February 11, 2023
To my Rainbow Henry,
You are two years old! Any entire year has flown by in the blink of an eye and you have officially left the baby stage of your life. You are becoming a rambunctious, smart, funny, sweet toddler and we are just in love with watching you grow and learn and show off your personality. It is truly a delight to be your mama and I’m so grateful that God has blessed me with the honor of raising you, little boy!
Where to begin with all the things that have happened this year?! The last time I wrote you a letter, you were cruising all the furniture and mostly just babbling, and now you are running and chatting up a storm! In March, we went on a Spring Break trip with Gammaw, Pup Pup, Uncle John and Aunt Denise to North Carolina. You had taken some wobbly steps independently but you were by no means walking as your primary mode of getting around. By the time we headed home, you were confidently walking around the beach house! It was astonishing to see how fast you just became a walker! The same thing happened with talking- in August, we went on an end-of-the-summer vacation with Gram, Pops, Aunt Ashley, and some of their friends back to North Carolina. When we got down there you had about 50-75 words that you had said, many of them only once or twice. By the time we left, I stopped counting words because you had over 200! All of a sudden, you were just picking up every word you heard and it was sticking, especially when reading books. You have taken after your mama, and you haven’t stopped talking since!
Now you are running, climbing, and getting adventurous in your play. You go to the park with Mama or Gammaw, and now that it is winter, we’ve found an indoor play place to go to as well. You are a little nervous when it comes to climbing high up and sliding down a slide without someone there, but at home, you will climb on and off the furniture a billion times, and you’ve definitely already had your fair share of falls, head bumps, and split lips. You have a play set and a Nugget couch in your playroom, and you’ve recently started feeling more comfortable climbing up into the playset. We’ve watched your little brain calculate the safety of various moves and experiment with which ways to go, but you always look for a hand to hold to slide down the slide. You still slow down enough to want to snuggle, be carried, and hold hands when we’re going places-mostly at home- so I’m savoring that while I can because I know it won’t last.
Your big biweekly activity is swim lessons! We started them this summer when Mama was on break and we are going twice a week to Aquatots for you to learn safety skills for swimming. You love it and you are so good at it! You can go to the bottom of the pool to retrieve a ring with help from mom, you can independently turn towards the wall while underwater and roll over to your back, and you’re very close to being able to float on your back all by yourself. You also recently got brave and started jumping into the pool from standing, which has made lessons even more fun! Mama looks forward to that time swimming with you each week.
You are also chatting up a storm about all the things you love! Your big interests are dinosaurs and animals. You know tons of proper names for dinosaurs and can tell them apart in pictures and action figures- which you have tons of! You know lots of animals, too, and your daddy is even teaching the different kinds of ducks. You already can identify so many!! You still love to read- your favorites right now are The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Rainbow Fish, and Little Blue Truck, but we read lots of different things. You can recite your favorites from memory, even when we’re not looking at the book. You also are loving music- we started a class this summer while Mama was on break and you’ve continued that with Gammaw during the days. You know the words to so many of the songs you’ve learned in class, and you are doing more exploring with the instruments during class, too. You just got an instrument set for your birthday, so we’ll see how that shows up at home! Daddy is thrilled, haha!!
We had a Little Blue Truck birthday party for you, and you had a blast! You loved the life-sized Little Blue Truck Gammaw and Pup got you, and all the farm animal decorations inspired by the characters of the book you love. You played with Lydia and Sawyer, and had visits from Aunt Dee, Aunt Lois, Aunt Cindy, and cousins Donna Marie and Steve. You got presents from so many family and friends, even people who couldn’t be at your party, and we had such a wonderful day celebrating you and the little boy you’ve grown to be this last year!
This coming year is already set to be full of more milestones! You are going to become a big cousin next month when Uncle John and Aunt Denise welcome a new baby! We are so excited for our family to grow and to see you be a role model for your little cousin. We have two fun family vacations planned for the summer, to Virginia with Mama’s family and to Lake Ontario with Daddy’s family. We’re continuing to make our new house our own, and the next project is to finish decorating the playroom! It’s definitely functional, with toy bins, bookshelves, and a table for you to sit at when you color and play, but hopefully it will have a personality soon! Mama’s already looking forward to summer adventures going to the zoo and the swimming pool, and continuing swim lessons and music classes. By the end of the summer, you’ll be able to graduate to the next level, where you’ll go into class without Mama- which she is simultaneously looking forward to and dreading! We’re also going to work on potty training this summer because you are signed up to go to preschool in the fall!! How is that possible?! We are hoping that potty training will go well, because we think you will love school. You are already so smart, and we can’t wait to see everything you will learn and all the friends you will make once you start school.
It has been a beautiful, blessed year, my sweet boy. You are growing and learning and doing so many things. And most importantly, you are learning to love Jesus. You go to the nursery in church every week we’re there, where you hear stories and sing songs and do crafts that are teaching you about God. Gammaw and Mama say prayers with you throughout the day and read stories with you all about God, Jesus, and their amazing love for us. You know the words to some of these songs and stories on your own, and you say a few prayers by yourself too. It is amazing to see how much you are already growing in your faith at just two years old. This, I am most proud of, and I pray God helps me continue leading you in this way.
As we wrap up year two and head into year three, I pray God will continue blessing you with growth and knowledge and health. I pray that you will be funny and brave and curious. I pray that you will continue learning and exploring and adventuring. And I pray I will be the mother you need through it all. I am so grateful that God blessed your second year so abundantly and I pray He will do the same in your third. I pray He will help Mama and Daddy support you and teach you and love you so that you will continue to flourish and thrive. We cannot wait to see all that is to come in the next year!
Until then, I love you, little Rainbow Henry.
Love, Mommy
Comments
Post a Comment