Matthew: 2 1/2 year old

2 1/2 years old

We've had this precious child in our family for 30 months.

I'm referring to "What to Expect the Toddler Years" for the broad generalization of progress of this age range.

Matthew can identify pictures by naming.
He can put on an article of clothing like his shoes. 50/50 shot if it's on the correct feet ;-)
He can jump up
Matthew can name more than 6 body parts
He can identify friends by their name
He identify 1 color ( actually 8)
He can describe the use for at least 2 objects


Daily:
Sleep- 7:30 pm to 7:30 am.  He does one nap from about noon to 3.
Clothes- 3T tops and 2T pants. Size 5 diapers. Size 8 shoe
Food- He's definitely slowing down with his food intake.
Breakfast-- Cereal or toast with fruit, milk and probiotics
Lunch-- Quesadilla/ sandwich or left overs with fruit or steamed veggies and water
snack: Gerber fruit, crackers, cheese, raisins, spoon of peanut butter
Dinner-- what ever we are having with children's vitamins. Still not a fan of meat or eggs
He does have a cup of milk as Billy reads and prays with him before he goes to bed. That time is so precious for them both.



Socially/ verbally:
Matthew does very well when visiting friends when we go over the rules on the way there. He comes up with his own full sentences and we have short two sided conversations. This has been so exciting to hear his thoughts. He asks "what's that" lots and I enjoy explaining new environments to him.  Matthew is working on decibel level of his communications and proper boundaries with his brother. We talk about showing God's love specifically ( kindness, sharing) rather than selfish love ( yelling, taking, pushing).


Academically: He's remembering the words from the books we most often read to him and repeating quite a bit of it back to us. We read, colored, repeated and talked about a weekly scripture. Now that we are towards the end of the school year, we can sing his alphabet song.( I copy and pasted this from the previous post on schooling ) Matthew can identify all the capital and lower case letters as well as know to read the letters going from left to right and top to bottom.  He knows his numbers 1 through 10. He can count to 14 verbally and to 3 with one to one correspondence.  He can identify basic shapes like square, heart, triangle, circle, rectangle as well as the basic primary and secondary colors. He's doing great on positional words, pattern, sizing, sequencing and other critical thinking skills. He can point to all of his body parts. He's independent, creative and gets excited when we get new ideas. He asks for 'fun' :-)

Faith &  Character:We have been doing a monthly faith focus. May is on prayer.  Pinterest has been a great resource to do research, gather materials, get feedback, stay organized and with in budget. Once a week we add a verse through book, visual and song support. We read books, do activities and crafts that help make these concepts more real to Matthew. Anyone with a 2 year old can attest to working on character development every single day. Especially with a sibling in the house. We've been working towards leading the boys that it's not just 'nice to be nice'. It's our way of showing we love Jesus and telling God how thankful we are for His son. We are following God by obeying His rules a.k.a 'being nice'. There are many opportunities to talk about sharing, kind hands, not taking, using a calm voice, respecting someone's feelings, among others.

Personality, Behavior & Preferences: He now has ideas he's trying to explain fully to us. We help him fill in the gaps of his communication. He hears house noises and proclaims someone's at the door. We check the front door quite a bit these days , it's really cute. His favorite toys are cars followed closely by trains. Matchbox/ hot wheel cars are the only thing he'll cry for if he sees them in a store. Bubbles and water play are exciting to him as well. Veggie Takes and Silly Songs are still requested, but he's also enjoying Davey & Goliath and Auto B Good as well. He's getting so much better about taking and yelling. I'm so proud of him for having the desire to be kind to his brother and friends. He's started tattling when Daniel is doing something he isn't supposed to. If he's not running to tell me, I'll hear him say "no no no Daniel, no no no." He's in to the idea of trading Daniel for something since he knows he won't get away with just taking. He sets a toy right next to Daniel and says," here you go Daniel, here you go" until Daniel takes the bait. Matthew responds very well to the Love and Logic approach. We give acceptable choices as often as we can. Mommy can change your diaper or daddy can, etc...Matthew is preferring to eat in a 'big chair' with us during meals, he's far past both his high chair or even a booster. We only put a bib on him when it's an extra messy meal.