Ryder’s Two

Our little boy is two.

We celebrated first in Croatia at a lake and then with a birthday party in Macedonia that Aunt Danche and Uncle Luke orchestrated.

He’s still just a baby really.

He’s much easier for me at two than he was at 18 months.

He parrots everything we say.

He sleeps through the night, most of the time, even though he’s often in a different bedroom each night (hooray!)

He is semi-potty-trained (basically he’ll go if we take him.)

He loves to pat his belly and dance.

He’s an extravert but selective who he lets do things—hold hands or push him on the swing for example.

He’s a daddy’s boy.

He asks for the ming (swing) pargie (park) milchy (milk), nandy (candy) and Duke (Uncle Luke) and Dana (his Aunt) Vassya (his Macedonian cousin) on a regular basis.

He now calls his grandparents Baba and Papa. He made that up on his own, and what’s interesting about that is Macedonians call their grandma Baba.

He can count to ten in English, Spanish, French, German, and Macedonian.

He no longer resists going to bed.

He gets a lot of attention from his scootering (tiku as he calls it) skills. We have a little daredevil on our hands already. He likes to go down ramps on it.

His preferred toys are: choo choos, vroom vrooms, and balls. Oh, and a singing turtle. For some reason he has grown out of the ipad, for which I am both relieved and disappointed. Relieved because I think other toys are probably preferable, disappointed because it was easy!

This Is probably related to the fact that he doesn’t like to sit still. At all, Restaurants can be a rocky experience, sometimes resorting to chasing him around the table. He is faster than me.

It just doesn’t seem right that he can and does say no in three languages (no, nein, neh) and not yes.

Ryder turned two and visited his 21st country the same month.

We are still head-over-heels for this kid.