Skip to main content

26 Months

Little Joe dressed up for Easter
Keeping with the common refrain from the last year, the last few months have been insane both for little Joe's development and our schedule with school and work, preventing me from writing here anywhere close to as often as I would like to.

Since my last update little Joe has had a ton of language development.  He can count to 10 on his own with little prompting, recognizes all the letters and numbers, many of the basic colors, and can construct basic sentences on his own to communicate with us.  Mornings typically have "Dada, yummy toast now" or "Hi Dada" with a hug, while car rides are "ooh, green trees" or "Dada, outside please".

He absolutely loves his time outside and cries at the mention of going inside even after many hours at parks.  I'm looking forward to the summer with longer hours, nicer weather, and chances to play with him outside more often.  I have a break in school coming up after next week, which can't come soon enough for us.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

German Kindergarten

Mom and the kids at the Alhambra, Granada, Spain Both kids have started German Kindergarten (Kindi) in the past few weeks.  We're still going through a compulsory transition period with Nora but Joe's been in full-time for a good while and he's loving it.  It's rare that he doesn't come home covered head-to-toe in sand and he still has a hard time leaving every day because he's having such a good time.  His German is improving quite rapidly and he's already saying things I don't understand, which couldn't make me happier.  I'm so happy for both of my kids that they get this privilege of growing up in another country and having two primary languages, which I hope will give them opportunities later in life that I can't even think of.  Even without new opportunities, though, I'm happy that they can grow up in another culture and have the perspective of the world you can only gain through travel that I sorely wish I'd had as a young k...

3 Years Old

Joe feeling Nora kick for the first time Today is Joe's 3rd birthday.  It seems like a lifetime ago that he was born and we met him for the first time, and in some ways I feel like it was the start of a whole new life for me.  I can't imagine a world where I come home and don't have a familiar 'Dada!' and a big hug waiting to greet me. Things with Joe have been wonderful lately, despite frequent temper tantrums in the evening that I think we can attribute to his changing sleep schedule.  He frequently plays on his own and often has entire conversations with his toys or other objects in the house that just crack us up.  Last night, for example, he was asking his asparagus, "What's wrong?" and petting it before eventually just popping it in his mouth and continuing on with dinner. Joe's vocabulary has expanded significantly in the last few months, and I feel like we're at the point where he pretty much understands everything we're say...

The Shannons

Out at lunch with my wonderful family As always, I feel I need to add a disclaimer here about how busy I've been and apologize to myself - and whoever ends up reading this - about not keeping up with this blog.  It was easier with just Joe because my time home meant mostly quiet during his frequent naps and plenty of time to gather thoughts to put down, where now I feel I can barely keep up with sleep and other basic functions of life. Hectic life aside, I couldn't be happier with where I am right now as father.  Joe is at a wonderful age where he always wants to help us and be affectionate with Nora and we have started playing sports together rather than just hanging around the house.  He's really started taking an interest in baseball and soccer, and whenever I have the chance I try to at least kick the ball around the house a bit if I can't take him outside.  I'm hoping that once things settle down we can really spend some time together and work on some soc...