23 Months Old

23 Months Old

His stats (from BabyCenter):
Height: 37 inches (above 95th percentile)
Weight: 33.5 pounds (above 95th percentile)
Head Size: 21 inches (above 95th percentile)

He lost 1.3 pounds since last month but gained an inch in height and .5 inch in head size. He was extra wiggly this morning, so height and head size could be off a bit.

What he's doing this month:

• Letting us read entire books to him. Well, one or two books, in particular. It's a start.
• He really likes a Thomas the Train book called A Crack in the Track. I think his favorite part of the book is when the bus (Bertie) arrives at a broken down Thomas to take the passengers on to the next station. We read it every time we sit down to read.
• Making the connection between items in his books and items around our house.
• If there is a picture of a baby in a book, he might go and point to the Huggies wipes packaging that has a baby on it. We were doing a puzzle of a construction site the other day and I asked him where certain types of trucks were on the puzzle (dump truck, roller, concrete mixer), and he would go over and find his toy version of that truck and lay it on the puzzle and drive it around the scene.
• His words are many now! My favorites are Haaht for Hattie and Boo-uh for Peter.
• He is also saying his s's and sh's and ch's. So Bus sounds likes bus instead of bah.
• He will try to repeat most anything we say to him. Sometimes it sounds very close--sometimes he can't quite get it out. Our favorite thing he repeats is Lewis Pete!
• After Kevin reads to him and puts him into bed at night, Lewis says Night and Bye-Bye (in the sweetest southern twang) when Kevin leaves the room.
• He is very much into his toys.
• He loves building things with his Mega Bloks. The past few times I've gone to pick him up at the Y, he has snubbed me (by pretending he didn't see me) and kept on building with his blocks. He loves them--we have a bunch here at home, too, and he's really started stacking them high.
• He's also still very much into puzzles.
• There is a Cars book that Grandma and Grandpa Thompson got him for Christmas, and he loves to push the buttons to play music and shake his booty to it. He bounces up and down and is so cute.
• He's getting more into coloring. We had one yellow crayon + couch incident and some scribbles on the tabletop, but otherwise he's doing a pretty good job of keeping crayon to paper.
• He really likes dunking outside on his basketball goal. We might have to look for an indoor version for the winter so he can continue working on his skills. :)
• He's really funny about putting trash (or occasionally non-trash) in the trash can and laundry in the laundry basket. He's become a very good helper, for the most part--I can ask him to go put something in his laundry basket (and he will) or ask him to go put something in the trash can (and he does).
• Gramma and Papaw Carter watched him for a few days this month and taught him to blow kisses and say tugga-tugga-tugga-tugga-...-TOOT-TOOT.
• He now walks up the stairs with ease. He still scoots down them on his butt, but sometimes he gets brave towards the bottom and walks down the last few by holding onto the wall.
• Slooowly becoming a more adventurous eater. 
• I realize it is my fault. I just haven't quite gotten into the swing of feeding him our normal meals. It's so much easier for me, logistically, to feed him 'his' food (mac and cheese, PBJ, etc.) in his high chair while I prepare dinner for Kevin and I. But then Kevin and I are trying to eat dinner with Lewis climbing onto the coffee table, and it's madness.
• Since the new year, I have started starting dinner with him still playing, and then I put him in his highchair to have some fruit while I finish up the main course. It has worked out the past few weeks that Kevin gets home right as dinner is ready, so all three of us have been able to sit down and eat together (what a concept!). He sometimes eats what I've made, and sometimes not (still PBJ or mac and cheese). This is definitely something I'm working on.
• And when he does have mac and cheese, it's Kraft's veggie mac and cheese (made with cauliflower pasta) with smooshed sweet potatoes and parsnips mixed in.
• Napping well and sleeping well overnight.
• Over Christmas, he had a few days of bad naps. 45 minutes in the car one day, no nap another, and 30 minutes in the car the third day. Even when we were here at the house, he was having trouble going down (too much fun to be had!). Now that we're back to our 'normal,' he has started napping better and sleeping better overnight (sleeping in a little later).
• Current Tooth Count: all 20!