James is two

Why yes, I regularly just whip up cakes based on a PBS character. I'm all smiles, but it was a stressful few hours of butter-creaming and snapping at my children to "give me some space!" But they are forgiving and were so excited to see the finished product.

I daydreamed about what cake to make for a while. Basketball, like his first birthday, and one of his first loves? Or some sort of truck on top, because he excitedly points out any and every "BIG truck!"

But it was fun to see him point to it and say "Tiger! Tiger!" when he saw Daniel Tiger up at Nona and Papa's house.

 

Then we moved him over by his twin cousin Phin so they could both be sung to and blow out their candles.

And then he started licking or kissing or giving a hugga mugga to Daniel Tiger. I report, you decide.

 

Which prompted Andrew to try it, too.

His birthday present was a light saber ("Saber! SABER!"). He and his brothers basically turn everything else into a sword or light saber anyway.

His is red (because he's been dubbed Darth Baby by his brothers), and JB got two more blue ones on sale the same time at Kohls. Buuuut, three light sabers and four boys makes for jealous math.

 

At his checkup today, he was 37 inches tall (97 percentile) and 28 pounds, 5 ounces (55 percentile). He says dozens of words and forms 3+ word sentences. The doctor asked if he could tell different colors yet. Not quite, but he can name every different kind of ball, and hear a truck or chopper or plane before the rest of us.  He loves stories and asks for the same books at night, despite baskets-full between his bed and Andrew's bed.

The handout she gave us talks about when to know when 2-year-olds are ready for potty training. Maniacal laugh. Though last night he did try to imitate his brothers by standing at the toilet and looking down expectantly.

Jamesy is energetic, stubborn, sweet, cute, funny, floppy, screechy, snuggly, smart, loud, curious and everything a two-year-old should be.