2 Year Old Zion

At 2 years old, Zion . . .

Loves to say please and thankyou.

Loves puzzles - especially our big zoo puzzle. When we arrive back home from an errand, the first thing he says when he sees our house is, "puzzle! puzzle!" Once in the door he heads straight back to work on his puzzle.

Loves to be chased.

Loves copying Elise.

Loves to drink from my water bottle.

Loves to hold my hand - especially when climbing stairs.

Loves fireworks.

Loves snuggling.

Loves washing his hands. Give him soap and a running faucet and he is a happy little guy.

Loves painting with water on our Aqua-Doodle mat. He tells us about all of the different animals that he is drawing.

Loves counting. Usually his counting is a random collection of numbers, in no particular order. But he can count 1 to 4 with some consistency.

Loves naming colors and letters, but these are most likely random colors or letters and not associated in any way with the correct color or letter. But he does know the letter "O" and several colors.

Love animals. His crib is a zoo of stuffed animals, with his blue teddy bear and his black teddy bear being the most loved of all. He also lines up his little plastic animals around the house. Sometimes he pretends to see and hear a lion or a bear in our living room too.


Zion . . .

Dislikes being stuck in his crib while Elise roams free in their room at night.

Dislikes the heat - he points at the sunshine and says, "hot!"

Dislikes unexpected attacks by the sprinklers at the spray ground.

Dislikes my big belly that disturbs his favorite snuggling spot. He has even resorted to standing on my lap with his head resting on my shoulder in an attempt to replicate "pre-belly" snuggles.

Zion Speaks

Zion has a very different communication style than Elise at the same age. She was startling us with flowery phases and poetry. Zion typically uses bursts of single words, grouped together to convey his message.

For example, the other day Elise locked me in the basement. Once I was freed from the basement and back with the kids, I gave Elise a good talking to about future consequences of fiddling with the lock. In the midst of this, Zion ran up to me and said, "Elise . . . . Lock-it . . . . Trouble!" Only three words, but he sure got the message =)

Another example:
This morning at the breakfast table, we were trying to explain to Elise the concept of a person being "tough". We threw out explanations like, "durable" and "when you get hurt but don't cry a lot". Zion again summed up the concept in just a few well chosen words: "Me boom. Me better."

Zion's 2nd Birthday

Zion turned two years old just two weeks after we moved to Indy. To celebrate, we invited over our dearest friends in all of Indiana. Two weeks prior they were only acquaintances, but their status took a giant leap when we, and our new best friends all left our homes to move in Indy for fellowships.

Elise has been planning Zion's "racecar" birthday for many, many months now. Now she has moved on to planning her "rainbow" birthday and Tatu's "shirt" birthday. According to Elise, to celebrate a "shirt" birthday, you have teddy bears wearing shirts that guests can write their name on, and balloons with pictures of shirts on them. I had no plans to have a "0-th" birthday party, but now we just might have cupcakes to celebrate his arrival.

Zion loved the car theme. He kept repeating, "me birthday, car, yeah".