2 and a half....

Adrian turned 2 1/2 this October 1st...

We switched from Mondays to Fridays going to Grandma D's house! Talking even more then before...he reads stories to me and has imaginary food, toys, animals, and conversations! He includes us in his play or games. He loves to draw, write, and paint. Loves playing 'tato' aka 'playdo'. He's learning his 'letters' as he calls them. His favorite are F, G, N! But he picks up new one's all the time. He can recognize A for Adrian. He's starting to recognize more colors like yellow and blue, now knows brown and pink, including the others he knew: orange, black, green, red. He's been counting 1-2-4-6, skipping 3 and 5...we're working on it. He can match shapes and knows circle, star, moon. We have a preschool uppercase letter book we like to look at. I found pancake molds in circle, heart and star shapes :) Makes for fun breakfasts!

He knows more tv shows than I ever let him watch like 'Kipper' and 'Wiggles' I only let him watch 'Thomas the train' and 'Caillou'....Hmmmmm.....He cries whenever his show is over and the tv goes off. Sometimes it's easier not turning the tv on in the first place.

Adrian associates daddy with dinner because he makes dinner so often...anytime he hears pots and pans he asks 'daddy making dinner?' even if I am in the kitchen cooking....haha. I still cook often but Barry makes dinner most of the time.

Adrian has taken to singing often and enjoys playing the piano, his drums, and all the other musical toys he has...especially his shrill whistles early in the morning :)

When he wakes up early, he doesn't get out of bed (our bed) but instead bargains with me 'breakfast, hungry, soy-soy?' , yells at me to wake up, and plays until I finally wake up...he only sleeps in during the week and is up at 7 on the weekends. He still ends up in our bed 99.9 % of the time. I still only get 9% of the bed and usually have to scoot him over to prevent myself from falling off the bed...probably payback from the time he fell off the bed awhile ago. Barry never got more than 10% of the bed so he's used to it...

People say that the Twos are Terrible but I find them enjoyable...it's the Threes that are Frightful! Then is when the child becomes more aware of their impact on the world and their ability to manipulate and influence others. This doesn't start on the day the child turns three but in Adrian's case after he turned 2 1/2. He now bargains and pleads. Throwing fits is another way to control parents or caregivers' who feel bad if a child cries. Saying please and batting the eyelashes is a way to appeal to the soft hearted. Getting something down by 'myself' is another way to bypass the system and now with another inch gained (36 1/4 inches tall) is easier to do. Of course bargaining is another method, 'mommy drinks it' so 'adrian drinks it'. 'Cavyn has a binky' so 'Adrian needs a binky'....that's what we hear now that he talks. And there is a huge difference between ''need" and "want" and Adrian is not in need of anything but soemtimes thinks he is...we have to remember to say 'want' when we mean 'want' and 'need' when we mean 'need'. A good lifeskill...since most American's don't actually need anything.

So all in all, moments are few and far between, and are more frequent when Mom is in a hurry and running late, of course. Luckily we started timeouts at 1 1/2 so he's familiar with the process. He usually requests a 'clock' aka timer when sitting on the step or if it's emotional situation aka 'fit' then he slowly creep out of timeout and throw himself to the floor for attention while howling...usually it takes a lot of active ignoring to prevent from laughing in serious parenting moments as those. Eventually the toddler calms himself and realizes that at least at home, he won't get attention for such shennanigans. Throwing a fit is reason enough to be put in timeout or bed, timeout for another reason is reason enough to throw a fit. Luckily he's not too 'naughty'.

The things he does well are singing the clean up song while mom cleans up. Helping clean up when the vacuum is on for fear that it will eat his toys. Throwing trash and other things that look like 'trash' in the garbage.

He's a packrat and likes to 'bring' things with. we recently got a 'back-up blankie' so when blankie is dirty, he has a back-up.....this however has not been his idea. His ideas is that he has two blankies and cannot go anywhere without both of them....he was easier to bargain with when he was younger.

Anyways...It's crazy to see him grow up and learn so much!