Is there anything better in this world than getting to brag about your kids? To put it simply: No. No there is not. But bragging about your children is fraught with risk, especially when one of your children is a crazy toddler. A proud moment of bragging about how sweet/well behaved your little angel-dumpling is can devolve in an instant when you are slapped in the face with humble pie after said angel-dumpling hits his infant sister or starts to throw a screaming fit because you have declared that he has already watched enough Elmo for one day. So I try to save my bragging for the big stuff, and Roman has had some major "big stuff" in the last few weeks that absolutely requires some bragging.
Marc and I have really been working with Roman on the ABCs, colors, and counting, and all of our diligence is starting to pay off. Roman can say all of the letters of the alphabet if he is repeating the letters after us, and he knows the tune to the ABC song (oh, and apparently I nod my head to each of the letters when I sing the ABCs because now Roman does it as he tries to mimic me), which I think is pretty good, but lately he has really been upping his game. I would say that he can now identify more than half of the letters in the alphabet when he sees them. He definitely knows R, M, N, O, A, B, E, V, X, Z, Y, I, F, S, and C. And today he walked over to the table, on which I have written all of our names plus the dogs' names, and he pointed to "daddy" and very clearly said, "daddy." Marc and I were pretty impressed. He has also started to point out colors around him. Red and green are the easiest for him, and he will hold things up and say red or green, but if I ask him which colors the crayons are, he can identify blue and brown as well. Roman also really likes to count things. For a while he would just count things as "one" over and over again, but now he can count things up to three, and then he'll start over again at one. And I have no idea whether all 22-month-olds can do this or not, but I think it's pretty darn spectacular.
I think he will be talking-talking very soon. He has a pretty big vocabulary, but he still just says one word at a time. So, instead of saying, "I want water," or some variant thereof, he just says, "water." I am trying to make him repeat entire sentences, and I try to make him say "big boy words" instead of pointing or whining for things, and I think that is making a real difference. I am so proud of him, and I love watching his little brain working when he's trying to figure things out. The cutest thing so far is that when he does his puzzles we have to tell him to jiggle the pieces so that they will fall into place, and I have been telling him to "wiggle-jiggle it." But now when I say that he shakes his little butt along with the puzzle piece, and it is hilarious! He has also become super attached to his new fireman rain boots, and insists on wearing them all the time. With his shorts, with his pajamas, with whatever. He certainly know what he likes. Oh how I just adore that little boy!
Livia is also getting more vocal by the day. She has, hands-down, the best coo ever. She will make all of these funny noises as though she really is trying to have a detailed conversation with you. She would like to do nothing more than look at someone's face and talk to him/her. And it really is a lot of fun talking with her. We have some of our best conversations when she's on her changing table and we can get our faces really close to each other. And the other day she actually laughed! It was the happiest little giggle, even though it was pretty quick. Unfortunately, I have only been able to get her to laugh a couple more times, and I can never seem to get it on camera, but that is my new goal. Marc hasn't even really heard her laugh yet because she's being stubborn. The timing of Roman's and Livia's milestones are lining up very closely. I tried to be really good about marking down when Roman could do certain things, and Livia has met her rolling over (front to back) and laughing milestones within just a few days of his. I think that Liv is going to be an early teether like Roman as well; recently she has had to have her ba-ba (which is what Roman calls a pacifier) or her hands in her mouth, or she's not really happy, and she has been drooling even more than usual. We'll probably see her first tooth within a month.
This past week I went to visit our friends Jennie and Shawn because they just had a baby (welcome to the world little Sawyer!), and I was amazed to see how gigantic Livia looked next to her. They were nearly the same height and weight when they were born, but now Liv looks like a big ol' baby in comparison. Shawn asked how old Liv was, and when I told him that she was nearly three months now, he said something like he couldn't believe that Sawyer would go from newborn to where Livia is now in just three months. And it is crazy how fast it all happens. In the blink of an eye.