And poopy potty too! Nathan peed and pooped in the potty last night for the first time. Who’d have thought I’d get this excited about that?

For awhile we’d ask Nathan if he wanted to pee pee in the potty before bathtime, and sometimes he’d sit on the potty, but he never actually went. Eventually he lost interest and didn’t even want to sit down. Since we’re in no rush to potty train him, we decided not to push it and just leave the potty in the bathroom and let him decide when he wanted to use it. The last couple nights after bathtime he’s told us he needs to poop and wanted to sit on the potty. Last night as he was getting out of the bathtub Nathan told me that he needed to poop and I asked him if he wanted to sit on the potty. He sat down and we hung out in the bathroom for a good 10 minutes. We just hung out and chatted, and I’d occasionally ask him if he wanted to get up and he’d tell me no. I think during our conversation he told me he had peed and pooped, but I didn’t really believe him until he got up and I saw that he’d done both! Nathan seemed proud, but more than that he was very interested in the fact that it was brown. Boys.

I’m fully aware that this may not happen again for 6 months, but I think it’s a pretty big step in potty training none-the-less. Go Nathan!!

My Mom got remarried a couple weeks ago in a beautiful wedding in Ithaca, and Nathan got to be the ring bearer. We weren’t sure how he’d do because he didn’t want to sit still at the rehearsal, but he managed to have perfect timing and come back to me under the chuppah just when he needed to take the pillow to Mom and Bob. He got to wear a tux, which was completely adorable even though it was a size or two too big.

We got some nice family pictures after the ceremony. It was drizzling a little, but the setting was so nice it didn’t matter.

There was some other nice moments too.

Gary and Nathan picking flowers during the rehearsal dinner.

My Mom and I putting her veil on.

The Itkoff Family (It was so nice to see my aunts!)

Nathan loved watching the band playing at the reception; he kept wanting to see the “instruments”. And he had a blast dancing and stuffing his face with chocolate covered strawberries. He was completely exhausted by the end of the weekend, but thankfully that meant he took a pretty long nap on the way home!

Congratulations Grandma & Grandpa Bob!

*Credit goes to John Sullivan for the lovely pictures*

Nathan’s got a few new things up his sleeve lately. For a couple days we caught him saying Mom or Dad instead of Mommy or Daddy, but that seems to have stopped.

He’s often asking us “where that come from?” or “what that noise?” A lot of times he already knows the answer, but it’s cool to see the inquisitive side peeking out.

He asks us to “hold my hand” a lot when we’re taking walks, which is sweet. Some of our neighborhood doesn’t have sidewalks and he knows that when we’re walking in the street he has to hold our hands, so I think that’s where it came from.

Nathan’s doing more make believe or pretend play lately. He likes to put his little rubber ducky in the drivers seat of his dump truck and tell me “ducky drive” and he built a tower of MegaBloks, then stood the little MegaBlok man in front of it and told us it was the man’s backpack (watch Dora much? Ha.)

We’ve heard him singing Ba Ba Black Sheep and the ABC’s all the way through. He sings lots of other songs too, last night he was attempting “Take me out to the ballgame”, which he’d learned at school that day. He’s also getting the hang of “yours” rather than everything being “mine mine mine”. (Although he has started a very fun phase of “I need that” to just about anything and everything he sees.)

Nathan seems to be developing a little sense of humor too. We read The Runaway Bunny a lot before bed and there are a couple pages where the Little Bunny is kind of hiding so I always ask Nathan where the Little Bunny is. Lately he will point to all the wrong places, occasionally looking up at me with a mischievous grin, before finally pointing to the place where he very well knew the Little Bunny was all along. Goof.

Nathan loves bubbles (though what toddler doesn’t?).

He likes watching them, but really gets into blowing them himself and blows really hard, as you can see from these photos. Don’t you love his face!?

(These were taken at the brunch after my mom’s wedding. We had a gorgeous morning!)

We visited a farm/petting zoo a couple weeks ago and Nathan took his first ride on a horse. We tried to get him on one when we visited the farm last summer but he would have none of it then. This time he was interested and got right on no problem and seemed to like the ride.

The rest of the farm was fun too. Nathan still loved feeding the goats and sheep…he probably could have done that all day.

(Goats are kind of freaky looking up close)

He also had fun playing with a playhouse they had out to entertain kids waiting for the hayride.

I’m sure we’ll be back again this summer!

Don’t you just want to eat him up!? (Nathan that is.)

I haven’t taken one of those comparison photos since Nathan turned 1 but I figured he was due on his second birthday. Boy how he’s grown!! He left that baby stage waaaaay behind at some point in the last year, that’s for sure.

1 Year

2 Years

Well as usual, when it rains it pours with Nathan. He never does only one new thing at a time. Just in the last few days there were three that really impressed/got to me.

Last Friday during our weekly Shabbat dinner, Danielle and I were telling Nathan about how it was Shabbat and he spontaneously started singing Shabbat Shalom at the table. So looks like we have a new Friday night tradition in our house. Then on Saturday when we were on the way up to Pennsylvania for a Birthday Party, Nathan was entertaining himself in the backseat just idly chatting as he normally does when out of nowhere he sang the ABCs all the way through all by himself three times in a row.

Finally, this morning as he and Danielle were leaving the house, I told him, as I do every morning, that I love him and this time he looked up and said “I love you Daddy” in response. Which was the first time he’s ever done that unprompted.

So, Nathans been jumping for awhile, but he recently started getting his feet really UP, and last week I noticed that he was jumping forward. Kind of cool to see that progression. He also likes to walk on his tip toes sometimes while saying “tip toes. tip toes”, and he’s getting a little better at catching a ball…though you do have to stand pretty close to him and remind him to put his arms out.

I’ve also caught him singing to himself lately. In the car he’ll spontaneously break out into a verse of Wheels on the Bus, or just sing “all through the TOWN”, and one day I got to hear him sing Twinkle Twinkle all the way through. As soon as I hear him start singing I shut right up because if I talk or sing with him he’ll often stop.

Ok, so this is a little late, but Mother’s Day weekend we took a family trip to the Aquarium in downtown Baltimore. We made the same trip last year but Nathan enjoyed it so much more this time around, and we had a gorgeous day.

Nathan loved looking over the side of these walls that run all the way through the aquarium. On the other side is a big open tank so you can look down at the rays, sharks and fish.

I just love his little head poking out here, trying to see over the side.

The best tanks were the ones that went ceiling to floor where there were big fish or turtles to watch (I think it was an amazon rainforest exhibit?)
This is not one of them, but he liked the tropical fish too…he heard some kids calling the fish Nemo and Dori, and then whenever we saw an orange clown fish or bright blue fish, he’d call them that too (I think Nemo is the only movie he’s watched to date, so he knew the characters.)

These are always one of my favorite animals to see.

Last we headed to the dolphin show. Nathan was intermittently amazed and fidgety…as were we, since the show is light on dolphin action and heavy on slideshows and environmental messages. But still fun of course!

The afternoon ended with lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. It started out well, but ended with Nathan throwing up into his bowl of mac&cheese, probably due to the huge amount of milk he sucked down in a really short amount of time. Luckily the mess wasn’t bad and he was fine afterward. I felt worse for the other diners than I did for him and us

More photos in the May 2009 album.