Thomas Vincent Turns Two!

Given them I'm 35 weeks' pregnant and have 'newborn on the brain,' it was particularly meaningful to look back on my blog and read the birth story of Thomas Vincent (click here for a trip down memory lane).

Happy Second Birthday, Thomas Vincent!

Thomas is such a sweet baby and a joy to us.

He is very athletic: he dances, climbs all furniture, is barely slowed down by hurdling over baby gates or out of his crib, climbs up and down the bunk beds (and sometimes leaps off), balances and straddle-walks his Strider bicycle, and on the playground he swings by himself, goes down the slide, climbs ladders (regular and rope), and swings from the trapeze.

He's also a busy boy in the play room, where he lines up toys, stacks blocks, builds with Duplos, and loves best doing imagination play in the play kitchen.

Thomas does have his quiet moments, such as how often he likes to perch on the bay window and watch the bees on the flowers. "Bees, bees!" Also, he is a big fan of board books, either being read to or flipping through a stack of books by himself.

Watching bees

But usually Thomas being quiet means TROUBLE. He is the reason we have put baby-proofing doorknob locks everywhere, have set the alarm to 'ping' if any external doors are opened, have taken to locking all the deadlocks, even when we are home, and why he isn't allowed outside at all without an adult shadowing him.

Getting his own pizza out of the refrigerator and cutting it

Climbing the fence to escape

Climbing the counter, procuring a snack, and taking it upstairs to napping Mama

Dumping all the cards

Thomas remains a "man of few words," and we don't know if he's just a fifth child who doesn't need to speak because everyone understands his desires, or if something is amiss. His receptive language and eagerness and ability to follow instructions is fantastic. We had him evaluated by the county early intervention program professionals who work with children under three years old in the home, and, while they saw a real lacking, Thomas was deemed "not severe enough" for the program. What I read is that by 24 months, a child should be saying 50-200 words, singing songs, and saying simple sentences, and that the words should contain complexities like verbs.

Interestingly, when I am giving reading lessons to Joseph (4), Thomas sits at my feet with rapt interest and repeats all the phonemes I say, but then is silent when I blend or say a word. He can copy "C! A! T!" but not "Cat!"

THOMAS VINCENT'S VOCABULARY
Nouns	Adjectives	Exclamations	Verbs	Sounds
Baby = himself, another baby, a doll		Bye-bye		Dee = diaper
Ball		Hey! = protest		Growling sound = any fierce animal
Bar = snack bar		'Lo = hello		Meow = cat
Bee		Night-night		Sound of chewing = food
Bowl		No		Vroom = car
Bus = any vehicle		Please		Whee = swing
Cheese		Up		Woof = dog
Daddy		Yay
'Lo = cell phone
Mama
Me
Mole = skin, not animal
Money
Noodles
Outside
Potty
Stool
Wa-wa = water
Yellow = his special yellow blanket
Yummy = food

On Thomas' birthday, I took him and a couple of siblings to a diner breakfast, while the 'bigs' were at 'Esther' musical practice.

Then, in the evening, we enjoyed dinner and a homemade cake by Mama. The kids didn't even know I could make a cake, and they think other mothers who bake cakes are essentially professional bakers. Of course, I pulled a "typical Katherine" and bought all the ingredients except the chocolate for the chocolate cake. Chris dutifully and kindly went back to the store to get it for me.

Thomas received a bunch of specialized Duplo sets from relatives for his birthday, which will be grand fun because he's been stuck making the best of the basic set we bought for our firstborn probably nine years ago. Daddy very sweetly picked out an official Beaker doll for Thomas because of how much he likes Beaker's Ode to Joy. Thomas' big gift from us was a fancy, new play kitchen, as yet to be assembled.

Lastly we enjoyed the cake before Thomas and Joseph got to stay up for an hour playing Duplos with a passion.