The Harvey Family: Blake

Blake:

cut another molar, this time the bottom right. Chris mentioned how weird it sounds now when Blake eats crunchy foods, he actually sounds like a big kid crunching away instead of just sucking on his food until its soggy enough to smush.
grabs our hands to pull us places. If he wants something he says "has" (hand) and then grabs our hand and will drag us where he wants something. It was pretty darn cute at first, but now he waits until I'm comfy on the floor and then will pull on one hand and I can't get myself up. I do like that he is getting more comfortable holding our hands because it's nice for him to do that when we're out walking around the mall or something.
had his first big fall that lead to lots of blood. It was in the evening after not getting enough sleep one day and he tripped over something and landed face first onto one of his toys and busted his lips. Luckily the bleeding stopped after a short while and after watching a little Mickey, things were back to normal. Whew! It did leave a nice bruise though.
dances like a maniac with his activity tables. He sings and dances and jumps and stomps and basically goes nuts sometimes with that table. He gets big bursts of energy after his meals and it is quite funny to see him dancing and scream/singing. Once the song ends he runs back over to start it up again immediately.
is terrified of fans now. We went to go get an estimate on fixing my car (where someone opened their car door into my car and left a dent) and there was a standing oscillating fan in the lobby. Blake was exploring and walked through the path of the fan and it scared him so badly he just freaked out crying. I picked him up and walked back over to show him what it was and he wanted no part of it. Now, even ceiling fans are enough to keep him distraught. The other night we had the ceiling fan on in the living room and Blake made us turn it off and he just kept checking over his shoulder to make sure the "fet" (fan) didn't happen to turn itself back on.
somehow manages to make everything a seat. He'll pull the oven mitt and pot holders out of the drawer, put them on the floor, sit on them and look up at me and say "seat!". He does it with boxes, books, blankets, rugs, his teddy, or any article of clothing lying around.
has been going though a bit more separation anxiety from Mommy. If I'm not in the same room as him he'll freak out and start fussing for me. I even left him on the back patio and went around the backside of the house to turn on the hose (and he could see/hear me) and he was beside himself with tears.
finally went off his daily dose of Zyrtec. We had him on it for the longest time because he has always had a hard time breathing out of his nose, especially when he sleeps. It seemed like he had a hard time breathing even while on the medicine so we decided to just cut it out and it didn't seem to decrease his ability to breathe so it's nice to have him off his last daily medicine. Actually, somewhere between taking him off Zyrtec and lowering his white noise machine at night, he ended up sleeping though the night so much better! Whichever thing made the difference, it's nice to not always worry about those 2:30AM wake ups.... sadly I'm programmed to wake up at that time now and do it on my own anyway.
gets to go and play in his room now. For the longest time there were too many things to get into in his room so we'd just carry him in there when it was time for bed. We finally got all the off limits items out of the way and opened the gate in the hallway so he can have free reign in there and he thinks it the greatest thing ever. I thought the novelty would wear off at some point but he is still going strong after a week or so. This has been a huge help since all the PM thunderstorms have kept us cooped up inside. He just runs up and down the hallway, squealing with excitement and then runs into the bedroom and crashes into the rocker. Random things still end up in his drawers but hopefully they'll lose their appeal like the kitchen cabinets have.
has been fitting into his old shorts/pants because his waist is shrinking. Some of the pants that he used to wear when he started cruising (~9 months) are much too big for him now and just fall off constantly so I had to go back through some older clothes and pull out pants that are smaller and fit him now... such a weird concept.
has been saying so many words I didn't even bother to keep track. Then we read somewhere that by 2 years kids are supposed to say 50 words so I decided to make a list of what he says. It's over 150 words but a good number of them are hard to understand (I'm just around him all day and know what he's talking about). airplane, all done, apple, avocado, baby, bacon, bag, ball, banana, bath, beans, bib, bike, bird, blanket, block, blueberries, boat, book, bowl, box, bread, broccoli, broom, bubble, bus, button, car, carrot, cat, ceiling, Cheerios, chicken, cinnamon, clock, closet, cloud, coffee, cookie, covers, crab, cup, Daisy, diaper, dog, door, down, drum, dry, duck, eggs, eye, fan, faucet, finger, fish, floor, flower, fork, frog, giraffe, glasses, grapes, grass, green, guitar, hair, hand, hat, head, hearts, helicopter, honey, hose, hot, house, Jake, juice, jump, kayak, key, kiss, kite, knee, knife, lion, mail, mess, Mickey, milk, Mimi, mirror, moon, more, mouse, mouth, no, nose, octopus, oh no, olive oil, oven, oven mitt, Papa, peaches, phone, pillow, plant, plate, pool, pot, potty, puffs, puzzle, rain, rake, salt, seat, shirt, shoes, Sink, sizzle, slide, sneeze, sock, soft, squash, star, strawberry, Sun, teddy, thunder, toe, tooth, towel, tractor, trash can, tray, tree, truck, Turkey, turtle, uh oh, umbrella, up, vacuum, wall, water, yes, yucky, zebra, zucchini
has a few favorite songs that catch his attention; Carrie Underwood - See You Again, Randy Hauser - Running Out of Moonlight, and Zac Brown Band - Jump Right In. He loves them and he'll either sing along, clap along, or dance along.

Pics:

Snuggling with Daddy.

My friend's little girl had her 3rd birthday party at a gymnastics place and Blake had a great time after the first 10 minutes or so. He always has to sit back and observe everything before he can jump in and participate.

The trampoline was exciting for him since he's learning to jump and this was a totally different experience than just jumping on the floor.

He even got to meet Mickey and Minnie... and was scared of how big they are in person. ;)

After watching the other kids eat pizza and ice cream, he was back to the trampoline.

And he gained enough courage to run up and tag Minnie while she had her back turned.

Playing out on the patio on one of the rare evenings where it didn't rain and get everything totally soaked.

Signing "more" because he wants me to push him around more.

Playing over at his friend Logan's house. He loves the house (mainly going in and out of the door).

And we need to get one of these too.

I couldn't figure out which one I liked best so I had to post both. How cute is this boy?! (I know I'm biased but still - his smiles brighten my life.)

This apparently was the best picture I got of his swollen lips and bruise.

In the play house at Sweet Peas Cafe during a playdate.

We got out a bunch of boxes so he could practice stacking them and all he wanted to do was knock them over and try and see what would fit inside them. I thought about wrapping the boxes in fun patterns but I figured he'd just unwrap them and do this anyway.

"Seat! Seat!"

We finally have some shade on the patio, woohoo!

I set up the water table and pool so he'd have something to keep him busy while I swept the patio... and all he wanted to do was play with the broom.

Yet another container to put things in. The legos fit perfectly in the egg crate.

Look at me Mommy, I'm going through the gate. This feels wrong, but it feels so right.

He just loves playing in his bedroom and has become super snuggly with his teddy bear. He'll grab both ears and just collapse onto him on the floor. In the foreground is the quilt I made him before he was born. I still think it's so ironic how perfectly the colors go with his jungle room theme.

Look who's going for a ride on the train.

Blake's lips get so chapped from all the recent drooling so we keep Vaseline/Aquaphor on them throughout the day. Since the Vaseline sits on his night table, he takes it down and requests that it be put on him.

And here is a pic at my friend Ashleigh's baby shower for her identical twin baby girls. It's very rare to get us all together now since Kara lives in Texas (we miss you!).

{Monica, Kara, Ash, and me}