Oh my goodness!!!  I'm just finding 2 1/2 to be so much fun!!  I mean really really fun.  Tate is just so funny, outgoing, smart, cute, loving and relatively easy-going that I just want to eat him up.  I want to hug him and cuddle him all the time with all the joy in my heart in being allowed the precious gift of being his mother.  He's just so much...everything.  Our evenings are less frantic now that I'm letting him stay up until 7:30.  So he finishes dinner and scampers off into the living room to play with his trains HAPPILY and I get his dinner and school day dishes cleaned up in a jiff.  And I still have time to go hang out with him on the floor for 15-20 minutes.  We read, play trains or play trains :)  I even get to pet the cat for a bit!!  Yay for Vinnie!!  Used to be that he's finish eating and we'd basically then go upstairs to start our bedtime routine.  He would be in the crib by 7/7:15, then I would come downstairs and have to clean up the dinner dishes and get his school stuff cleaned up as well.  THEN I would make myself something to eat and have to clean that up.  Just having these 15 minutes together to reconnect is just amazing.  I know I've also been blessed that Tate is really easy when we get home.  He rarely melts down or any of the such, and really never has.  Possibly that's because I've always, always had dinner ready to go, so there's never any downtime from when we walk in the door to when we eat of more than 5 minutes.  Of course we have had our moments, but luckily so far they have been very few and far between.


So we've got a new routine and have been doing it for the past couple of weeks.  We still get home around 5:40. I heat up his dinner plate while he takes off his shoes and plays for a few minutes.  Then he eats and I sit with him while we skype with my parents.  He does eat pretty quick and that's because he is antsy to go play with Thomas and Henry, the trains :)  He's done in 15-20 minutes.  I clean up, load the dishwasher, empty his lunch box items into the dishwasher and then join him in the living room for some run.  Around 6:30 I tell him it's time to head upstairs with his trains, Sue-Y Bear and hippo and he amazingly happily runs up the stairs.  As soon as we're in our room, he's on the floor with his trains while I get the bath water running, sometimes start a load of laundry or put clothes away.  And our nighttime routine begins.  It's a slower pace and we really get to enjoy each other.  He's still up at the crack of dawn, but he wakes up happy and smiling.  He still naps well at home and at daycare most days, so I think he's getting the sleep he needs.  I'm soooo protective of his sleep, but I think I'm doing well on that front because I don't get the 'witching hour'.  (so far :) )


So 30 months with Tate...so amazing.  Many ups.  Many downs.  Little people tantrums.  Big people tantrums.  Lots of smiles.  Loads of hugs.  Tons of cuddles.  Oodles of kisses.  Thousands of "I love yous" and a lifetime of togetherness.  It just doesn't get any better.

It's very hard to hear, but he is just a-singing away!  He's crooning "The Little Drummer Boy" while playing by himself with those much-adored trains.  If you listen closely you can hear some familiar verses from "Pa-Rum-Pum-Pum-Pum" to "The ox and lamb kept time" to "...to lay before the king" And at the very end you can definitely hear "Then he smiled at me, pa-rum-pum-pum-pum, me and my drum..."  

There are other bits and pieces as well. Enjoy!

February 8, 2012  I love that his teacher, Ms. L, is always telling me how smart Tate is
February 7, 2012  I love listening him read his books to me..he loves to read "Green Eggs and Ham"
February 6, 2012  I love that he loves taking medicine
February 5, 2012  I love spending the day just the 2 of us, noone else, doing a whole lot of nothing, together.
February 4, 2012  I love that Tate is such a sound sleeper that the cackling, laughs and hoopla going on downstairs during my slumber party didn't wake him at all.
February 3, 2012  I love how he just takes to the water when he's swimming
February 2, 2012   I love that he can now take all his clothes off except his shirts and he can put on socks, pants and a pull-up.
February 1, 2012  I love how music touches his soul;  he cried again today watching Andre Bocelli sing to Elmo
January 31, 2012  I love watching his enthusiasm for his trains and everything else in his life that he enjoys
January 30, 2012  I love that teeny tiny chip that he has on the mesio-incisal edge of Tooth #E that he got when he was about 9 months old.
January 29, 2012  I love how precious and perfectly soft his skin is.
January 28, 2012  I love those sweet lips and how he gives perfect kisses with them.
January 27, 2012  I love that he has his grandmother wrapped around his fingers...he refused to go to swim lessons or daycare today and she was more than happy to hang out with him all day while I worked.