Evan at 22 Months

Evan turned 22 months this past week...and as we approach the two-year mark, we have so many new things to report on!

Can he get any cuter?  I love his dimples and puppy dog brown eyes...

Language development:

It's all about phrases...it's choppy, but effective.  I love having him be able to communicate with us more now and I can tell he likes it too when we can decipher what he's trying to tell us.

Examples:
"Turn it on...fan", "Daddy's home", "I want _____",  where blank can be any word he knows (typcially: this, cheese, out, up, down...), "Need it ____" such as "Need it fork", "I hold it", "I fall down", "play water" (for referring to playing with his water table), and "one more" (where he'll gesture the number one on his hand, asking or one more time for us to do something he thought was fun or funny...however he doesn't realize the concept of JUST one more yet...haha).

He's also started to refer to things as his by saying "Evan's".

His most commonly said phrases are: "I like it" and "No like it".  Frankly I think I hear "No like it" the most: at diaper change time, when it's time to leave the park, when he doesn't want to eat a certain food anymore (or at all), and even sometimes now at bedtime.  Usually "no like it" accompanies a bit of a tantrum, but I'm having a bit of success so far with giving him the illusion of control with two choices: Either Mommy can carry you, or you can walk yourself.  He usually wants to walk himself and if I count to three, he usually gets moving along despite his desire not to.

He's actually just started saying the blessed word "yes" too, though I don't know if he's always meaning it yet.  His other form of saying yes is "ah na na".  This was his way of getting excited for things in the past and it transitioned into his way to agree to or give us a positive confirmation that we understood him (i.e. "yes").   I'm wondering how much longer he'll do that, instead of just say yes now though.  It seems like his saying yes just started within the last week, and yet it's already started to be used a lot more (including tonight he used both back-to-back "yes...ah na na").


Evan still loves counting...sometimes we'll catch him randomly counting throughout the day.  He gets some sequences of numbers (between 1 and 20) right, but he often jumbles a few out of order too.  He's had less interest in letters right now given his obsession with numbers instead.

Helping me count (and then stack and unstack) his new pack of plates after we'd opened them

I've noticed a bit of a backwards grammar at times too.  I joke it's like he learned Spanish or one of the languages where the descriptive word comes after the noun.  Examples are: door garage and shoes mommy's (although he's recently started saying it correctly as in Mommy's _____, where blank is drink or shoes or whatever).


Growth and developments:

Evan amazes me with his memory and recall already.  For example, remembering what he did in a given day or during a visit to someone's house and telling us later.  It's really picked up lately, especially with him recalling aspects of our vacation on Memorial Day weekend.  I can say something about Papa's farm and he'll say "Papa's house....Tae Tae....Meco."  And he remembers that "Kiki's house....fun", because he had a blast playing with my friend Kiera's little puppy at her house.  Or I can ask him what did he do today and he'll tell me "garden" (because he helped water the garden) or "outside" because he played outside.  He remembers that on Monday he goes to daycare (now he just needs to learn the other 6 days of the week).  I think he even remembers things that we drive past a lot, as he is always looking out the window and paying attention to where we are.

Evan just moved into size 5 pampers diapers and size 6 shoes.  He's still wearing mostly 24 month or 2T clothes, and I hope he will stay in that size for most of the next few months (or year!) given sizes now start to only increase once per year (i.e. the next size clothes is 3T, as in for a 3-year-old!).  He is just under 30 lbs now, given weights he had taken at recent doctor appointments.  We just bought our first pack of pull up style diapers as well...yes this means we hope to get onto potty training again here soon (I know, I've been saying that for a few months though now...I can't help that the months fly by!).

Fears:

I recently read that around this age toddlers can develop a few fears, most notably about water and insects.  Well, Evan's been having fears about random noises in the house for awhile and just yesterday had his first up close encounter with a bee, which frightened him a good bit.  And last night he woke up middle of the night and ended up staying awake for nearly two hours...laying there (with one of us with him to calm him) asking about every little noise or thing he saw.  I hope he didn't have a nightmare or something that woke him (and I hope we can all get more sleep tonight!).  Either way, Evan seems to be very intrigued by bugs though.  We had a little tiny bug (lady bug size) crawling on our bathroom floor at bedtime one night.  Evan laid down on the floor to get a close up look.  John helped catch it to release it outside.  Then after that Evan saw a dark spot on the rug and said "nother bug!".  Haha.

He also had some more shots recently.  Evan's never liked the doctor, let alone the shots.  We just kept getting notices that he was behind on his vaccination schedule.  (sigh, I'm a little upset by all this still).  Anyway, since we had just switched insurance and doctors what happened was the new doctor didn't get all of his history entered in and they were basing it off the state registry anyway, which was missing his 4 month shots.  Thus, we took him in and asked if he really needed it, because our card showed he had them all, but they reassured us they double check this stuff.  They gave him 3 shots and later called to tell us that actually he did NOT need them. So the poor guy had a very stiff and sore leg the next day and what I think bothered him most was the bandaids!  We took them off in the bath, but it still must have hurt him.  Regardless, he became obsessed with the band aids, acting afraid of them when he saw them and constantly telling us later "bye bye bandaid".

Play time:

Evan loves playing outside and playing at parks/playgrounds.  In fact, we have to deal with some tantrums when we take him inside (or leave a park).  However, we have started to be able to use his newfound love of outdoors to help discipline him too, by saying he'll have to go inside if he does X or Y.  Then when it is really time to go in, we just make sure he knows it's not because he was bad, but just because it's time to go in.  However, there are sadly a number of occasions where he goes in because he tested us and our threats.

Snack time while playing outside a few days so far this summer...

Just having some fun on a beautiful sunny day...

He loves to push toys (and even other things of his) around.  Loves playing with balls and balloons, bubbles, playing games on our cell phones.  He's rediscovering some books we haven't read to him in awhile and he likes to flip through them on his own.  There are only a few books right now that he wants us to read to him, such as Oh the Thinks you can Think and Mr. Brown can Moo, Can You? both by Dr. Seuss ("Docka Juice").  He also likes Fuzzy Wuzzy Wombat ("Fuzzy") still, The Potty Book for Boys ("Potty"), Counting Kisses ("kisses"), and Why I love Christmas ("kissmas").  I love how he even has memorized some of the side things we often say when we read the books to him, such as in Oh the Thinks you can Think...there is a page where it says "and why is it that Beft always goes to the left?".  John usually would add in "That's a good question", and now Evan will say on his own after that page "good kesston".  A similar instance on a page that says "And what would you do if you met a Jibboo?"  John would add "I'd say 'G'day mate'", and so now Evan says "dah-gay mate" after that.

Having read himself to sleep on the car ride...

Evan also loves TV, well movies at least, and is right now hooked on "Wall-E".  Again, like with Madagascar 3 and others, it's a movie I used to like a lot, but the more I have to endure it over and over, that fondness may begin to wane.

And he likes to play "home mate", which is what he calls being allowed to play in the driver seat.  Maybe it started the first time after we'd just gotten home, but now it's code for "let me drive!".

Meal time:

Evan can eat a lot one meal (or one day) and very little the next...very typical toddler from what I've read.  He definitely seems to always have an appetite for: cheese, mac n cheese, berries (except we still avoid strawberries since we haven't confirmed the potential allergy there), bananas, peaches, yogurt drops (dehydrated yogurt snacks), corn on the cob (note: it must be on the cob!).  Lately he's also started to want Cheerios again.  He occasionally eats meats; pork and chicken are the two best bets there and if it's been grilled even better.  He also started to really like cherry tomatoes (cut up in bits still).  He tried fresh cherries this past month and loved them too (such a yummy summery treat!).  And he loves his cookies and cake and ice cream, though he doesn't get them too often.  When he eats an Oreo, he somehow figured out to open it up and lick out the inside first.  It makes a mess, but since I give him cookies as a reward for eating a good meal or something, I figure he's earned it!

Oreo cookie "moustache"

Evan is really becoming a big boy:

--Eating on his own at restaurants: we bring his kiddie utensils along and let him feed himself!  This happened a few times on our Memorial Day trip, where we eat breakfast and he got scrambled eggs and toast, which he fed himself.  And at a pizza/pasta buffet (Valentino's in Lincoln...a nostalgic eatery for me) he ate his cottage cheese, pasta noodles (plain with no sauce) and then had ice cream all by himself.  He even ate his own full (small) bowl of ice cream at my friend Sarah's house after dinner there.

--Swinging in big kid swing

--Goes up and down stairs on two feet (holding onto railing).  I still like one of us to be nearby, but he's getting pretty good at it now!

--Eats some foods less cut up: We can give him a whole or half banana for him to hold and eat himself, and Eggo wholegrain waffles and corn on the cob he prefers the "big" version instead of us cutting it up for him anymore!

Having a banana (or "nana") snack

--Uses our cell phones with ease to find and play games.

--Wants to help out with chores (dusting, watering plants in the garden, etc).

--Likes to walk on his own (without holding our hand) whenever possible...

Other firsts:

--First Xray
--First time using chopsticks (the kid version that they give you at PF Changs...he practiced picking up his Cheerios!)
--Attended his first tractor pull

It is still hard for me to imagine what the next new "firsts" will be, but they keep on coming faster than I can keep track of them!