Milestones

A couple of big milestones happened in December.  Cruz stopped nursing, and he turned 2!  I should clarify that we weaned Cruz rather than him self-weaning.  I'm not sure that would have ever happened :)

This all started because he got an ear infection after Thanksgiving and these tend to make him vomit if he's been drinking milk.  So we took away milk, and just never brought "the babies" (Cruz's name for it) back.  He cried HARD for 3 days and on the 4th day, he just sat with his head on my chest as if to say, "This is the best I'm going to get."

For me, it was difficult (physically) for 1 week, and then everything seemed to subside. 

Then Cruz turned 2!  He says "Happy Birthday" as "Happy Happy" and he identifies cupcakes with birthdays, because they've had them a few times in the toddler room during friends' birthdays.  I took store-bought blueberry muffins to daycare and made goodie bags of Goldfish crackers, fruit-snacks, and apple juice.  Novali enjoyed decorating the bags.

That night we had pizza and birthday cake and Cruz enjoyed opening presents with Grammie and Papa.  This back to back Christmas-Birthday thing means a lot of confusion!

And even though it's kind of a fluke, Cruz went pee pee on the potty.  We talk about me a lot more and occasionally he sits on the potty with a book.  One morning, he told me "pee pee" so I put him on the big potty with a book (while I was doing my hair).  And as he read, he went pee pee.  I was so impressed!  Nothing impressive has happened since, but I can see the diaper-free future ahead...

UPDATE:
Since I wrote this post a while ago and never published it, I wanted to add that Cruz goes pee pee on the potty all the time.  Once there was a placement issue, and pee got on the floor.  Now every time he sits on the potty, he talks about pee on the floor.  

This is how I throw I party

There were more presents once Grammie & Papa arrived

Blowing out the candles

Elmo wrapping paper!