Parenthood - 2015-02-12 Picture with a bear and a two year old

February 12, 2015

At two Matthew is a bundle of mischief weighing 10.9 kg and measuring 87.4 cm tall. He's put on a kilo since December! He still needs iron, but the good news is that he's making normal sized blood cells now instead of the abnormally small ones he was producing back in the summer.

He's adding new sounds to his vocabulary - the most exciting development recently is that he's figured out "Mummy" and "Daddy" instead of Mum-Mum and Da-Da. Matthew is "Mah-Mah". Elizabeth is still "Dee-Dee", still arguably his favourite person in the whole world.

Matthew is big into building forts at the moment, which involves dragging the furniture all around the room. He loves drawing, but sadly not always on paper. He has decorated walls, toys and Grandma and Grandpa's formerly pristine white couch - to Elizabeth's great horror. This means he does not get to draw during "quiet time". Not that he is ever particularly quiet unless he is doing something very, very naughty... Sometimes I can get him to whisper for a few minutes though, so maybe there is hope. He's also very interested in scissors ("nigh" aka knife) which he uses two handed despite all encouragement otherwise. As he is just as likely to chop his clothes as he is to try cutting paper his opportunities to practice have been severely curtailed.

He loves reading books. His favourites are about animals or construction vehicles. He can skate up to five metres by himself. He likes to go out and loves the various programs he's involved in. He loves going to music class and participates enthusiastically. Amusingly he is also very gung-ho about leaving music class - "happy to go and happy to leave" as his teacher commented. Routines are very important to him. If he falls down, he wants ice wrapped in a towel and he will usually put it on his lip even though that's not what was injured because that's what we do!

He's recently learned to play hide-and-seek. He's getting better at hiding, to Mom's chagrin. He still is at the stage where he can't find you if you hide under something eg a blanket or behind a curtain.

He's still very much in diapers but will use the potty once or twice a day in exchange for a sticker. He does have to see the stickers and decide whether he wants one first - just asking him if he wants a sticker always results in "NO".

He started napping more consistently in the afternoons, but we actively discourage this because the result tends to be a 45 minute to an hour and a half bedtime routine instead of five to ten minutes. Afternoon naps also seem to result in more night waking. Without a nap and bed on time by 7pm he usually wakes once around 2 or 3am to pee. He has started having the odd nightmare - if he wakes up before we come to bed he will get up, open his door and come wailing down the stairs so we need to fetch him quickly. Elizabeth's nightmares were always about wolves or bears. Matthew's seem to feature frogs - although he isn't verbal enough to explain what exactly these scary frogs are up to.