Creed at Two

When Creed was born, we decided to take his picture every month with the same stuffed toy in the same big leather chair so you could see how much he grew over the year.  Now this is an annual tradition (although we just got around to taking his picture this year so this is technically Creed at two years and two months).

Larry is not usually around when there is enough light to take Creed's picture so we went for it today even though Creed has a gigantic mosquito bite on his forehead.  That chair is now in the darkest room in our basement so there wasn't a lot of light, but we tried anyway.

Creed has my heart.  We have turned into those doting parents who think their child is the most adorable kid in the whole world. He's just so sweet.  And he already tries so hard to get a laugh from you.
He copies everything he hears people say so we hear a lot of funny phrases like, "Rock and roll mommy!" His most common phrase is, "Oh, boy!"  He says it when something exciting happens, but he also says it when something funny happens and he slaps his forehead while he says it.
These days he want's to do everything "I-self!" and he's so smart.  He counts to twelve (usually forgetting seven), he knows the alphabet in capital letters, he knows shapes, and he knows colors (although we're fairly certain he is colorblind like my dad and can't tell red and green apart or purple and blue)
I am completely astounded at how much he's grown up since a year ago.  Can you believe a year ago he was such a little chunky baby?
At least he's still cuddly.  He loves to sit on our laps to read books and he loves to be rocked a little before bedtime.  His favorite books of the moment are Freight Train by Donald Crews, Not a Box by Antoinette Portis, Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham, and Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems.
He's obsessed with typical little boy things; trains, diggers, robots, bugs, the movie Cars.  He collects little Pixar cars.  Sally is his favorite and he keeps telling me that he really wants Luigi.  He doesn't like to play by himself which means hours of Larry and I on our tummies on the carpet driving cars and ages of driving one of his two trains around and around the same track, but it's worth it because it makes him so happy.

Even though he is only two, he is such a good little friend.  He loves to hold hands and make his friends giggle.  He really misses Jesse and tells me every day that Jesse went on an airplane to "A-York"  We're thinking about putting him in preschool this falls just so he can make some new friends (I was totally surprised that most of the preschools in my neighborhood start accepting kids at 2 1/2, but I guess that Creed's ready, and I think he would really love it)

How can he possibly be so grownup?  I still think of him looking this way.