Poop happy!

23 months
Evan pooped in the toilet tonight!
Yes, it's true. He had a little accident on the floor, so I told Evan "someday you can do this in the big potty." Then as I was filling up his bath, he was looking at the big toilet with great curiosity and interest, so I picked him up and sat him down, and, yes, he produced something.
HAHAHAHA!
We are deliriously happy. I wasn't expecting interest in the toilet to start for another 6 months. He’s gifted. :) Of course, my bragging means he will be out of diapers no sooner than age 4.

Sleep training
We started working on teaching Evan to sleep alone about 3 nights ago. Jerry sits next to his toddler bed while Evan has a tantrum, basically, until he falls asleep. The first night, this took 2 hours; the second night, 1 hour; and tonight, only 15 minutes. I always suspected we would have to use this method to get him to sleep alone, but we didn't want to do it when he was a baby and didn’t understand. But now he understands, and we think he's ready. Hopefully our good luck will continue. It’s nice to have our bed back, even though he’s pretty sweet to cuddle with.

Tantrums
They are horrendous. He might have 10-15 tantrums per day. He never has tantrums at daycare, only for us. His pediatrician recommended we use distraction instead of saying “no” as often, and choose our battles wisely. We went to the zoo on Father’s Day, and he had three major tantrums: one when Jerry made him stop chasing the peacock, one when we wouldn’t let him climb into the elephant’s cage, and one when we made him sit in his stroller. Oh, and the monster one was on the way home in the car. He can scream for 15 minutes straight. When he's not having one, he is laid back, very affectionate, sweet and happy. I guess it's the redhead in him.

2-year checkup
He had his 2-year checkup, even though he’s not quite 2 yet. He’s a bit on the short side: he’s in the 35th percentile for height, and 40th percentile for weight. This is interesting since he was such chunky newborn. He still looks husky, though. He also just got over his first ear infection (we had to hide his medicine in smoothies—he is very crafty when it comes to avoiding anything icky), but he’s now healthy.

The rest of life still feels pretty hectic. We are not 100% settled here yet. We love it here, but feel busy and frazzled a lot.