Hellobee

Charlie turned 25 months old last week! (I’ve stopped using months when I tell people Charlie’s age since he’s 2, but for the sake of these updates I’ll use months.)

Charlie and Olive

Our pediatrician said that 2-3 months of an adjustment period was normal with a new sibling. Charlie was throwing tantrums and super clingy to me for awhile after Olive came home, but now he’s used to her being a part of our family. He’s very affectionate with Olive, and has only shown jealousy towards her once — the first time he saw me breastfeeding. But while Charlie doesn’t act jealous towards Olive, he does want to use all of her things — from her bouncer, to her bottles, to her bathtub — as you can tell from the picture above.

Charlie is also now on Team Dad, since Mr. Bee spends so much more time with him while I’m busy with Olive. I’ve never been one to be sad if Charlie shows a preference, but the fact that I have so much less time to spend with Charlie lately does make me sad. Since giving Olive bottles is still such a battle, that means I get a lot of QT with Olive, and less QT with Charlie than I used to have.

I was giving Olive a bath a couple days ago, and Charlie said he wanted to come inside the shower and help. Once I was done, he wanted to get in the tub himself. Charlie had this very same tub in blue when he was a baby. He proceeded to use the washcloth and body wash to scrub his body and had the time of his life.

Play

After Charlie turned 2, it was like something clicked with his independence. He started playing by himself more frequently, and for longer stretches, enabling us to practice some benign neglect! He can play with his Thomas trains or play kitchen or just sing songs to entertain himself, and doesn’t need us to actively engage him at all times.

Charlie has also become absolutely addicted to Thomas the train in the past month. Though we’ve had a train table since he was 18 months old, I see now that he wasn’t really ready for the imaginative play it required until he was 2. He’s memorized the names of at least 30 trains in the past month alone — even we can’t keep them straight! It’s exciting to see him so passionate about something, we can’t help but fuel the passion by getting him Thomas gear, letting him watch Thomas movies, and reading him Thomas books. We thought he was into Elmo, but his love for Elmo doesn’t hold a candle to his obsession with Thomas!

Talking

Talking to parents of children a little older than Charlie, age 2 was a big turning point for language. Kids go from speaking in words and short sentences to having conversations. We’re not at the conversation point yet, but we’re close. Charlie can communicate just about anything he needs now. He finds phrases hilarious and uses them constantly, like oopsie daisy, pee you (what the other kids say when they smell a poopy diaper), ay yay yay, and holy cow. Charlie also asks us “why” or “why not” all the time. I’m told that this phase lasts years!

Personality

Overall I think Charlie is a decently well behaved little boy. We may have only given him one time out in the past month. (Lately he’s been putting Mr. Bee in time out.) When he does throw a tantrum, it’s usually over milk or ice cream. We’ve been trying to limit his milk intake so that he’ll eat more solids, but he constantly begs for milk. And his favorite food in the whole wide world right now is ice cream. If we don’t give it to him, he’ll throw a tantrum (usually because he’s hungry and doesn’t want to eat anything other than milk or ice cream). We tell him that it’s very unattractive.

One thing that we have to work on is how possessive he gets with his toys when friends come over. He’s so good at daycare — if he takes a beloved toy there, he will share it. But when he’s at home, he becomes possessive over certain toys he normally doesn’t even care about. Hopefully all the sharing he does in daycare teaches him that he needs to share at home too. If not, I’m sure Olive will have a hand in teaching him that lesson very soon!

Nanny vs. Daycare

Our daycare was closed over Christmas break, and Charlie’s former nanny was available to watch him for a couple of days. It had been four months since Charlie had last seen her, and he was absolutely ecstatic to hang out with her again. He held her hand and showed her his room and all of his toys. When he wouldn’t let her leave at the end of the first day, she asked him to go get a book to read together. I picked one for him, but he excitedly chose another. When he ran back to her, he found that she had sneaked out, and Charlie started crying inconsolably.

I learned from daycare that you should always say bye and not sneak out. I felt devastated for Charlie, and it really broke my heart. He was so earnest and sincere. They had a couple more great days together after that filled with museums, Chuck E Cheese, and playdates. In an ideal world, I’d love for Charlie to be with his nanny 2 days a week and in daycare 3 days a week. But financially it’s just not practical.

Charlie loves daycare, his teachers, and his classmates. He does arts and crafts, cooks, learns Spanish, yoga, sings, dances, and so much more everyday. The downside of daycare is that it is much more difficult than having a nanny. Daycare is about half the cost of a nanny, but a nanny does much more including laundry, dishes, and preparing and feeding meals. I don’t mind the additional chores too much, but the lack of quality time is tough. When we had a nanny, she came to us everyday and fed Charlie dinner, so our mornings and evenings with Charlie were pure quality time. Now with daycare, most of our time with Charlie during the week is spent getting ready to leave for daycare or getting ready for bed. Still the positives outweigh the negatives, so we still feel that transitioning him from a nanny to daycare at 21 months was the right decision. Oh and the absolute best part of daycare? This is Charlie’s reaction when we go to pick him up every single day:

And here’s our funny little man with his little sister:

You can be guaranteed that you’ll laugh every single day with a 2 year old in the house. Despite the hard times, it’s what makes being a parent so much fun!