Merrick is 2!

Merrick turned two last week, but because things were busy for the whole family, we postponed his party until March 1. Everything went well at his 2 year checkup. He now weighs 29 pounds and is 35 inches tall. While everything tells me Merrick is now two years old, I still marvel and struggle to grasp how quickly time passed, and how much our little baby has become a little boy. It might have something to do with the fact that by the time each of the girls was turning two, the next baby had already joined our family and life was a tad hectic. I also think that he has changed and matured a bit differently since he has two older siblings to model his behavior off of.

He and Kaylee have always had a special bond, and Karamea has always loved him, but lately, Merrick and Karamea have been playing together a bit more, and it is fun to see them interacting with each other.

Merrick is talking up a storm these days and starting to connect words into rudimentary sentences like "Daddy, tickle. Daddy, stop please." While we were watching the Olympics, we saw a brief shot of some hockey, and he commented "Bronco game" and I told him it was a sport called hockey. His reply was a very insistent: "Hockey, no mama, broncos," If someone leaves the room, Merrick shrugs his shoulders and holds his hands out to the side, and asks, "Daddy go?" He still calls Karamea "Sister" most of the time, but calls Kaylee by name. When he sees words written on a page in a book, or anywhere else, he says, "Words." and then he makes the sound "ta--ta--ta" like he's trying to sound it out. There are too many little stories to tell them all, but here is a selection of some of the words Merrick is using regularly these days: knuck [knuckle bump], Numbers, Cused [excused], two (usually in reference to seeing two items: books, pacifiers, toys, etc.), hiccup, roar, scared, uh-huh, ears, jacket off, salad, dark. The list goes on...and grows every day!

He likes to help however he can; most recently, he helped snap the ends off of the asparagus we had with dinner one night. Unfortunately, he didn't like the asparagus, but he has developed a love for spinach salad in the last week.

Merrick also likes putting things away and in their place: clothes in drawers, pacifiers up on his dresser, bowls, even spreading out the blanket on the floor where we change his diaper. Even though he likes things where they belong, he adapted really well to a big change this week: taking the side off of his crib. He was so proud to be able to climb in to his bed, and he fell out only once the first night, and hasn't fallen out again (to my knowledge). His favorite bed time stories these days are "Brown Bear" and "Baby born".

We let him play with the spray bottle for the first time last week, and had to get some pictures to document the moment, just like we did with Karamea and Kaylee...

He is truly a bundle of joy and a delight to be with. We all have so much fun together. We love you, Merrick and are excited to see the changes next year brings for you!