As I mentioned the other day on the blog, Little Man has finally realized that he is a toddler.
Between his newly found ability to get super frustrated and his penchant for showing me, we've had a few tough days recently. He is still exploring his world and learning his boundaries, and I'm trying my best to support him unconditionally throughout it.
But even amid all of the frustrations, there are
so many great things that Little Man is currently doing at the age of just around 28 months.
One of my favorite things Little Man is doing now?
Trying to play with Little Lady. We've been really working on sharing and playing together recently, before Little Lady is old enough to swipe toys in hopes that by the time she is - we're ready. Little Man knows that if he wants a toy she has, he has to share by giving her another toy in return, be gentle when he takes the toy, and that he has to return it to her when he is finished playing with it. This has lead to the fact that he will often ask for her to play different toys with him now that he views her as more of an equal
{as opposed to that baby in the swing}. He will often say, "Baby ride motorcycle and I'll push mower?" or similar statements in request that she interactively play with him. I
cannot wait for the day when she'll be able to do so.
Little Man has also begun to pick up on my nicknames for him. Sometimes, he will call himself Bear, one of my main nicknames for him at home. But the cutest thing he often does is follow his questions or requests to me with babe, honey, or sweetheart. I often will say things like, "Honey, can you please put your dirty cup in the sink?" And he'll respond, "Okay honey!"
Aaaaaand melted into a puddle on the floor.
His favorites right now consist of his cozy coupe car, taking walks, playing with matchbox cars, macaroni and cheese, his lawn mower, and his back pack {or pack-pack, as Little Man so lovingly refers to it, lol!}.
Developmentally, Little Man is moving by leaps and bounds.
Literally. He just recently learned how to {sort of} jump, and now does this running/galloping thing when he wants to jump. He's now able to walk up and down our stairs standing up with his hand on the rail on one side and a little bit of watchful eye from DH or I. My late-blooming motor kid also actually climbed the stairs at the park and went down the slide without me last week as well, which was a
HUGE development for us. Previously, Little Man would only go up on the playground equipment if I was with him as he was scared to be up there alone and had trouble getting up the platforms by himself. If we're talking fine motor, Little Man is really amazing with a pen and has a really good adult-like hold of writing utensils, which really helps him in tracing. He has also mastered the tongs as of late, and one of his favorite games is transferring dry beans from one bowl to another by our tongs. Another fine motor milestone he has recently accomplished is the ability to put together puzzles. I purchased a set of four Melissa & Doug wooden 12 piece puzzles {featuring a school bus, a fire truck, a race car, and a train} and he
loves putting those together.
As for Little Man's current word bank, I can't even count any more. He has so many words for so many things it's like talking to a little adult at this point. There are a lot of times where he stops and will ask me what something is, and then say the new word to himself a few times, obviously trying to imprint it in his memory. It's really cute to watch. He still has some words that he says incorrectly, such as
gwapus for lip gloss and
dock-er for doctor, among a few others. He also calls things funny names at times,
for example he will only say in full
Old MacDonald HAD a farm when referring to the song Old MacDonald. Little Man tends to be about as far ahead in speech and language as he is behind motorically. I've actually had to self disclose to a few parents at the park that I'm a speech therapist because they've begun to compare their child's speech to Little Man's, and thought he was way older than he actually is because of it.
Little Man is also loving on music and song right now. Anything that can be sung is made into a song at this point and we love to both sing and dance at the house. The toddler radio station on Pandora is a big hit for my little dancin' man.
Cognitively, Little Man is doing really well at this point. He knows most of his colors {black, white, purple, pink, blue, orange, brown, and yellow} but still does get red and green mixed up at times. He also can match almost all of the letters of the alphabet {uppercase} at this time, and can identify a good number of them by name as well. Little Man can also sing a good portion of the ABC song. We're still working on letters and numbers, but he is also able to count from one to twelve {rote counting} and can typically rationally count items up to five. {Rote counting being from memory and rational counting being actually counting items present.} As for shapes, he currently knows circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, ovals, diamonds, stars, moons, and hexagons. We've also started recently to work on some concept words. Little Man does really well with on top/bottom/over/under/next to and measurements such as big/little/tall/short, but we're starting to work on right versus left as he's shown some interest on knowing which side of his body we're talking about at different times.
I really feel like he's pretty far ahead at this point, which I credit to a few things. The first is that he is
exactly like DH. DH tends to be one of those massively intelligent people who don't have to try to learn anything. I know for sure that Little Man inherited his smarts from DH and not me. Not to put myself down or say that I'm not an intelligent person, but I'm more of a hard worker than naturally brilliant, which is okay with me. But just watching Little Man, he processes things in a way
very similar to DH. The second reason why I think Little Man is doing so well is my education in early intervention/development and my love for tot schooling. {I have a post upcoming on how I tot school after a few reader questions, but am always open to adding to it if anyone has specific questions they'd like to leave in the comments or email me!} I really, firmly believe that there have been so many things tot school has done for us as a family, by helping Little Man to easily learn but also by giving us
fun activities, crafts, and games to complete as a family. I love it.
One of my continuing favorites right now about Little Man though, to wrap it up, has to be his gentle nature. Even when he's having a bad day with all of the toddler kicking and screaming bit, he will often still come up to me when he calms down and give me a quick kiss or a sweet hug. He has started to look over at me and randomly say, "Love you, mama" which just about knocks me off my feet every time. The other day we were talking about something, and he came right up to me, held my cheeks in his little hands, and said, "Mama so pretty." It brings tears to my eyes every time he is so loving and gentle to me, DH, and Little Lady. This kid is seriously the light of my life.
