Parker's Personality

Age two presents a variety of different challenges, emotions and new adventures.  It brings its fair share of tantrums, manipulating, and defiance, but I'm choosing to forgive and forget those things.  I've met so many moms who have told me they really miss when their kids were young.  Never once have I met one that said they're glad those days are over.  That's what I remind myself whenever I feel like I'm losing my brains.  Parker is an incredibly sweet boy, but he very persistent!  I just wanted to put this in a post, so when I look back on things, I remember that not every day was bliss, but every day was/is a blessing.

So most of the time, things are really fun.  Parker still has an amazing imagination that we are trying to foster and keep around for many years to come.  Some of his favorite things to play are, "struction" - his Caterpillar construction machines in a cookie sheet with black beans - puzzles, fire trucks, and he can turn anything into a tractor, horse, sleigh or pick-up truck and ride it anywhere in the world.  Lots of times these things get "stuck in the mud," and needs to pull them out and wash them off.  One day he shocked me because I thought he was playing guns.  Little did I knew he was pretending he had a fire hose and he was "washing" everything in sight.

See you at the big one?

He also loves to sing.  At the beginning of the school year, someone gave me a box of instruments.  His favorite one is a High School Musical microphone.  It plays two songs from the movie.  He knows the words to both and will run, spin and dance around while he sings.  I'm so proud of my son who likes to sing songs about Jesus and High School Musical.  He's added a few other songs to his repetoire.   He really likes the song "After All."  Melts my heart to hear him sing "After all, You are sovereign."  We also started teaching him "Bless the Lord."

Other funny things.  He has the beginning of Veggie Tales memorized.  He will randomly say, "Hi kids, welcome to Veggie Tales.  I'm Bob the tomato and this is Larry the cucumber and we're here to answer your questions.  I just remembered I got an email from (mumble mumble) in New Jersey."  Hilarious.  We taught him the "Come Lord Jesus" prayer, and the other night we were praying and he said "Thank you for Papa, and Grandma....and the pizza (laughing super hard) and the dip (laughing even harder).

Nap time and bed time have been a bit of struggle lately.  For some reason he doesn't think sleep is important ;)  We've been calling him a hoarder because he literally wants EVERYTHING in his room, in his bed before he goes to sleep.  He usually has about three pillows, five stuffed animals, several books, ten blankets, and the basket that holds the blankets in his bed by the time he's asleep.  This leaves him about two square feet to sleep in, so we end up taking everything out when we check on him later.