Welcome to the third and final installment on my series about our family! I didn’t intend for each part to be so long, but I wanted to do justice to everyone’s personalities. If you haven’t read the previous installments yet, you can find Part One here and Part Two here.

Wyatt is two years old. He is generally happy and easy-going. For him, life is full of pleasant discoveries and exciting new adventures, full of the people he loves most in the world. The only reasons he has to be sad are when mommy leaves him (like at nursery or with a sitter), if he is sick or teething, if he wants to be with mommy and she is busy cooking lunch or dinner or doing some other less important household chore, or if he is tired or hungry.

Wyatt isn’t talking too much yet. A part of me is a little bit worried that his speech is behind that of the other kids his age. But I also know there are no red flags for other issues, like autism or hearing loss, and that his receptive language is great, so I try not to worry too much. (For those who don’t know, I was a speech-language assistant before Wyatt was born, the speechie in me doesn’t often come out anymore, except when it comes to my own kids’ development, and even then its not too often.) His words include the basics, like mommy and daddy, some animal noises, and things like ‘baf’ for bath, ‘bubboh’ for bubbles, ‘na’ for snack, ‘hah-oh’ for help, and of course ‘no’. Most of the time he just says ‘eehh’, which is Wyatt speack for “hey, bring your attention to this thing here !”

Wyatt’s favorite things to play with include Squigz, one of those iconic tupperware shape-puzzle balls, or anything he sees his big brother Porter playing with.  If he sees Porter doing something, chances are pretty good that he will try to imitate. Because Porter loves fighting bad guys, he is constantly making all the sound effects- you know, like “psssshhheeeeew”. So Wyatt does it too. Without even knowing what he’s doing he sticks his fist out straight in front of himself, just like Porter does, and makes the same sound, “ssssshhhheeeew”. It is absolutely hilarious, because he does it at the most random moments. Remember the Nerf guns we got for Porter? Wyatt loves them because he sees Porter love them. His favorite way to play with them is to take all the darts out, and then put all the darts back in again. Wyatt likes to be with his people, and doing whatever his people are doing.
One of Wyatt’s most favorite things is to do bubbles. Its one of his few words. If we talk about it he gets all excited and goes to get his shoes on, and he knows just where we keep all the bubble things. He tries so hard to blow them himself, and his little puckered lips and tiny puffs of air are just too cute for me to handle. Sometimes he gets frustrated and just swings the bubble wands in the air. And everytime he manages to get a bubble on his own he gets so excited, gasps, and says “Ehh!” while pointing to it enthusiastically, making sure that you saw what he did.

Our current struggles with Wyatt are mostly the days when he is not his happy self. We just got out of about a 6 week period of cutting molars, where he would be whiny and clingy and unable to play by himself every single day. He becomes clingy and whiny anytime he is sick or tired, and I can handle it when its not days and weeks on end.  I think, I hope, we will get a little bit of a break for a while. Another struggle with Wyatt is his eating- he used to be such a great eater as a baby, but entering the toddler stage he became picky and unpredictable. Some days he eats great, other days he won’t eat the things that have been his favorites. One day he’ll eat only bread and crackers, the next day he’ll eat only fruit, and the next day he’ll eat it all including his vegetables and whatever protein we’re having. It can be so frustrating, and I often worry he’s not getting enough of the right kinds of foods.