Birthday Man

Despite my hope that my baby boy would stay my baby boy forever (I cry whenever I hear "I Hope They Call Me On a Mission" or "In the Hollow of Thy Hand") he continues to grow!

We now have a two-year-old on our hands. Yikes!

When Zane was a month old, he was just starting to try to hold his head up on his own.

At a year, he was walking (a little wobbly, but walking nonetheless) and was just starting to say a simple word or two.

Now he's two.

He has a LOT to say about everything. He loves to explain the world around him. He has an awesome sense of humor and loves to make people laugh. His manners are impeccable. He thanks anyone and everyone who hand him things and remembers to say "please" most of the time. He even reminds us to use our manners or to congratulate him when he does something great. If he puts something away without being asked, he will turn around to one of us and say "Say good job, Zaney". When we tell him good job, he thanks us. He still calls himself Zaney for some reason, but it's still cute for now.

Numbers and counting have become a lot of fun. He loves the number 8 and recognizes it everywhere we go. He likes to count things, even if he isn't always totally accurate. His current favorite things to count are the garages in our apartment complex. When we go for walks, he will see the garages and tell me that there are two green garages or three red garages. I think he likes garages because he knows they open and close. He likes the automatic doors at the grocery store that open and close too. He tells them to open when we walk through, then we have to turn around and watch them close again.  

Zane still prefers the great outdoors to anywhere else. If he is stuck inside, he loves to do whatever we are doing. He loves being a helper, whether with the dishes or the laundry. He is really good at sorting out the "white stuff" for the laundry and heaping it over the gate by the kitchen so I can put it in the washer. He also likes to help move things from the washer into the dryer, and pile the dry things up on the couch for me to fold. I will take all the help I can get! 

Our most recent addition to the list of shows that Zane likes is "Blue's Clues." He likes it so much that he sings the songs along with the show and answers questions that Joe asks (for those Blue's Clues afficiandos, Zane prefers Joe, the host of the last season of the show to Steve, the host of the first few seasons). He finds "thinking chairs" all over the house. When I am doing my hair in my bathroom, he likes to come in and sit on the edge of the tub, calling it his thinking chair. Pretty much any surface worth sitting on in the house has been a thinking chair at one point or another. I found a notebook similar to the one on the show in the dollar section at Staples, so Zane takes a dry-erase crayon and jots clues down in his own handy-dandy notebook. I found a little tiny mailbox in the dollar section at Target a few days ago, so we have had several "mail times" over the course of our day. He puts a piece of junk mail in the mailbox, pulls it back out and says "Letter from our friends!" Then he "reads" it and puts it back in the mailbox. He is such a funny kid.

Zane is now 36.5 inches tall, putting him in the 91st percentile.

He weighed in at 34 pounds, which is the 98th percentile.

Happy Birthday Turkey, Goofer, Monkey Man, Mr. Handsome Pants, Silly Muffin, Bugaboo-Mr. Moo, Boo Boo, Busteroo-ski, Sweet Boy, Light of our Lives!