Pow Pow!

• Nutella’s new job is going well so far and her stress level is waaaay down. So, so nice for all of us.
• Curly’s language continues to improve. He is saying more phrases, although his pronunciation is still poor, but that’s common. Some phrases include “I got it!”, “I want/don’t want that”, “I want to [eat/play/go]’, telling us when something is ‘Mommy’s shoes’ or ‘[Curly’s] baby’, and finally…FINALLY, he is starting to differentiate between Mommy and Ima. Up until now he’s been calling us both Mommy which has been driving Nutella crazy because we ALWAYS refer to her as Ima. But Curly didn’t really ‘get’ what an Ima was- it’s all mommies and daddies at daycare. Luckily he has known for a long time that he has two mommies, but just recently he’s started to call Nutella “Ima.” About half the time. lol. He’s also constantly parroting what we say, sometimes with the same tone or inflection.
• We booked another cruise for January (our last was when Curly was 20 months old, for this one he’ll be a little past 2 1/2) We do not have family coming with us this time, but we do have a good friend who will be assisting with Curly. We’re paying her way so that she will be on stand-by for his daily naps and when he goes to bed around 7pm every night, meaning we’ll have a lot of time to enjoy that’s just the two of us. The ship also has a kid’s club for 2 and up, so we can always drop him off there for an hour or two on sea days while we do a non-child-friendly activity. The cruise is only Florida and the Bahamas, but we’re excited about the new “format.”
• Our kid is pretty great- he’s sweet, funny, and he can pull it together usually (he’s not prone to having tantrums/outbursts past a few seconds). I took him in for his last Hep B shot and flu shot at the beginning of this week. As soon as he saw the assistant come in with the wrapped-up needles, he began to cry and cling to me. I was able to lay him down and he just gave in while I held his hands and spoke to him gently. As soon as the shots were over, an Elmo sticker and some blueberries made it all better, although he loved pointing out his ‘boo boos’ the rest of the day. Last night at dinner he was absurdly tired, but instead of having a tantrum, he had a serious giggle attack and laughed until tears rolled down his face. It was disconcerting, but way better than a tantrum, and when he got us to laugh with him, it made him laugh even harder. Goofball.
• He’ll be 2 and a half in less than a month and time keeps flying by.

Cheeeeese!!