23 months

Lawson is twenty-three months old! Time to start planning his 2-year-old birthday!

• Lawson is using two and three word phrases. He sounds so cute when he talks. Some things that he says are: "Daddy working.", "Go outside.", "Birdie in tree.", "Nasty Bugs.", "Go to school.", "Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it.", "What's that?", "Vroom, Vroom.", "Take a bath", "Come on cars!", "Come on people!", "Ants hurt baby.", "That's good.". He has learned how to use verbs, so he will say "Sweepin", "workin", "drivin", "eatin", "honk". He also likes to say words over and over and over again. When he says "hug", he might want a hug or he might want you to do something for him. He is becoming an expert manipulator. He will also say "Help" and take you by the hand and lead you to what he wants or needs.
  
• His speech articulation is coming along. He has all his early developing sounds /p, b, m, n, h, w/. The /k/ and /g/ sound are coming along as well. And he has some later developing sounds like /d, b, k, g, y, t, l, s/. He leaves them off at the ends of words, but if I ask him to say it he can. He loves to talk about frogs and unfortunately it came out as the "f" word. Now when he says "frog" it comes out more like "frog". He has a grasp of Mommy, Daddy, Mimi, Papi, PawPaw, BeeBee, and Dee Dee. Grammie comes out as "Dimmie" or "Dammie" or "Jimmy". His friends are "Fia"-Sophia, "KJ", "James" and "Nico". When I tell him we are going to church to see his friends, he always asks about "Fia". His cousin is Alyssa and he calls her "Syssa" and new baby cousin Jaron actually comes out like "Jaron".


• His new favorite food are gummies. (Thanks Melanie!) He LOVES them. They come out as "Dummies", so that's pretty funny, especially when we are strolling through the store and he is trying to see how many times he can say "Dummies" in one breath. He is still in love with hot dogs and spaghettios. Yum. He is a grazer versus a big eater at meal times. I try to watch his snack intake, but even then he doesn't eat a whole lot at meal times. When he wakes up in the morning, he goes through the list of foods he wants to eat. Usually waffles, pancakes, cereal, bars (Nutri-grain bars). He also likes eggs and will eat them most any time. Chocolate milk is another favorite. He will go to the door and say "Chocolate milk pease" and when I open the door he snatches the Hershey's syrup. One day I was trying to make his chocolate milk and he was standing by me, marching in place chanting, "Chocolate milk, chocolate milk, chocolate milk." Where did he learn that?


• He is wearing a size 5 diaper, which seems to work a lot better. He can wear some 18-24 months clothes as well as 2T clothes. His 7.5 shoes are still fitting, but he can't wear Crocs because his feet are chubby. They rub blisters on his feet and then he wants a band-aid on, which he promptly pulls off.


• We think he might be allergic to figs and raisins. So we are holding off on feeding him those things.
  
• He is enjoying me reading to him a lot more. He will pick out books that have real pictures of animals in them and then name the animals. I would say that animal books are his favorites. And an Elmo book called "My Name is Elmo".


• His favorite toys are cars and airplanes. And things that connect. We got some blocks down that he got from his 1st birthday and they have been a big hit.


• He loves for Lawson and me to sing to him before he goes to bed. "Piders"-The Itsy, Bitsy Spider and "Tars"-Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star are his favorites. We also sing "Little Cabin in the Woods" and he likes to do the hand motions to that. Especially the mean face when the line "before the hunter shoots me dead" comes up.


• He is sleeping through the night now. Thank goodness!!!!! We are so happy about that. And he still takes a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoons. When he wakes up, he will sit in his crib and read books and play with toys for 15-30 minutes. When I come in to get him, he will start jumping up and down and always say he has a poopy diaper and do the "Poopy Dance".
  
• He loves to go outside and look for "nakes" and bugs. Lawson showed him a worm and he kept calling it a "nake". He also loves to pick up gumballs from a Sweet Gum Tree and will do that for 15 minutes. He and Lawson also like to "kill ants" and get rid of the ant beds in our yard. Lawson has also taught him to spit but unfortunately we have to tell him when he can spit, so he can only "Spit on fish." And since there aren't many fish around, he can't spit that often. But it is funny telling him "No spitting. Only spit on fish."


• He loves to put money in his Boot piggy bank. He will see money and say "Money, money" and "Boot, boot!" If we give him some money he will pretend to put it in his mouth to see my and Lawson's reaction. He is truly his father's son. Always looking for a reaction.


• We are working on him not being defiant and saying "No" all the time. We were in the car going out to eat and he was saying "no" to something and Lawson told him not to say "no" or he would get a spanking and he sat there and went "Nnnnnn", "Nnnnnnn" and then held his teeth together and said "no" under his breath. He got a spanking, but Lawson and I had to laugh at that. What a stinker!


• He is full of energy all the time. There is not a whole lot of down time with him. He will still watch "Yo Gabba Gabba" with Jack Black, "Nacho Libre", "Kung Fu Panda" and "Cars". He loves to put his hands behind his back and "fly". He jumps and runs and loves for people to chase him. He thinks it's fun to get on the arm of the couch and jump face first into the couch. We have had to stop that since the second bounce can bounce him off into the floor. He is also fascinated with his tongue. He will talk about it and stick it out and brush it with his toothbrush.


• I am still his favorite person, but if he wakes up in the middle of the night or after his nap, he will say "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy!" over and over again.

• He is growing like a weed! Pants are becoming too short and shoes are getting too tight. We are preparing him for Judah's arrival, but we aren't too sure he understands. His hair is getting longer and longer, but Lawson and I are holding out on cutting it. When it's wet is is so long! The curls are too precious to cut! What a fun boy!!!!!