this boy at two...

He's big, he's tall, he loves puzzles, and books, and drinks chocolate milk like it's his job.  He's Cruz, and he's two, and he never seizes to amazes us with his tricks, his talent, and his TALKING!  And now that our Cruz Man has moved on to the big, bad two year old room at daycare, it's only fitting to write about where he's at and the fun things he's doing at this stage of life.  

• While we aren't doing a lot with the whole potty training thing, Cruz is making strides and getting closer to cute little superhero undies without much effort from his parents all the time.  He averages about 1-2 times on the potty a day, and is quite comfortable with the whole process.  I'm planning to hit the crash course in potty training during Winter Break, but for now, we consider ourselves in the 'exploration' phase.
• Cruz's vocabulary is expanding more now than ever before.  We've learned he's constantly listening, and constantly repeating what we say (time to be careful...).  He processes the meaning of something by repeating what we say, and the wheels are turning all the time.  We are impressed with his ease of saying words and think he's got some killer annunciation!  
• Cruz has a love of adjectives and his English teacher mama loves it!  Every single night when we pull up to the house after work, Cruz sees our house and says 'it's nice.'  And the other afternoon, Beau and I were walking down Main Street and came across Santa's Workshop.  Cruz kept repeating the same phrase, "It's meat!  It's meat!  It's meat!" and I had no clue what he was looking at.  Finally, I realized he was saying it was 'neat.'  The best part of his adjectives is that they have more sincerity and genuine excitement than most adults can cough up in an entire day.  Oh, and the slight lisp in the way he says them is pretty cute, too.
• Cruz answers almost everything with 'yes.'  This is new, and makes me smile every time (which means lots of smiles are happening around here).  
• Mike, the maintenance man at daycare, is Cruz's hero.  When I ask him who he had fun with after picking him up, I often get "Mike" as his response.
• Cruz has always, always loved music, especially musical instruments, but has lately taken to singing as well.  He knows the alphabet song, Jingle Bells, Gangnam Style, Call Me Maybe, We Are Young by Fun, and Mumford's, I Will Wait.  
• Books, books, and more books.  This kid loves to read and has learned so much from his books.  
• Other current interests are puzzles, 'choo choos,' movies, his kitchen, and his favorite, family jam sessions with our instruments
• Our boy is still proving to be a picky eater, but eats lots of his favorites.  Pizza, bacon, berries, milk, juice, mac 'n cheese, noodles, chicken nuggets, cheese, ham, and anything breakfast are his favorites.
• Give Cruz a sucker are you sail to the top of his book.
• Cruz loves stoplights, and has proven to be quite the backseat driver in telling me when to 'Stop!' and 'Go!'
• Cruz loves babies, and is quite obsessed with his cousin, Hayes.  
• Much to his mom's frustration, Cruz is a pistol when it comes to having his picture taken.  He rebels and we have to work really hard to get a picture of him.  
• My boy still loves to cuddle, loves giving hugs, loves wearing hats and mittens, and loves doing mama's hair.  Nevermind that he won't let me touch his hair, but thinks it's perfectly fine to style mine every morning.  

Cruz, you are such a big boy!  You have had such a good week in the two room at daycare and we are SO proud of you!

xoxo,

mom and dad