I keep referring to Isaac as 2 1/2, but he’s not so much 2 1/2 as he is ALMOST THREE. Holy moly, how did that happen? Of course, if you ask him he’ll tell you he’s six :). Or today, “I’m forty, Mama”. Um, no.  He did tell me at nap time the other day that, “I’m not gonna grow up Mama, just like Peter Pan.”  If only that were true!

He talks and talk and talks and TALKS my ear off these days.  I have been posting the funny things he says to FB these days, because if I don’t write it down fast I forget!  Here’s a few gems from this past month:

(Talking about a future sibling)
Me: Would it be fun to have another little boy in the family? Do you think you’re going to have a brother or a little sister one day?
Isaac: Yeah, I’m broken so we’re gonna get a new boy.
Don’t worry, I assured him that he is, in fact, *not* broken, but he wasn’t worried.  He just said it so matter of fact, like duh, that’s why there’d be a new little boy in the family.  

Isaac got his ashes on Wednesday wearing half of his Santa pajamas (the top half – he screamed bloody murder when I was putting his pants on, but I was determined he wasn’t going to wear *only* pajamas to Mass). At the end of Mass, he realized he had rubbed all the ashes off his forehead and went up to shake Father’s hand and demanded more.

Isaac eating a nut bar, holds it up and shows me: “Look, it’s got chocolate. That’s what I like best!” A lot of things are “the best” these days.  Tonight, he ate every single one of the kalamata olives out of my greek salad and after every one exclaimed, “These are the best!”.

A Black Keys song comes on and Isaac tells me, “Oh, I liked this one when I was a little boy. It’s got guitar!”

A frustrated, cranky, tired (at 9 am) little man yells at me to “Take my peepee away, I don’t want it anymore! Take it away, Mommy, take it away!”.  Oh my.

Isaac’s offering Daddy a raisin. No thanks buddy, he says. I’d like one, I offered. He looks at me, pauses for one second, then tells me, “Nah, they got gluten.” Gee thanks.

Isaac climbs onto my lap and tries to pry my mouth open, saying in a sing-song voice, “Open your mouth, so I can touch your braaaaa-aaain.”

Listening to him talk to his toy: “You ready, monster truck? I got you. What’s wrong monster truck? Your wheels are tired? You can make it up the hill, keep trying. You can do it! Aww, poor monster truck….”

Seeing Curious George eat spaghetti, Isaac turns to me and says “I want pho!”. Yes, my two year old (with a tomato allergy) has no idea what spaghetti is, but is a huge fan of Vietnamese noodles .

Walking through Target the other day, Isaac sees a pack of Angry Birds underwear and tells me, “Look Mommy, alouette! Alouette!” It took me a couple seconds to realize that he was referring to this video we watch on occasion of one of his favorite French songs. I couldn’t stop laughing!! I may have the only kid in America that doesn’t know what Angry Birds is!

Out for a walk with his new umbrella, he tells me, ‘I can open my umbrella and say “Tut, tut, it looks like rain”.’  He also loves to wedge himself into the crepe myrtle in our front flowerbed and say, “Oh no, I’m stuck.  I ate too much honey.”.  And he’ll randomly throw in a “Oh, stuff and fluff!” exclamation here and there throughout the day.  Obviously, we’re big Pooh Bear fans in this house ;).

Me: “Don’t kick the book, please.”
Isaac: “I’m just reading with my toes.”

Isaac was having a hard time falling asleep the other night. I’m in there rocking him and telling him all about the first time I met him, when he sits up with a big goofy grin on his face, puts his hands on each side of my face and tells me, “Mama, you’re making me smile!”

Playing a game with Daddy:  He wrapped his rope (a strip of fabric left over from a sewing project) around Chris’ legs and while tugging on it said to him in the cutest little baby voice, “Come on baby girl, come on. Let’s go see the dinosaurs.” I tried to save my husband’s dignity and NOT laugh my head off, but completely failed. And then he took a break from his game for a minute, turned to his Daddy and asked, “Do we have any gluten free bugs?”

Daddy showed Isaac how to do pushups. After he finished, he announced, “I did pushups just like a lady!”  LOL.  Then after a few tries on his own, he tells us, “Hiccups are hard!”

He’s such a bossy little play director: “Okay Daddy, fall on the floor and bonk your head. Say help. Say help louder.”  And today outside, “Here Daddy, pick up a stick and MARCH. Okay, stop. And now wave the stick around.”

Aunt Rachel was on the phone with the auto shop today.  “What’s Aunt Rachel doing?”  She’s talking to the people who are going to fix her car. “Not people, Mommy, DRAGONS.”  Dragons are going to fix her car? “No!  That’s not a good idea.”  Well then.

Me: Mmmm, these are good pancakes.
Isaac: NOT so good. *Pretending* to be so good.
Me: The pancakes are just pretending to be good?
Isaac: Yeah.

At a restaurant (this has happened several times), he tells the waitress very loudly that he needs his “own beer” (or wine), because “it’ll make me feel better”.  LOL

Of course, he’s pretty much the definition of “almost three” these days with his attitude.  I try not to ask yes or no questions anymore, because it’s just futile, haha.  He’s starting answering my questions using the phrases “I do NOT” or “No, I didn’t” or “I did” instead of plain old yes or no.  I forget to remind him to say yes ma’am or No thank you or some other appropriate response because I’m too busy giggling at how funny some of these things sound coming out of his mouth.

He’s sounding so much older these days, probably because he’s started negotiating with us and telling multi-sentence stories, among other things.  And then on the other hand, his voice sounds so much smaller all of a sudden.  That may just be that he’s just slightly out of breath still from the flu last week, though.

He’s shooting up like a weed these days.  I bought him new undies, because the old ones were getting too tight, and then he went through a growth spurt and his tush got smaller!  He’s filling them out again now, though, but it’s hard to keep up.  All of a sudden he’s in 3T pants and shirts and a couple 4T as well.  He outgrew the length in everything, although the waists still fit.  His arms and legs have grown, and his head has gotten bigger.  He’s in a size 8 shoe now – his feet are the only thing that don’t seem to be growing at the same rate.  I’m okay with that thought, as I’d rather buy new pants every couple of weeks than new shoes!  He’s right around 38 inches tall now, too.  He’s still around 30 lbs, because he keeps losing a couple pounds when he’s been sick, then regaining them.  His head measures 19″ around.

He’s starting to have definite opinions about what he wears these days, too.  He likes the way certain things look, doesn’t like the way some things feel, and most of the time is not in the mood for pants (or underwear, for that matter).  “I can go without pants, Mommy” and “I can be naked?” are heard pretty often around here.  It’s a little tricky to get him dressed, so if we don’t have anything we need to get out of the house for, I just let him stay in pj’s all day.  Especially since it’s been too cold for playing outside.  Once the warm weather hits, it’ll be much easier all around!

He still loves to cook and bake, and help with the dishes.  He likes to vaccuum with the attachments, and can wash windows pretty well now.  He’s very good at putting things away in the coat closet, like shoes and winter accessories.  He’s not so good at picking up his toys and books.  We’re working on that ;).

He was roaring at dinner tonight.  (Me) What says ROAR?  Dinosaurs.  And squirrels say ROAR.  Squirrels? Scary squirrels.

Walking through Target this morning and just chattering away:  “I can walk in the woods, and if I see a scary animal I punch it in the face!”

The boy cracks me up all day long. This isn’t even the half of it.  I wish I could remember every funny little thing that comes out of his mouth, oh my!

He still loves music.  Adores it, and is very curious about what band is singing, the name of the song, and what instruments they are playing.  Mumford and Sons is his absolute favorite, and he can identify them as soon as the song comes on, before they even start singing.  We have their album Babel in the car, and he belts out the words to almost every song (well, his version of the words, anyway!). He can also identify other songs like Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show (he calls it “Rock Me Mama”) within the first 2 to 3 seconds every time.  He loves the Beatles still, and asks for “Bum bumbum song” all day long (All Together Now) and will walk around the house singing to himself, “Bum bumbum sail the ship, bum bumbum, LOOK AT ME! ALL TOGETHER NOW!”.  He also adores the song “Big Girls Don’t Cry” off the Mermaids movie soundtrack, and it is hilarious hearing him sing that one.  He loves bluegrass and old country – Avett Brothers, Johnny Cash.  He likes rock – anything with a lot of guitar.  He loves the soundtrack to the Sound of Music, which makes me happy ;).  He sings Do Re Mi with such passion, haha.

He could care less about drawing, painting, and other crafty type activities.  He might paint for 5 minutes or play with clay or play-doh for 10, and then he’s done.  He doesn’t even care for toys, for the most part, other than his kitchen and play food.  The trains, blocks, cars, dinosaurs, etc are all ignored.  He’s really a social little guy, so I think if he had a playmate or a sibling, maybe he’d enjoy those things more.  He’s happy to dig in the dirt, march around with sticks, chase the dog around the yard, climb all over the couch and build “mountains” out of the cushions.  He does love his monster truck, and his swords.  He’ll act out some of his favorite books.  And he absolutely loves to launch rubber bands and can do that all day if you have a willing thumb to help him “shoot”.  I see a rubber band gun in his future ;). He asks me on occasion for a bow and arrow.  He uses the paper towel rolls as telescopes, or cannons.  He adores playing with water, so sometimes I let him play in the sink for half an hour while I cook dinner, or if he’s having a particularly rough morning, I’ll pop him in the bathtub to splash around and calm down.

He’s still got a pretty hefty appetite, and it figures, because he’s growing and growing and growing!  The other day, he asked for a ham sandwich for breakfast, then ate an orange, three (!!) boiled eggs, a bowl full of yogurt and 2 banana mini muffins.  Then, an hour or so later, he snacked on pepperoni and grapes.  And of course, there was lunch, but I didn’t keep track of the rest of the day. He usually eats a lighter dinner, then has a little snack before bed.  I can’t order seafood in a restaurant or he’ll eat my entire meal.  I ordered a dozen mussels at lunch the other day and I got TWO.  Yep.  He ate my lunch and his.  I ended up ordering soup, haha.  We ate out in Annapolis (this was a while ago) at a seafood place right near the water.  We ordered Isaac his own dozen mussels, which he ate.  He then ate the half dozen clams that Chris had ordered, and about 3/4 of Chris’ lobster tail.  I don’t think he touched my crab legs, but if I remember correctly, my food didn’t come out until late.  It’s getting expensive to feed this kid!  I can only imagine what his appetite will look like as a teen, yowza.  Sometimes he’ll eat a whole head of broccoli and an entire pan of kale chips straight out of the oven.  Other times, he won’t eat more than a bite or two of veggies.  He’ll try absolutely anything, which is lovely, so I don’t stress about him not eating certain things every day.  He eats what we eat, so for the most part I know he’s getting a decent variety and good food.  I’ve had to restrict his orange consumption lately, though, because he’ll eat 4 and 5 in a day if I let him (I don’t).  Maybe he just needed the vitamin C after our bout with the flu ;).

He is such a Daddy’s boy lately!  He does NOT like when Daddy has to go back to work on Mondays, and will spend the better part of the day pining for Chris.  When Daddy is home, Mommy is definitely second fiddle. Unless he stubs his toe or falls and bonks his head!  Then of course, all he wants is Mommy. I love to see how much he adores his Daddy and looks up to him. He’ll tell me, “I’m eating my food to grow muscles like Daddy!” or “When I get big, I can drink coffee like Daddy.” and just today, “Daddy puts his tools away, and Isaac can put his tools (toys) away and be a man like Daddy!”.  Tonight he told me, “That’s enough kissing (I was kissing Chris), he’s my Daddy!”.

We’ve had some trouble with emotional outbursts lately, but it turns out his Lyme medicine needed tweaking, and luckily as soon as the dosage was adjusted, he was back to his normal, sunny self!  He still has his crazy toddler moments, but in general he’s such a sweet, fun little guy.  What a joy he is in our lives!