from his room, up the stairs and into our room.

“What you doing?” he said.

Aaron and I were too groggy and shocked to really answer.

So, to recap:

- Naps seem to be going away.

- No naps for Porter means chaos for our household.

- Oh my god, my son can open doors and climb huge staircases all by himself!

What Porter is Wearing:

• Still in size 4 Pampers Cruisers.
• Still in size 24 months and 2T shirts and pajamas, size 18-24 months in shorts.
• Still in size 6 sneakers, size 5 sandals.

What Porter is Eating:

•  Cherries, peaches, watermelon, grilled pineapple (won’t eat regular pineapple for whatever reason…)
• After months of not touching it, he has gone back to eating wheat toast with peanut butter.
• Loves spaghetti but pasta in any other shape is deemed unacceptable.
• Aside from carrots, celery, avocado, green pepper and the occasional cucumber, I still can’t get him to eat any other vegetables.

What Porter is Saying:

• Porter is speaking more and more in full sentences.  ”I don’t like it.”  ”Bye, Mom!  See you later!”
• He is still a little confused about the phrase “behind you.”  Sometimes he uses it to mean “near you”, sometimes he means in the next room.
• He is also a little confused about “with you.”  He says, “Mom, take the ball with you?” when he really is asking to take the ball with him or with us.
• He is using the pronoun “I” more.
• He is using the contraction “don’t.”
• Understands and uses the word “both.”

What Porter Likes These Days:

• Splash park!
• The zoo!  He had his first trip to the zoo last week–very fun!
• His new toy laptop.
• Loves the backyard and his kiddie pool.
•  This kid loves the grocery store.
• Singing.  He sings all the time now.  He even sings along with commercial jingles on TV.  We learned tonight that he will not sing “Happy Birthday” when it is expected, however.

What Porter Doesn’t Like These Days:

•  He’s missed a couple of naps this week and some nights he isn’t too pleased about going to bed.

What Porter is Doing:

• Pretending to cook.
• Dancing.
• Walking on his tip-toes.
• Man, he can throw an epic tantrum when he wants to.  He missed a nap the other day and we paid for it all evening.  Sobbing, big tears, a well-rehearsed pout and puppy dog eyes.  Big, BIG emotions.  LOUD emotions.  We fear that he may grow up to be a stage actor and that he practicing his emoting–has to be sure the audience can see at the back of the house (theatre joke.)
• He is imitating noises.  He will hear a sound and say, “What’s that noise?” and if I don’t know what he is talking about I will say, “What did it sound like?”  He will then try to emulate the sound he heard.  He is pretty good at it!
• “Reading” books to us and himself.
• Trying to dress himself!  He hasn’t really figured out the concept of taking some clothes off before putting more clothes on…

…but we are helping as he tries to dress himself at bedtime.

What We Are Working On:

• He still has little to no interest in the potty.  Will sit on it with pants/shorts and diaper only.  Removal of said items it met with protest so we are just backing off for now.
• Drinking out of a “big boy” cup.

Improved since last month:

• Utensil usage is on the rise!  Using fork and spoon more on his own!

Porter is becoming more kid and less baby everyday.  We’ve been shopping around for a real bedroom set for him.  It all seems to be going so fast.  Last year at this time, he looked like this:

And a year before that…

Porter at 12 weeks old!

It blows my mind!

From what I understand, lots of people make big plans for the Fourth of July.

We aren’t those people.

It might come from our years of working in summer theater, during which we didn’t really have much time to celebrate the holiday.  Or it might be due to the fact that we just don’t bother to think ahead.  Either way, we had no plans.

It is kind of nice to make up your holiday plans as you go.  That is what we did this year.  We woke up and decided to go a splash park across town.  I had never been to a splash park (or pad, if you prefer) but I had heard a lot about it from Porter, who went with Aaron a few weeks before.  Porter obviously liked it since he would talk about it or ask us to go every day since his first trip.  We weren’t sure if the holiday would mean the park was going to be crazy busy or if the whole place was going to be deserted, but we decided to find out.

Besides the lifeguard, there was one other family there–a dad and his two kids.  That’s it!  Perfect!

Porter’s favorite part was the Grey Button.  The Grey Button turns on all of the water at all of the spray stations.  Water will turn off automatically if no one comes near the button for a while (it has a proximity sensor) so the park isn’t wasting water.  But Porter made sure that didn’t happen.  The second that his favorite station turned off, he would run his little butt over to the Grey Button to make sure it turned on again.

His need to control that button makes us wonder what other “control issues” he has…

We had a great time at the park.  Mommy and Daddy even enjoyed a station or two.  Then we had a nice picnic lunch.  It was about that time that families started to flock to the park.  It was about Porter’s nap time at that point so we packed up and headed home.

Later that evening, the weather got nasty on our side of town so we opted to not go out to see the big fireworks display.  Instead we watched various neighbors set off fireworks on our block while Porter looked on in his pajamas.  He was fascinated.  He was staying up late!  He was seeing things that he hadn’t seen before!  He was amazed!

His favorite part?

Streetlights.

Yeah.  Streetlights.

We aren’t out much as a family at night.  Porter is usually in bed by 8pm and in the summer months it is still light out here at that time.  The big lamps outside that lit up the street below blew his little mind!  The fireworks were cool too, but according to Porter not nearly as cool as the streetlights!  We also watched the big fireworks show that was happening downtown on the river via television.  Porter loved it!  We definitely have to see it in person next year.

Porter went right to bed by the time 10pm rolled around.  It was a really fun, very relaxed day.  The only downside (besides the rain) was the next night Porter expected it all to happen again!  And he was SO upset that he couldn’t stay up late again.  Yeah, we paid for that for a few days…