The Big Boy

Bear Cub saying, "Cheese!" at our local Snow Day.

He likes to look at any "toy magazines" as he calls them, while we read the paper at the table. He looks like a little man when he does this...I swear he can secretly read! He furrows his brow, turns the paper pages just like we do, and completely studies each page. He is serious!

Getting ready to begin...he even wore his art smock for me this time! This is the "before" picture for sure...he's still clean and paint-free! :)

After doing some Christmas paintings, he decided it would be fun to paint Thomas. He is still talking about how he made Thomas turn brown. He loved it!

We did some handprints, so now he knows how to paint his own hand. Won't his future teachers love me for that one?? Ha, ha! :) And I haven't even broken out the glitter yet for our art projects...look out then!

An artist hard at work...One of his beautiful finished pieces! :)

Well, it's happened...our "baby" is turning into a big boy right before our eyes! Bear Cub will be two and a half on January 9. It is amazing to look back on pictures from last Christmas and see how small and baby-like he still was. He changes daily...it's amazing.

So, here are some of the "big boy" things that Bear Cub likes to do these days:

• The latest: Drinking out of a cup - no lid!! He's been pretty good about holding a cup with two hands and taking careful drinks. Even at night, with his sippy cup of milk, we've found that he is much more interested when the lid is off. We're proud of him and he's proud of himself! After a sip sometimes, he'll say things like, "Dramma and Drampa be SO proud!" or "Want Mimi see drink out of cup." It is very cute.
• Napping on the "big boy" twin bed in his room. I still have to rock him (not a bad thing...this Mama likes to snuggle with her usually squirmy boy!) and once he's asleep I can lay him down on the bed and he'll sleep there just fine. We still haven't made the big nighttime switch. He hasn't shown any interest in that yet and that is A-OK with us. But the napping on the bed is a great start!
• Helping - this boy loves it! Granted, a lot of times what he does isn't very helpful, but we praise him big time and he continues to want to help! He loves to help put dishes in the dishwasher, "mop," and put things in the shopping cart at the store. I love it because during all of this helpfulness, he always says happily (and proudly), "Helping Mommy!" or "Helping Daddy!"
• "Do dat by myself (or yourself - depending if he gets mixed up with the pronoun stuff)!" This is something we hear a lot of lately. He wants to try to buckle himself in, pull up his pants (sometimes), or help put his shoes on. He's gaining independence and is desperate to give everything a try on his own. And as long as we've got the time, we let him go for it!
  
• No more tears in the playroom at the gym! This has been easy now for a long time, but I still am so happy when I pick him up and he's busily playing with the cars and trucks. Today he saw me through the window and I did a little peek-a-boo game with him before I opened the door. It made me feel SO good when he was pointing and smiling, saying, "Der's Mommy! Mommy!!" No tears, no look of anxiety...just happiness to see his Mama and tell me about what he'd been playing with. It made me begin to think of how fun it will be to pick him up from preschool next year -- hopefully all full of excitement and ready to share ALL the details of his day with me. I love this boy...can you tell?!?!?

Enjoy the pictures from our nice, relaxing weekend at home. We did some fun Christmas painting (he's quite an artist) and went to our local "Snow Day" festival in town. Have a great week! We've got a busy one -- tomorrow is a visit with Santa at our library and on Thursday is our Christmas book exchange party with Bear Cub's favorite little group of friends at the park. Should be fun! Oh yes! And Christmas cookies...we'll start those this afternoon!

I hope my helper is ready!! :)