September 19th, 2011 by Busy Mommy

Nolan will be 23 months in just a few days.  His eyes are just as blue-grey-green as they’ve been since the day he was born, just more clear.  Here those eyes are at 19 days old, almost 2 years ago.  Everyone always comments on how striking those eyes are.

He talks so much now that I lost count of words and phrases a long time ago- right after I made a list when he was 18 months old of the words he knew which I think was around 150 words, his knowledge exploded out of control and became uncountable.  His ability to enunciate has really gotten good and he is now able to string some phrases of three words together.He loves to RUN everywhere.  It is the cutest thing to see.  Just running, and smiling, and laughing, everywhere.  He’s just become this little ball of energy and joy that totally lights up our life in every way.  A few years ago we had no intention on having children in this system.  A year and half a go I was still recommending to others that they skip children, as much as we loved Nolan, simply because it was SO HARD.  Ben and I both have health problems, Nolan was extremely needy (normal for a baby) , and we had such a hard time functioning each day and were very sad.  He’s become so endeared to us and lights up our life so much now though that I actually find myself thinking “everyone should have one of these!”  We have both learned so much and had so much entertainment and joy from watching Nolan grow this past 2 years, and especially this last year has been particularly enjoyable.  It just feels like it has rounded us both out as individuals and as a family and has helped us to understand what other families go through in life too which has made us even more understanding of people. He loves to say bye-bye to everything, whether it’s shoes, toys, or people.  And he actually plays with toys now!  I got him these cute little trucks and cars from the thriftstore and he loves playing with them.He has just started throwing more obvious tantrums- and so far this has been in response to a frustration on his part when he can’t get something to move or work the way he wants- ie. trying to push the tricycle we got him on the garden path and it keeps getting stuck.  He starts crying this frustrated mad cry and stamps his feet and shakes his little fists in the air.  I feel a little bad for him because he’s just frustrated trying to do things a little too advanced for his level.  Ben told me that he remembers having the same frustrated crying when he was little and couldn’t put the big boy tiny lego pieces together because his fingers didn’t have the dexterity yet.