Jackson is TWO!!!

Goodness gracious, every single birthday is going to be like this with Jackson!  Every year that passes, I am going to have a moment of sadness because he is my last baby, and I will always find myself thinking, this is the last time I am going to celebrate one of my kids turning two. Taking pictures and cherishing these silly moments-like climbing on stuff, trying to open doors,and playing with bath bubbles-seems so much more important now than ever.  

Okay, so moving past the birthday insights!  Jackson is officially TWO as of today!  He is such a wonderful, great kid, we love him to the moon and back.  Jackson is all over the place.  He does not stay still.  He won't ever watch more than a few minutes of any show/movie-he has to be moving himself.  He has to have constant parent supervision because he will get into trouble if not.  He is a smart little guy, and does whatever he needs to in order to get what he wants, whether it be something to eat, something that makes him like his brothers, or something that gets him out of his bed.  It can be frustrating....but more often than not, it is impressive-his independence and his problem-solving skills are developing nicely!  

So here's a few milestones before a serious stream of pictures:

1. Jackson STILL only eats a handful of foods.  I am pushing him to eat other things, but it is still a struggle.  He gets it-you can see the wheels turning in his head that he knows I mean business, but it is still a process.  Right now, he eats applesauce, yoghurt, bread, bananas, grapes, string cheese...and that's pretty much it, other than most cracker-type foods and some cereal type foods.  He will eat muffins of any kind too, but I think that's only because he is a fan of cupcakes ;)  He loves dum-dum suckers.
2. Jackson hit a setback in his bedtime routine/sleep schedule maybe 3 months ago.  He would wake up in the middle of the night and just scream as loud as he could, and we'd have to take him out to the TV room, and "reset"for maybe 45 minutes before putting him back to bed.  He decided to climb out of his bed shortly after this started, and that's when it got bad-and unsafe, honestly, with so much office stuff in that room. We took action and switched him to the girls room so he would be closer to us, and so we could give him a fairly empty space where he would be safe.  We gave him a twin bed, though we haven't transferred him to it yet.  I changed up his bedtime routine to be more consistent-a small amount of juice, songs, lavender lotion, bath, and the same animals/blankies.  It actually got a lot better pretty quickly.  If he got out of bed, we put him back and left his door cracked open with a gate up-he does surprisingly well with that.  Believe it or not--this is our first kid that has aggressively decided to climb out of his bed every single night. it is still a work in progress-he only sleeps through the night, with no wake ups, maybe 3 times a week, but I am glad we have a good strategy in place to help him go back to sleep quickly should he get up.  
3. Jackson likes to pee on the potty!  He pees in it before his bath almost every day.  It's a good start!
4. Jackson talks all the time.  he is in the stage where he repeats everything.  He is understandable in terms of what he is trying to convey most of the time.  He loves to play the tablet, especially a little program that has ABC flashcards, and it says the letter and the item-he loves to repeat it. He won't talk much around people he doesn't know, but he is a chatterbox at home-to the degree that I have to ask him to be quiet sometimes!
5. Jackson climbs absolutely everything.  He will move the bench, chairs, little kid seats, the ottaman, whatever it takes, to get what he wants. Lately, it has involved climbing up onto counters, which freaks me out.  He knows we used to keep suckers in a certain cupboard-he keeps getting into it even though I moved them long ago.  Oh, this boy is going to get injured someday, and it is going to make me so sad I wasn't more vigilant.  This is why it is essential to watch him every second.
6. Jackson loves to ride his bike.  He almost has his legs working to pedal. he loves to position himself at the top of our driveway "hill" and go flying down with his legs held up so the pedals and going on their own.  He likes to do that backwards too!
7. Jackson is a tough kid in so many ways.  That includes his feet.  he runs everywhere barefoot, and doesn't care.  He inherited that for me.
8. Jackson is a people-watcher.  he loves to see what others are doing, especially if those people have a baby.  
9. Jackson loves to sing!  When I put him to bed, he always requests Could I Hold the Baby, and sings many of the words with me-and if he doesn't know the words, he tries to match pitch, or form his mouth into the same vowel shapes that he sees/hears.  He loves I Believe in Jesus.  Too bad this kid isn't in primary, he could sing with us! He also loves Wheels on the Bus, but we don't do that at bedtime because it is too silly for him.  
10. Jackson loves his blankie-the same one Jared used as a baby.  He is also my only kid to develop a real, true-blue attachment to a lovey.  
11. Jackson is a momma's boy through and through.  If he sees me, he has to be with me.  I secretly love that, even though at times, it is frustrating.  The moment he wakes up, he figured out how to take the gate down (so glad he doesn't try this in the middle of the night...knock on wood) and climbs up into my bed with me.  Again-love that! 
12. Jackson LOVES Krazy Air!  he loves to jump on trampolines, and watching a kid this young jump so well is just stinkin' cute! He also loves balls with a passion.  he is great at throwing and catching, although he is in a phase right now where he just trying to hit the ball back to the thrower-he has been watching me and Karianna play volleyball too much!  he loves to swing and slide as well-he used to highly dislike both!
13. One thing he does that I do NOT like-he thinks it is fun to take off his diaper.  Not. A. Fan.

I could go on and on-Jackson is just a special little guy and we love him with all our hearts!  Happy birthday buddy!  

And here is a ridiculously long reel of pics-66 I think! 

 This bath water filled up really high-and he loved it!  Not super safe of course, but he sure loved playing in it while I sat on the floor playing candy crush ;)

 We went to McDonalds today to celebrate with ice cream.  jared's second job is keeping him busy at night, so we opted to do a sibling celebration-jackson clearly loved it, and climbing in any play area is right up his ally!

 And here are a bunch of shots I took of him as his official 2-year old shots.  My camera is at the end of its lifespan....but I still think these turned out okay!

This was his first reaction to me asking him to hold the foam 2!

 Obviously distracted by bugs and rocks.

 Love the joy on his face in this one!

 Later that day, we went to the park with the new ball we got Jackson.  He couldn't be bothered to look at the camera.

 Tracking the ball as it was flying over his head, lol!

Ah, we got to the end!  Hallelujah!