The Elferings

Mac: 2 Years 7 Months

Posted By Jill on October 5, 2010

Mac’s speech continues to improve daily. Jane says he’s working on his sentences, and we both see him really concentrating when he’s trying to say something. Last week he even started saying “Vivian” more audibly than before, so it sounds like “Vivian” and not “baby.”

He also uses his manners more and more often without being prompted. I’m a stickler for manners, and we started teaching him early. Basically, as soon as I feel like he can understand why to use certain manners, I start introducing them. He just recently started saying “you’re welcome” after someone says “thank you.” He’s started to say “excuse me, please” as he goes by and needs you to move. We’re starting “excuse me” also when he burps, but that’s not very often so is harder to teach. He’s getting better at remembering to cover his cough too by coughing into his arm. At the zoo today he even held the door for me, and later today he said “bless you” when I sneezed!

Mac is also becoming more and more independent, though he’s less insistent than I would have expected about doing some things by himself that I know he can do. He can put a shirt and pants on by himself, and socks and shoes, but he seems to prefer I/we do it for him most of the time. I think he prefers to choose his own clothes, but not so much put them on… He also likes to pick out his own DVD to watch at bedtime since he moved his step-stool out to the living room and can reach them. He’s not quite tall enough to put it in himself or he would. He knows how to put both VHS and DVD movies in downstairs where he can reach. He’s still a great helper too! He likes to help me sweep the floor under his chair in the kitchen – it works best when he holds the dustpan and I sweep, but he’s not too bad at being the sweeper either! And he’ll bring me a burp cloth or nuk for Vivian when I ask him to also. He likes to turn the lights off and play naptime, He’ll get a pillow for me, tell me to lie down, even sometimes give me a blanket. Then he’ll turn the lights back on and say, “morning time!” It’s pretty cute.

A couple weeks ago during naptime, Mac again got (I’m convinced he jumped) out of his crib. We promptly took his mattress out and put it on floor where he’s been sleeping ever since until we have time to shop for a twin bunk/loft set. He was pretty excited to get to sleep with a pillow and has added to the stuffed animals in his bed now too. For some reason he’s put just about every stuffed animal he finds into his bed. The first day on the mattress, he couldn’t resist the temptation of the books that were right near his bed, so they got moved. Since then we’ve also had more struggles with bedtime and naptime, but there are other factors that have been different at home too that could be contributing. Jeremy has been working a ton, and Vivian’s schedule has changed so she sometimes goes to bed at the same time, and we’ve started demolishing the bathroom so the teeth-brushing part of our bedtime routine is different too (he sees all new toys when we go to the basement to brush teeth). We’re trying to work it out and find a routine that works with our crazy schedules. It’s fun to see what kinds of positions Mac gets into on his little mattress! He’s done pretty well staying on the bed, but I’m sure he’ll like having a big boy bed soon.

Mac loves to sing his ABC song (the alphabet song). He can do almost the whole thing by himself and just keeps repeating it! The other day he was singing it in the car, so I turned off the radio and sang with him a couple of times. Then it was quiet for a while, and when I turned the radio back on, he started singing it again. I think he thinks he’s singing with the radio!

He still loves to do his puzzles and play with his trains. One day this summer he found a bunch of computer memory modules in my office from my work repairs. He took them out to the living room and said “tracks” and started putting them out for his trains! What an imagination!! He still calls them his tracks and likes to set them up that way. He also now makes the “chugga chugga choo choo” sound for a train while he’s playing. And recently he became fascinated with the moon! We were driving home from a fall festival and saw the huge yellowish moon in the sky. He saw it again the next night, and then when we were going to Jane’s the next day, he saw the moon again! I thought he was just talking about it, but sure enough, there it was! And the next day he pointed it out again. Jane said later that week he pointed at the half moon and told her it was “broken.”

There are very few things at the park that Mac can’t navigate these days. He’s a great climber and still has very good balance. I had the opportunity to play with him at that fall festival and was nervous watching him on some parts of the play equipment, but he did just fine. We had such a good time! He wanted me to follow him, looked back for me when I fell behind, and he got a kick out of me coming down the slide after him!

I’ve finally updated some videos and put them on YouTube. I think I may switch to that now as their updates are pretty user-friendly. They also have a Subscribe link so I’d assume you can be notified when new videos are posted. That way you wouldn’t have to wait for me to post them here too. I’m still way behind – these are from July!

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