Matt at 2 1/4 years old

Matt turned two and a quarter years old this past February 4th. Since I haven't updated what Matt is up to these days in a more general sense, I thought I'd try to do that.

Here is Matt on his 2 1/4 birthday:

Arranging his dinosaur bones

Fun with boxes

Train time

Matt's current interests are Winnie the Pooh, both the classic and Disney version; Curious George, both the classic and the PBS versions; vehicles, especially construction trucks, and above all trains, including Thomas the Train; dinosaurs, which have come back with a vengeance recently; and animals - pets, farm animals, and sea creatures in particular. His favorite activities at home are puzzles, stickers, and play dough. He has gotten into jigsaw puzzles. He can do most 9-12-piece puzzles without assistance, and he can solve 16-24-piece puzzles with just a little help. He loves being read to most of all, however. In addition to books about his favorite interests, he also likes books like Dr. Seuss, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and Mo Willems' Elephant & Piggie series.

Here is Matt "reading" on his 2 1/4 birthday:

He's not actually reading. (He should be well prepared to read when he's ready, though!) He has made up his own words to go along with the book (Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too? by Eric Carle), but it's not a bad guess at what the book is actually saying. His version is "Baby X loves his mommy," whereas the real version is "Does a baby X have a mother, too?" Before I could grab my phone he had just finished "reading" a short book of nursery rhymes, a couple of which he remembered pretty well (Jack and Jill), a couple of which he sort of remembered (I'm a Little Teapot), and a couple of which he could only remember what he saw in the pictures (Hey Diddle Diddle).

Matt is picking things up quickly. By now he is able to recognize almost all of the letters of the alphabet. (Some days he recognizes more than others, but he's getting there.) He can count up to twelve, although he often skips the number 5 (skipping a number is typical of kids this age), and he has an awareness of the numbers in the teens. He still knows his basic shapes, although things like the square vs. rectangle difference can trip him up. And he still knows his colors, although in some lights orange / red and purple / blue are tricky to distinguish. He is better now about naming more than one color for an object; for example, he will say we have a black and white cat now rather than just black, her dominant color.

Matt is very talkative these days. His words are getting longer, especially as he tries to conquer more dinosaur names. He almost gets all of "triceratops" now rather than just "tree tops," and he can pretty much say "pachycephalosaurus." His vocabulary has just exploded. He can name well over a dozen different dinosaur species (although he prefers to lump all of the flying reptiles under "flying dinosaur"), for example. His favorite question is "How?", often "How can X get down / out?" Close behind are the questions, "What's his name? / What is he called? / What is that?", for which he continues to use "Si-goo-dah?" at times. He can make his own sentences and statements without much, if any, input from us. He will say sentences that have as many as 10 words, and his sentences are getting slightly more complex as they get longer. He is figuring out because, or "po'cause," as he says. Sometimes the two halves of the sentence go together better than others. "Ankylosaurus have bony clubs on tails po'cause they ankylosaurus." Matt is doing pretty well with pronouns. He uses I, my (own), me, you, our, he, his, they, and sometimes their pretty well. The one thing that trips him up is turning around phrases like "Do you need me to help you?" into "Yes, help me"; he'll often say, "Yes, help you," instead. Matt has already picked up on some past and future tense ("I will") verbs, though. He's starting to use more conjunctions and articles, too.

Matt is just about ready to grow out of his 3T shirts, 2T pants, and size 8 shoes, especially after this week's growth spurt. He'll be in 4T shirts, 3T pants, and size 9 shoes by the time spring arrives, if not sooner. He weighs around 31.5 lbs. and is just over 3' tall now.