Month 23

Dear Corbin,

You are 23 months old--just one more month until you turn two! It's hard to believe that two years have gone by so quickly.

It's been crazy cold here lately, and we're all pretty much ready for summer. Your Dad and I were talking about looking forward to being able to invite other families over, so you can have some play time with other kids. Grandma Lam was already getting flower catalogs in the mail, so we'll have some new flowers to plant in the raspberry patch. We'll get the croquette set out and watch you and the other children learn how to share, and then how to check for concussion. Useful life skills, that's what being around other kids teaches you. That, and how to dodge.

You are saying more and more words now. You know lots of colors, and can say most of them. You like to count up to five, because "five" is the number that you will say. You have even said two word phrases: big ball and big balloon. You are still totally obsessed with balloons, but now you've discovered hot air balloons, which you call, "ha bawoon." You've also added a new love: trains.

At the beginning of the month, we went down to Indiana to have Christmas with the Thornes and the Spencers. While we were in IN, we got to meet your new cousin, Raymond Thorne Spencer, who is a cute little baby. We took lots of your old clothes down for him, which I can see being a theme in the future. I hope he likes to wear lots of orange shirts, because I was looking through the shirts that I've been collecting for next fall (whenever I see one on sale) and there are about 4 orange shirts and an orange and brown sweater. I've been trying not to collect too much clothing for this coming summer, but it's just so easy to buy clothes for you right now: you don't have any opinions on it yet!

That trip is when your love of trains took over. You discovered the train table in Charlotte's play room, and you didn't leave it the rest of the day. We were happily opening gifts in the living room, and you did open two or three with me. But you had only come out to the living room to get me or Dad to come back and play trains with you. When we finally left for dinner, you cried and cried. So, after we got back home to MN, we got you one last Christmas present: your very own train set. Yesterday we had lunch with Heidi and Garry, and Garry showed you videos of steam trains on his iphone, and you loved it.

Speaking of videos, you've been getting more screen time lately, both as a viewer and as a star. Grandpa Lam has been taking videos of you and Grandma at your swimming lessons. He's learned how to zoom, now, so Grandma has been reminding him to zoom in on you and not on her. Dad put the videos from our CA trip onto a DVD, so it'll be interesting to see what we can do with other videos. You still love watching Pooh tapes with Grandpa Lam. You watched the first 25 minutes of Black Beauty with me the other day. And then yesterday we found this video of a hot air balloon ride at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, which we watched about four times, I think. That music is still stuck in my head.

You're also starring in videos for a study on temper tantrums. We have a couple of video cameras in the living room right now, waiting for you to be in a cranky mood. The study is being done by a professor at the U of M, who is studying why children have tantrums. It kind of makes me laugh; I think it's pretty obvious why you get upset, when it happens. But that's okay--someone's got to be in the studies, and it might as well be us. The funny part was that you were in such a good mood the couple of days after they set up the cameras that we wondered just how long it would take to record three tantrums. But then you had two in two days, so I guess we'll make their six weeks deadline with no problem. You are, after all, my kid.

But for all that you're able to throw a first-class tantrum, you make us laugh all the time. Playing with you is tiring, often repetitive, sometimes stressful, and I absolutely love it. I'm so grateful that you're our kid.

Love,

Mom

Christmas with the Lams in Madison:



Christmas with Charlotte and Baby Ray:


Your new train set, which you obviously love:



Playing in your money, a la Scrooge McDuck:


Macaroni and cheese for lunch: