2-Wheeling With Clark

Clark has been riding around on a balance bike (a $5 bike from Craigslist I took pedals off of) for a few months with seemingly good balance. A few days ago I convinced him to try cruising down the driveway and he agreed. We started small, then he quickly built his confidence and was going down the full driveway as well as the neighbors'. After seeing that, Steve was pretty sure he could ride his pedal bike without training wheels and took them off right away. And he was right! Clark picked it up right away after a push from Daddy. I was very impressed, but not surprised. He's a determined little guy. In the past couple of days he's been practicing getting started with the pedals and has it down! He still prefers to ride the balance bike for now, though.

I'm going to miss the loud scraping sounds of those training wheels since it means my furiously-pedaling boy is still a bit smaller somehow. But I'm excited to watch him learn something new and reach another milestone. (I only wish potty training had been so easy!) My favorite part of watching him learn was when he would start his balance bike higher up on the driveway than the last cruise and would say out loud, "You can do this, Clark." Then he'd hop on and away he'd ride. It was totally precious. He's only gotten a tiny bit of road rash so far when he tipped over on his balance bike and the buckle on his helmet scraped his neck. His confidence wasn't shaken, though, and most afternoons we're outside riding away!

2-Year Photo of Lana

Since I took an official 1-year photo of Lana when she was one I figured I'd better take an official 2-year photo. I stumbled across a giant '2' on clearance at TJ Maxx so with the perfect prop there was no way around it. 

I provided a summary about her when I posted her 2nd birthday party, but since then she's become quite a chatterbox and talks nonstop all waking hours. She and Clark are the best of friends and they play very well together since Lana is happy to play cars and pirate cook or whatever game Clark comes up with. Lana has upgraded to calling Clark "Cark" from "La". Clark gets rather lonely when she is napping and constantly asks "Is Lana done with her nap yet?" As with most toddlers, she insists on doing things herself when possible. We transitioned her to a toddler bed this last month and she is doing incredibly well, meaning, she generally stays in bed when she's supposed to be there. Other things I love are the recaps she loves to give of events, especially that involve one of her crying episodes. She'll say "Lana cry waaaa waaaa." She's always particularly concerned about how everyone's day is going and will ask each person multiple times per day, "day good?" or "how's day go-gin'?". She will also say some words two times for effect, e.g. "wash, wash blankie" if it's dirty or "really, really cold" if something's cold or "so, so sad" if something's sad or "walk, walk bun" when she's walking around without a diaper.

First Set of Wheels

Lana learned how to ride a tricycle a few weeks ago with a little help from her Daddy.  Since then she has practiced and is getting "so, so fast" as she says. She likes to do it all by herself but gets frustrated easily. As she's getting better, she's getting frustrated less, thankfully. I sit and watch her ride from the driveway and she shouts to me, "yook, Mama!" Of course I'm "yooking" since it's hard not to watch such a cute sight! It's fun watching her get so big but if I could, I would keep her at age two forever.