19 Months

Leif has officially gotten another tooth- Finally! He has had 4 little teeth for months and months with no changes and finally got number five. He had a really high fever most of the day Saturday and just wanted to lay on me while I rubbed his back and tummy. He was super mellow all day but laughed a few times at Asher being silly. We gave him fever reducer before bedtime and he slept pretty well. His temperature was up and down all day Sunday, but he has been fine since. We assume that this is related to the new tooth. Here he is with his fever:

Leif loves to mimic his older brother and seems to be progressing so fast since he has someone to follow like a shadow. If Asher is doing anything, Leif has to try it too. Anything from climbing on playground equipment that I think is way too advanced for him (and doing pretty well at it too) to insisting on having a cup with a straw for every beverage even though he almost always ends up with it all down his shirt because he forgets to sip out of the straw and instead tips the cup to try to get his drink out.
Lief has also decided that since we are urging Asher to use the toilet, he should do the same. We have a little potty in the kids' bathroom that Leif loves to sit on. If I dare try to put a clean diaper on him without first letting him use the potty he wiggles all over and says "potty" over and over (but the way it comes out is without the Ts, so it sounds like pah-ee). So I take him in the bathroom and let him sit on the little potty for a few minutes until he feels like he has accomplished something. He usually doesn't do anything while he is sitting there, but we have had a couple successful potty sittings. He is happy as a clam once he has sat there for a few minutes, loves to climb up on the stool to put his hands under the running water for a few seconds then happily runs back to the changing table to put his clean diaper on.
Leif is turning into a daddy's boy. I think I probably still hold claim to favorite parent, but Leif often asks for daddy and loves to do things to get his praise. When Austin is working at home, Leif insists on sitting on his lap and watching him work. Sometimes he bugs Austin by touching everything he can, but usually he just sits there and watches. He also delights is getting soda from the fridge and bringing it to Austin. I think Austin asked him to do this a few time, but now Leif seizes any opportunity he finds of the fridge being open to dive in there and get a soda out to run over to Dad. Sometimes Austin gets a little cluster of sodas sitting on the table next to him because Leif is so happy to bring them over throughout the day. Its kind of nice for Leif to be developing this stronger attachment to Dad since he often throws himself out of my arms to insist that Austin carry him.

Thirty Five Months

Alright folks, this is your penultimate monthly update of Asher since in a month he will be 3 years old and I said I was going to stop doing this at that age. I will still do intermittent updates, but not on the month mark and probably not quite as often. Obviously his rate of development is slowing down since he is getting older, but he is also coming up with a lot of funny new things.
Asher loves to ask me the same question over and over and over and over again. He is especially apt to flip his repeat switch if I give him an answer he doesn't want. For example, the other day he asked if a stuffed animal inch-worm was a snake. I told him, no, it looks like a snake, but its an inch-worm. He kept asking if it was a snake and I kept saying no. He just kept badgering me until I finally said "Yes, its a snake!" He comes up with a few questions a day to pester me with and won't stop until I give in and tell him the answer he wants to hear. He especially likes to ask me if I'm somewhere that I'm obviously not, like "Mom, are you at Denver? or the grocery store?" Sometimes he even does this with treats, asking me over and over if he can have something until I finally cave in and say yes. I try not to do this too often and find that they best way to make him stop asking is to get him interested in something else.
Something that started a few months ago and seems to be getting worse is that Asher will say he wants one thing, then have a fit and say he wants something else. Sometimes he tells me to do something that I know he doesn't want, then has a tantrum when I do it. He will tell me to leave his room without reading to him, then be very upset when I do. A few times Austin and I have been resolved to let him just cry about it and learn from the choice he made, but he carries on for such a long time and gets so upset that I always end up back in his room trying to explain choices and consequences on a very basic level to him- I doubt he understands much, but something has to be sinking in and he is happy that he gets to read books. He also does this with making simple choices throughout the day. He will watch me pour Cheerios for breakfast (his favorite cereal), then say he wants Kix, but as soon as the Cheerios are put away and his bowl is filled with Kix, cry and say he likes Cheerios. I try to not make a very big deal out of these little choices since its not that big of a deal to just change out the cereal, but sometimes it gets frustrating. These choice-flipping melt downs happen a few times throughout each day. Like I said, some of them are no big deal, but some of them are really annoying and I kind of feel like he is trying to manipulate us, but I'm sure he will soon figure out what he can get away with and grow out of this eventually.
Asher loves me to sing to him! Especially before naps and bedtime. I have sung him to sleep a few times when he was really upset because he was overly tired or because he had a nightmare, but lately it has become a part of our usual go-to-sleep routine. I enjoy spending the extra time with him, but it does make for a really long routine sometimes and I have almost entirely bound myself to being the parent that has to put him to sleep- he absolutely won't hear of Austin doing it except on very rare occasions. I sing church Primary songs to him at night since they are pretty slow and calming, but during the day he likes me to sing silly songs and repeat nursery rhymes to him. I have caught him a few times when no one else is around singing these songs to himself, to Leif, or to Jelly Cat. On one of those rare occasions earlier this week when Asher let Austin put him to bed, Austin got him to sing all the Primary songs with him. I went down right after and he sang them with me--I was really surprised at how many of the words he knows. His tune is really off and he is often either too fast or too slow in saying the words, but he knows almost all of them. Now he likes to help me put Leif to sleep at nap and bedtime by singing to him (this is of course after Asher has sat in on our reading time) and sometimes he likes to sing with me while I put him to sleep, but other times he just likes to lie in bed and listen.
Asher is getting so "big and tall and strong" (as he likes to put it) and is into all kinds of things. He is constantly talking-narrating everything that is going on, asking us questions, or telling us what to do.
Here are a few photos I remembered to get of him just after he put him pajamas on tonight. And also a picture that I got of the boys yesterday.

Father/Son Campout

Austin took the boys on a father/son campout this weekend. I though he was crazy to take a 2 year old and 1 year old, but he didn't want either of them to miss out on the fun, so he braved it. The boys really liked the tent, or as Asher calls it "the fort", and they liked cooking their food over a fire. The came back to me the next day very tired and smelling like campfire, but they had a good time. Here are a few of the photos that Austin took of them while also managing a campsite and trying to keep two silly boys semi-clean and alive.