Porter is TWO!!

Well, well, well, our 'baby' boy is two (freaking) years old. This fact makes me feel all of the emotions...

-immense pride because I get to be Porter's mom,
-sheer happiness that he is in our lives and so magical,
-contentment with our family unit, Porter as the caboose,
-excitement for what's to come,
-panic that it's all going too fast and I'm not enjoying it enough/remembering enough,
-sadness because how are we never going to have another baby? Another Porter-baby, for that matter?

The last, second birthday has me on a bit of a rollercoaster. But the bottom line is that Porter is two and he is hilarious, and smart, and seriously the best. I'm certain I'll fall short with describing P-man today, but with two full years of monthly posts about our baby, today marks the final one for Porter.

Things you'll hear Porter say frequently:
-I do it. (all.the.time. when I offer to help him down the stairs, sit on a chair, or anything else that a two year old might need assistance with).
-Me, too (if anyone mentions going outside, getting ice cream, etc)
-I afraid. Monsters. Big. Scary. (kind of into a scaredy cat phase).
-NO, CECE!!!!!!!!! (enough said.)

He can name almost any Thomas and Friends train upon asking, even the obscure ones that I barely know. If you look really closely at the trains' faces, you'll see each one is a little bit different with eye shape, noses, mouth, etc. So even in a coloring book, when the engines aren't yet colored, he can somehow tell us which train is which. This is fascinating to me. And it reminds me a lot of Truman at this age. Porter will play with the many train tracks set up in our house, and usually gets into the train zone without any interaction from us for at least twenty minutes at a time. This is huge! I notice that he is pretend playing with the trains now, having each engine talk and say things to each other like 'no! help! stop!. He also likes to lay his ear down on the floor and watch the train wheels move across the tracks---again, something that Truman used to love, too.

Porter also loves construction sites, diggers, and basically any big machine. He often requests to see a  'Bop-cab' which means 'Bobcat', ever since he saw one of the smallish bulldozer things drive past our house. Porter is 100% boy, loving to splash in puddles, dig in the dirt/sand, and hunts for ants/bugs whenever we are outside.

He's a consistent and mostly excellent sleeper: napping for about three hours daily, sleeping for nearly twelve hours at night. Sometimes Porter will wake up around 5am and seems ready to rip for the day but usually I can persuade him to fall back asleep until around 6:30. He also pitches a fit most nights when it's time to go in the crib for bed, mostly because he wants to read a dozen books every evening. P sleeps with his beloved duckie lovey, three Aden and Anais blankets, multiple stuffed animals, a handful of books, two water cups, and at least six trains. He has yet to climb out of his crib and seems pretty comfy in there so I'm not in a rush to get him into a big boy bed just yet. I think his claim to fame for this year must be the fact that Porter stayed awake until 11 pm on the Fourth of July, because he watched his first fireworks. He was in love with them, was not afraid, and clapped at the end after shouting colors at each firework. He napped his usual three hours that day and then somehow lasted until 11pm. CRAZY. He also did not sleep in the next morning, but whatever.

We have another picky eater on our hands, I'm afraid. Porter loves yogurt, mayonnaise on bread, crackers/chips/pretzels, pizza, scrambled eggs, apples, sometimes chicken nuggets, and croutons. That's seriously about it right now! Somehow he is still growing, and I guess we'll find out specific stats in a few more weeks when he has his two year well child check. I'm guessing he is 50% for weight (probably 26#) and 60% for height, but he comfortably wears 2T tops and 24 month bottoms. He absolutely thinned out in the past year and seems to be all little boy and less baby with each passing day. (Dagger in this mama heart!).

Things Porter really hates:
-diaper changes
-getting out of the bathtub
-letting us brush his teeth
-bedtime (most nights)
-riding in a stroller
-having a nap cut short by scheduled activities for siblings
-being told 'no'.

He can name some colors, counts to about five before making up subsequent numbers, definitely cannot recognize letters, but really seems to understand the world around him. This guy might be our class clown of the group and has an amazing 'fake laugh' that always gets T and C to giggle.

On Saturday, July 9th, we threw Porter a (giant) birthday party. We just kept adding more and more of our neighbors to the guest list, figuring that a two year old doesn't actually care about a party 'for him' but we could sure enjoy an outdoor BBQ with our friends anyway. And so we had 54 people come to our party, which caused only a slight amount of stress for me leading up to the big day. We originally wanted to cater out the entire thing, but we ended up only outsourcing the meat for adults and did the rest ourselves (huge props to Tony and Lois, as always, for helping us tremendously!). We had Cajun Pork, BBQ shredded beef and also chicken for our catered meats, then hot dogs for the kids. We had buns, watermelon, a fruit salad, a pasta salad, Lois' famous Asian slaw salad, the best black bean quinoa salad, and baked beans with bags and bags of chips. We went through an absurd amount of beer and I also made Porter's cake this year, along with 48 cupcakes. Porter requested a Thomas cake and literally that was the only thing he mentioned when we talked about his upcoming party. 'My birthday! Thomas cake!!' I searched on Pinterest and found a few doable ideas, and then went to town on Friday night after baking the two circle cakes. It turned out pretty good and Porter was obsessed....with looking at it, at least. He only ate the frosting off his piece, figures.

I was worried about having organized games, since we had over thirty kids above the age of one. The dads took some of the older kids across the street to school for a wicked game of soccer. I pulled out our water balloons and when those 30 were used up in seconds, I let them run wild in the sprinkler. Turns out making it a water party was the best idea and EASY! I did tell the parents to bring suits and comfy clothes and I don't think the kids minded getting soaking wet.

Porter loved hearing everyone sing to him, I wish I had a video of his face. But he did blow out both birthday candles and clapped for himself---a highlight of the night for me. We waited to open his many presents until the next morning, which was a great choice. So much more relaxed and fun to let him take his time with each one, and then only two big kids wanted to 'help' instead of thirty at the party;) All in all it was a wildly successful party and so much fun. We are very lucky to have such fun and amazing friends in our neighborhood, bonus that most could walk home after drinking so much beer! A few pictures...

His birthday slideshow ended up being over nine minutes long, because I figured out how to add both stills and videos set to music. So yeah, it's long but worth it and as anticipated, it makes me teary to see this past year's Porter highlights flash before my eyes!


Porter is TWO! from Julia H. on Vimeo.

We just love this kid so, so much. Two years old. Wow.