A Day in the Life...

Vince is 23 months old!  I can't believe he's almost 2!!

It was a rough winter for the poor kid; he was sick an awful lot!  He was super grumpy, difficult to please, and had a poor appetite.  Now that he's over that hump, he's been really good.  Usually he wakes up happy in the mornings, though I must admit that we've had to work at that.  We have to be really excited and happy when we get him up, otherwise Mr. Grouchy shows up and makes getting out the door a challenge.

He love, love, loves to go outside and play.  His #1 favorite is pushing his lawnmower around the driveway.  There's plenty of miles on that mower already!!  The sandbox is his second favorite thing.  He will sit and play by himself for as long as we'll let him.  He digs and scoops and fills buckets.  And yes, fills his clothes, shoes and hair with sand too, but he's happy and having fun!

Can you tell he's saying cheese?  He likes to play with the rocks, scribble with sidewalk chalk, and play in the hut when we're on the back patio.

We went to the park for the first time this spring, and Vince loved it!  He was super busy running, climbing and going down the slide.  So fun to watch.

In the house, he's good at tearing things up.  Daily, he empties the drawer of water bottles and coffee thermoses.  In the basement, he enjoys ransacking our office.  I've had to empty a few of the drawers because we were tired of picking up paperclips, rubber bands, and permanent markers.  Recently, he's shown an interest in coloring.  He likes to sit and scribble with crayons.  He also helps himself to the drawer with crayons and coloring books.  I've had to scrub crayon off of walls and floors a few times already.

The Lazy Susan door is a frequent play place.  He opens the door, says buh bye, and hides inside for no more than 1 second.

He still isn't talking a whole lot, but it's coming.  I joke that he learns one new word per week.  He understands everything we say to him, and does a good job of using body language, but speaking is just not coming quickly.  Here's a list of words that he can say:
mom
dad
papa (doubles for papaw and hop hop)
sissy
more
out
please
juice
shoes
uh oh
ow (ouch!)
buh bye
hi
cheese
whoa
wow
shakes his head no
makes the sounds for puppy, chicken, cow, piggy

He likes to take a shower a whole lot more than a bath.  One evening, he was grumping around, so I put the dump truck in the shower with him so he could play (and because the dump truck had something sticky that needed to be cleaned off.)  The bed of the truck quickly filled with water, and Vince had a blast.  He was jabbering and splashing the whole time.  It was hilarious to see how excited he was.

He's really good at fighting back and getting what he wants.  He doesn't let Vera push him around much.

Adam had this go cart before we were married.  It's been in a lot of random places over the last several years.  We recently acquired it again.  (We need it like a hole in our head!)  Vince HAD to drive.  You can see Vera pouting and Vince doing all he can to get to the driver's seat.  

It should be a fun summer with this wild man!  He's definitely our wild card.  So good, so loving and fun and also so ornery, temperamental, and difficult!  :)