Two and a half!

As of yesterday, Ian is officially 2.5 years old. A review of what's up at this age:

- Our best guess is that he is 38 inches tall and probably weighs 37-38 pounds (he hasn't been officially measured at the doctor since 2). He wears size 4T and size 10 shoes.

- His most recent "milestone" is being able to identify letters. Now he picks them out on signs, buildings, etc. constantly.

- He's gradually making progress potty training and currently seems held up by emotional readiness/willingness more than inability. He peed into the regular toilet standing up last weekend, which he was quite excited about. He seems to be able to stay dry for several hours in underpants, but often doesn't want to put them on instead of a diaper. At this point we're not pushing it.

- He can dress himself (though socks are tough). He usually does all his clothes and shoes at school, but leaves it to me at home (generally he'd be happy never to change his clothes at home).

- He likes to do many things for himself at home (except dressing!). He gets himself cups of water, gets yogurts out of the fridge and a spoon from the dishwasher (he knows to ask first if the dishwasher is clean or dirty :) ), and this morning I gave him a homemade popsicle and he went to the bathroom, ran it under water until the cover would slide off, and came out to let me know that he, "rinsed it, and rinsed it, and now it's all done!".

- His memory astounds us. He is very good at remembering people's names, and events stretching back for over a year. He appears to have numerous books completely memorized (he will recite the ends of the sentences when Doug is reading to him, but if I prompt him to do it he always says, "You say it, Mommy!"). He also remembers where there ever has been a digger working anywhere in downtown Durham and wants to know where it is now. He's knowledge of Durham geography and how to get from one place to another is sometimes better than ours (which isn't saying much, but pretty good for a two year old!).

- He's quite good at carrying a tune now and knows a lot of songs. He's recently started to be able to clap in time to music. He also does well with a kazoo.

- We're still not sure he knows his colors. Sometimes he points something out by color and is right, but there are enough times he's wrong to make us wonder whether he's really got them.

- He's learning how to behave in various situations. He went with me to a church luncheon Sunday and sat quite well during 20 minutes of talking about ChristCare groups (presumably not due to his interest in the topic). He generally does well in restaurants. He frequents several, his favorites being Elmo's (very family friendly local diner), where he likes to order a burger with raisins, Tyler's (where we attend an event called Beer and Babies) where he likes to order a burger and peas, and "the fancy place" (a.k.a. Piazza Italia) which he loves to go to on special occasions. At the fancy place he's learning special manners for fancy places, like not putting his food into his water glass, not banging his fork on the table, etc.

- He still prefers what I think of as "mechanistic" toys -- Legos, blocks, trains, puzzles. He builds lots of things with complexity. He likes to involve lots of Lego people in his creations. He goes on and off with puzzles, with weeks where he does several daily and weeks where he does none. Every time he comes back to them he's at a new level of capability. He can do the 24 piece floor puzzles by himself and is moving onto 48 piece jigsaw puzzles. When he finishes the puzzle he says, "Now let's talk about this", and he'll point to parts and say, "I want to talk about this area."

- His ability to describe things verbally is very good, and he continues to use complex sentences and paragraphs. However, he's developed a stutter the last few months, which at times can be agonizingly severe (for us; he doesn't seem to notice). We're expecting this to fade away over the next few months and we won't worry about it unless he still has it at his third birthday. He's lost some of our favorite mispronounciations (like "memop"), but we cling to a few cute wrong words or grammatical errors: "bander" for band-aid, "popsail" for popsicle, starting with the negative -- "No I like this book" instead of "I do not like this book" (he uses both constructions, so we're thinking soon the incorrect one will fade away). It will be a little sad when his speaking is totally correct!

- He understands our dog voices. Both of our dogs have distinct voices (generally supplied by me, though I sometimes forget that). They talk with us regularly. Ian has started having long conversations with them, often reassuring them about things they worry about (which is sweet, because it sometimes involves him repeating things we say to reassure him). We know he understands exactly what's going on when he talks to the dogs, because he "broke the fourth wall" once (a term Doug recently taught me) while having a conversation with Lilo. He had asked her something and she hadn't responded and he looked at me and said, "Have her say, 'Yes, brother.'".

- He seems quite social and nothing is more exciting than plans we make with his friends. This Saturday we met his classmate Janacki at the museum and also ran into classmate Maeve there. I think the anticipation of these events sometimes trumps the event itself, but he's starting to get more and more into interactive play. This trip to the museum he did much more with his companions than last time we went with a classmate, where it was mostly parallel play.

- He has a growing interest in drawing and stickers. He's starting to draw distinct things on different parts of the page, and uses several techniques (dots, zig-zags, circles). There is not yet any example I've seen where he makes something that resembles what he intends it to be. He also likes "writing" people's names in small careful nonsense letters. He's into putting stickers on everything -- this morning he "decorated" our front window with large stickers.

- There is definitely no more having side conversations around Ian. If we get onto a non-Ian topic while he's otherwise occupied, he'll eventually turn and say, "What are you talking about now?"

- He is currently obsessed with shaving. He would shave several times a day if Doug would allow it, but we keep it to once daily. Doug recently ordered a kid's shaving kit, so now Ian (as he will eagerly tell you) has his own shaving cream and his own razor.

- A big development in our life is that Ian now (as of a week or two ago) routinely stays in his room until 6:45 am, and (as of a couple days ago) goes to bed smoothly even when Doug isn't here. That's right, I am now capable of putting my own child to bed (some thanks to my promise to let him listen to a Frog and Toad story via audiobook to help ease the transition when I leave his room). The staying in his room until morning development is thanks to Ian's new clock, which deserves its own separate blog post. This has been a huge change in my life in particular, and after 2.5 years of sleep insanity things are starting to feel reasonable again. Phew.

- We spend a lot of time reading with Ian. His favorite books right now are Curious George, Frog and Toad, Corduroy, and the Very Hungry Caterpillar. He also has several he likes about Psalms and trucks.

Can't wait to see what he's doing when he turns 3!