Hello Friends!
Somehow our favorite hybrid turned two!
Certainly not. How can that be?!
Let's take a quick walk down memory lane, shall we? Oh, you'll pass? Too bad. We're walking. I am a little traumatized by this 2 year-old business. So we're walking.
just the two of us
birth day
3 months
6 months- I love this picture so much I can't stand it. Look at that foot!
8 months
1 year
15 months
17 months
21 months
Two
Friends, words cannot do justice to how much we enjoy our Bunting. He continues to be the light of our lives. He is a proper little person now, and living with him is a blast.
Singing, vrooming, and squat walk. All currently favored activities.
We feel like we are in a time warp; this kid that holds hands, can snap himself into his booster seat, use utensils, ask for things with words, how did this happen? We've been here the whole damn time, but how did it happen? It seems like last Tuesday we were swaddling him like a burrito-
-and the only food he needed was made by my body, and suddenly here we are, fighting with him over why he can't eat the entire bag of clementines-
I may have mentioned that when my sis was a child, we had to hide fruit from her. She would simply eat until it was all gone. Guess who takes after his auntie? This was the result when I cut him off from the clementines.
-and he is able to walk and climb and make jokes and imitate his father snoring and it is just AMAZING and also just TOO MUCH.
He continues to be a strong boy, blessed with lots of energy (oy!), good coordination and gross motor skills. He adores being outside (one of his favorite words: it used to sound like "suh-ssside!!" but recently he has begun to enunciate it more clearly, "ow-sside!"), and going to the park. Recently of his own accord he discovered the big kids' play structure.
big kids' structure requires a 2:1 adult to Bunting ratio
No one showed him how to do this- in fact, I have made a point of always encouraging the stairs. Feh on that, says Bunting.
Even though he is now a tool using primate and up to hijinks such as this:
"Surely we do not need a childproof latch on this cabinet, it is up too high."
- SAP the Naive, sometime last year
He continues to be a funny boy, with a great sense of humor. He loves books (yay!), and he received the wonderful book "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" from Aunt Kathy and Uncle Marshall.
This page just flat out cracks him up when we read it to him. We love hearing him laugh, and I (someone who works with kids on the autism spectrum) love that he gets it already, that he picks up on subtle humor, voice inflection, social cues. When I was pregnant I worried a lot about that, and to be honest I still worry a little bit. [ed. note: We are fully aware that this is asinine, as all who spend more than 5 minutes with Bunting will tell you that he is one of the most social children in Christendom. I also worried about his milk consumption when he was nursing, which was equally asinine. I used to weigh him every week at our breastfeeding support group, until I realized I was kind of being a jerk to my fellow new moms who were actually struggling with having their babies gain weight. Apparently I should have known that if a child gains 17 ounces in one week, is like carrying a bag of wet rice, and is in the 90th percentile for weight he is gaining just fine, and that I should just chill the eff out. Still working on that one.]
Reading with his Grandpa T.
In any case, he loves to laugh. Thank goodness. It would be a hard slog in this family if we somehow ended up with a super serious, humorless child, like having an Alex P. Keaton in our midst.
I know it can be hard to tell- the arm and voice are Mepher's. This is what bedtime with Mepher often devolves into. Auntie prerogative.
Of course, he is a P-K, which means that he is a little wacky.
My current favorite thing that he does is what I refer to as Squinchyface.
No idea what inspired it, he just started pulling this face one day, and we love it.
He is surely his father's/grandfather's/great-grandfather's child, for our boy loves music in all forms. Whenever I leave the house, it is a certainty that when I return SAPK and his daddy are listening to music, dancing around and having a grand ol' time. Whenever we visit our Auntie Jay-Jay he makes a beeline for the piano-
-and at Mepher and UJ's house he always finds 'his' guitar (ie not UJ's fancy one) and insists on playing it. He is surprisingly gentle and deft with both piano and guitar. You can be sure that this one will be taking piano lessons one day. Via my superb public school education, I learned how to play the violin and read music, and though I have not practiced in a long while, I can still sight read simple compositions. It's like knowing another language, and I am so grateful. I do wish I could play the piano, and FRK despite being a music fanatic doesn't play any instrument, so here's to hoping that we get a group discount on lessons one day.
This mini keyboard is from my childhood, circa 1983. I used to use it for home sessions for work. In this capacity, I taped the volume button so that the kiddos could not slide it to 'max', as is their wont. This has worked for years. Guess which big-headed hybrid figured out how to defeat the tape? Son of a b*%$#.
Bunting's problem solving skills, his ability to reverse engineer, and his focus continue to amaze. This is totally organic; we have done nothing (nothing- He has parents who love him like mad, but the last two years have been insane. We keep him fed and dressed and clean, and that's about it) to foster these skills. He rarely- and I mean I can count on one hand how often it has occurred- gets frustrated with things. He just works and works and works at something until he has it figured out. Mostly we are proud of this tendency, but somewhere in the back of our minds lurks the thought that this trait will make our lives hell at some point. In the meantime, we're bemused.
One of the most amazing developments of this last year is watching his imagination and creativity grow. He loves to scribble and draw on his chalkboard and magnadoodle, he has tea parties, he wanders around with his little vehicles and creatures, narrating adventures in toddler babble. It's a wonder to behold, to actually be witness to the advent of imagination.
Life today can be hectic, and it can be easy to get caught up in day to day stressors and become nattering nabobs of negativism. Our sunny boy keeps us grounded in the moment, appreciative of how incredibly blessed we are (jobs, roofs over our heads, plenty to eat, no war, etcetera), especially with our family.
These are just the folks I have readily available photos of. Bunting has many doting fans on the East coast (the pile of gift boxes at BirthdayMas was impressive indeed), and we have a huge chosen family that showers him with love and attention.
Bunting and his Mama. One thing I will take credit for- I have trained this kid to be a cooperative groomer, oh yes.
****************
"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
With great sadness and grief we said goodbye to Bunting's Mamaji, FRK's mother Nan, who died peacefully in the arms of Grandpa T on the morning of December 18th.
We will miss her terribly, and are so, so, so sad that she and Bunting will not be together as he grows.
We believe that she is watching over him, over us, along with Mama Lucy and Snuffy. And in the face of terrible heartache and grief, this gives us comfort.
Bunting is our why- our reason to get up, to go to sleep, to face every day, even when we feel consumed, leaden with grief.
FRK often comments on how remarkable Bunting's enthusiasm is. Having not spent large chunks of time around little ones, multiple times a day he is struck by how damn exciting everything is to a toddler. They are like Labradors. Every day is an adventure, putting on socks and shoes fires him up every time, every graham cracker is as if it were the very first.
new book!!!
giant shoes!!!
I love smoothies and my Mepher!!!
for boys young and old, few things are more exciting than a garbage truck sighting
As we navigate the shoals of yet another voyage on the S.S. Griefstricken (Hello god, it's me, SAP. Could you give us a break? That would be awesome. Thanks. Sincerely, the P-Ks) we are able to keep putting one foot in front of the other by taking our cues from Bunting's zest for life and rampant enthusiasm. We allow little things to lift our spirits: coffee, Crossfit, library books -moi; music, yard work, audiophile-y things -FRK.
And our 2 year-old, 34.75 inch tall, 31.2 lb, giant-headed boy.
Squinchyface reprise.
Two.
