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Boy did we learn a big lesson tonight, and that is that Mikey not only completely understands what a time out is but he also is willing to use it on one of us. The scene of events went like this. I was making dinner in the kitchen and Mikey was playing in the living room with daddy and for some reason daddy decided to play bite Mikey. Mikey kept yelling No Daddy No Daddy and Gary was laughing at him trying to entice him to come close to him. Picture Mikey in a corner afraid to get out of it because he might get bitten. Well I come out from the kitchen to see what all of the commotion was about and tell Mikey to tell daddy to not bite him and that daddy should go to time out for doing that. What came next surprised the both of us. Mikey went up to Gary, grabbed his hand, and walked him to the corner that we use for time outs. He then told Gary to sit down and walked away from him. At the end of the time out Mikey went back up to him for a hug like he has to give us at the end of his time outs. Amazing that at 2 years old he already understands what and how to use a time out.

Sooooooooo a few weeks ago Mikey got into an accident at daycare. He was riding a tricycle around the playground and another kid bumped into him. He hit his mouth on the bar of the trike and had a bad cut and bruise on his lower lip. It looked ugly but he healed and was fine.

Fast forward to a few days ago when Gary noticed one of Mikey’s top front teeth that looked discolored. I looked at it and couldn’t really tell. Well when I was at the pediatrician’s office on Monday to get his flu shots I had him on my lap and I start tickling him and he leaned back and was laughing so I got a good look into his mouth again and noticed that the back side of that tooth looked like it was bruised in a way. I googled “toddler bruise tooth” which was the wrong thing to do because I see baby root canal and damage to adult tooth and blah blah blah. So I stopped and said I’d take him to the dentist to find out for sure. I made an appointment for him with a GREAT pediatric dentist! I wanted a pediatric dentist because they’d make Mikey more comfortable since all they do is deal with kids all day long, and what a GREAT decision that was!!

I took him this morning and they were very nice to him. He was scared and cried while they gently cleaned his teeth, by the end he was whining and looking around, clearly not scared. They did an x-ray of his teeth to check out the root of the tooth in question and his adult teeth as well to make sure that it didn’t get damaged. He got fluoride paste put on his teeth too, and I was told to keep him on the fluoride free toothpaste until he’s 3.

The doc came in and looked over his teeth and looked at the x-ray and said that thankfully there was no nerve damage and his permanent teeth look good. She even showed me his adult teeth on the x-ray. *Sniff* My little man has adult teeth growing.

His tooth could possibly get darker, or if a capillary grows back it could start to lighten up again if it gets enough oxygen, but it isn’t a big deal and he’ll be fine just as long as he doesn’t get an infection or abscess which I need to look out for when I brush his teeth.

So overall a GREAT 1st visit. Now begins a lifetime of dentist visits every 6 months for my big kid.

I was going to wait to get Mikey’s first real dentist visit until he was 3 because everything I read said to wait until then, but change of plans. A few weeks ago Mikey got into an accident at school where he was bumped when he was on a trike. He hurt his lip pretty bad, but it never occurred to me that he could have had damage to his teeth. Well the other day Gary pointed out that one of Mikey’s top teeth looked discolored. I looked at it but didn’t really notice it until when I had him on my lap and made him laugh my tickeling him and was able to see his teeth better and the backside of the tooth definitely looks discolored. Almost like the tooth is bruised. I did what I normally do and that is pull up google and see what I could find. Let’s just say you really should stay away from self-diagnosing because you never pull up good news. I saw baby root canal and decided I’m not going to look it up anymore. I’ll take him to a dentist and let them tell me what is wrong and if there is anything to worry about. So his first appointment is tomorrow morning with a pediatric dentist. I’m hoping he’ll do well with having a stranger look into his mouth. *crossing fingers* I tell you its always something!

After our last Disney trip where Mikey slept in his own bed with bedrails we realized that maybe just maybe he was ready for the big boy bed at home. We had ordered bed rails for our crib but once I opened the box I realized I did indeed order bed rails but its to make it a full size bed, not a toddler bed. So I had to go back to Babies R Us and order the toddler conversion kit which all that is is a small bed rail for the front of the crib. Well that piece arrived last Thursday and I went to pick it up during my lunch break on Friday. Brought it home and installed it super quickly. It was THAT easy!

I was so excited to get Mikey home that afternoon so that he could see his new bed. He was SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited when he saw it. He immediately climbed into bed and hung out in bed for a good 10 minutes. Of course as soon as I go to get my camera to snap a pic he gets up. Go figure! The true test was bed time that night, I was totally prepared for a battle. That’s mainly why I insisted on starting the transition on a Friday because at least I’d have the entire weekend to work with him. Well he completely surprised me, he climbed into bed and laid down with no issues. He stayed asleep the entire night too.

The next morning I heard him stirring in bed over the monitor, yes I still use the monitor! I then heard a loud noise and thought for sure he got out of his room. So I got up to see where he was. He was still in his room and still in bed. He had NO desire to get out of bed either and the only way I could coax him out was with telling him I’d get him some milk.

The rest of the weekend went fabulously too. I hope none of this is a fluke and that he was truly ready to be transitioned to the toddler bed. I’m so proud of my big boy.

Our not so little newborn is now a full fledged toddler! With the full on terrible two’s to go along with it too.

We had a very low key birthday for Mikey this year because daddy was still not feeling so well from his last round of chemo. We ended up celebrating a week late at Disney and had a GREAT time there.

Yesterday I took Mikey to the pediatrician for his 2 year appointment. Well my not so little guy is weighing in at 30lbs and is 34in tall. He was weighed AND measured on a normal scale not the way a baby gets weighed and measured *sniff*

He had bloodwork to check his hemoglobin and lead levels. He didn’t cry at the prick at all! Doc didn’t think there was a need to check cholesterol yet since at his age they’d recommend dietary changed anyways. The doc also usually recommends against the flu shot but said that even this year he got one for the first time since it’ll hit more young people than before. I went ahead and got Mikey vaccinated since they has the preservative free vaccine and since I got vaccinated because of his daddy’s compromised immune system.

I also asked about milk and he wanted us to stay on whole milk until he is 3 because it’s good for brain development. Even though he said his weight is high for his height he wasn’t worried enough to switch him to a lower fat milk. I’m in no rush to make the switch.

After our trip this past weekend we decided that we will be converting Mikey’s crib to a toddler bed this weekend since instead of sleeping in his peapod at the hotel we had him sleep in the bed next to us with bed rails. He did fantastic in such a large bed so he should do pretty good in a smaller bed. Guess we’ll see.

Mikey has been talking A LOT lately. But nothing can ever top him saying mommy and daddy. Everytime he says it my heart just melts. Ok maybe when he says I love You I’ll change my opinion

He’s been in a total daddy kick lately too so there are times when he’ll go ‘Hi Daddy’ over and over to Gary. And everytime I give him his nightly vitamin after dinner he always turns and asks daddy if he wants it.

I love this kid!

I know its bad blogging etiquette to try to really catch readers up on what’s been going on or going “Oops I haven’t posted in awhile”. Who cares right? Well I do. I started this blog to document the life of our little Mikey. Things have gotten really crazy in the last few months with his daddy beginning chemotherapy and us having to travel back and forth between Florida and Maryland every 2 weeks. But it doesn’t mean that Mikey isn’t important enough to update on.

So I did find an AWESOME daycare for him. I couldn’t be happier with him there now. Compared to his old daycare this is soooooooooo much better. He does art activities just about every day. It’s so much fun picking him up and bringing home real art projects, not just some drawings that he did every once in awhile. What’s most important is that Mikey loves his new daycare. Some days he doesn’t care to come home, if that’s not a sign of him being at the right place then I don’t know what is.

His vocab is blossoming too. Every couple of days you’ll spot a new word come out. He’s not into phrases yet. He does have conversations but its all babbling right now. But what is important is he is able to communicate. His newest and my most hated word is Mine. Everything is Mine. He wants my knife, my soda, my fork, my everything, because its his. Ummmmm sorry buddy its not yours! Until you get a job EVERYTHING in this house is MINE.

Despite being in horrible pain because of his 2yr molars coming in, Mikey still managed to do some cute stuff this afternoon. While at home he went over to his little activity table and started playing with that. Turned to his daddy and yelled “YAY!” while clapping. I actually recognized that from something I saw at daycare last week. I went to pick Mikey up in the afternoon, I usually pick him up during snack time. They have all of the kids in groups and their teacher feeds them their snacks. Well one group was waiting on their snack and once they saw their teacher come close with the food they all started clapping and saying “YAY!”. I cracked up because it was so freaking cute. So that’s apparently where he picked that up. I guess they do this for other things. I caught that on video and will upload that soon to share.

The other day I learned that he can identify Mickey Mouse. Granted it doesn’t come out as Mickey Mouse and sounds more like Moe Mow but tonight I heard Mick Mow. So he’s getting close. While in his bath (he has an elmo bath mat) I asked him to show me where Elmo’s ball is, where the fish was, and of course where Elmo was. And he totally surprised me and said Melmo. Now if he would just remove that first M he’d have said Elmo. But he’s close. I totally didn’t expect him to say Elmo, but he did. It’s just absolutely amazing to see him blossom right before my eyes.

I’m totally loving all of the new words that pop out of Mikey’s mouth these days. He’s getting better saying Apple. He even knows that applesauce is made from Apples. He now says teeth and will even point to his teeth. He’s starting to just really get it. So someday soon I will have my own little parrot repeating everything we say. Guess I better get all of those bad words out of my vocabulary and FAST.

I’ve heard a lot about how lots of boys explode with their speed around 20 months. For us it appears to have FINALLY happened but at 19 months. NOTHING is better than being able to understand your child. Really helps with some of the temper tantrums because I know what he’s trying to say. But of course there is still a LOT that I don’t know. This week he added his ever expanding vocab list. He now says Appp..L for apple, Tree, Hop, and Up. All in one week. My favorite word still is Nana though. The way he says it is SOOOOOOO cute. Last night he found one of his board books that he knows has pictures of bananas in it so he went found the book and immediately started saying Nana and looked for the page with the bananas. I hit Gary’s leg because I couldn’t believe that he remembered exactly which book he had to go to. It’s amazing how their little minds work.

Oh and we are heading back to the Happiest Place on Earth tomorrow.

Can’t wait to see Mikey with the characters and just have fun. Even if the weather is crappy we are gonna have a blast!