Malakai 2.5

Today Malakai is exactly 2 and a half! It's amazing what a difference 6 months has made. He looks so much different, so much older to me already. He has learned a ton over that time as well and his personality develops more and more everyday.

Malakai is hilarious, always making others laugh, especially his parents. He says and does some of the most random things. However, at the same time he is a creature of habit. I suspect that this is something he shares in common with many other two year olds. He could eat PBJ and yogurt for lunch every single day and be perfectly content. He likes things to be "just so". I don't dare find out what would happen if I gave him a sandwich without first cutting it into 4 triangles (this mama leaves the crust on though).

He is much taller and a bit thinner, although he's surely hanging onto that sweet round baby face. He still has the bluish vein between his eyes, and people have finally stopped asking if it's a bruise. His hair grows so quickly I can't keep up and he's already due for another trim. I (not so secretly) love the shaggy look and the little curls he gets in the back. His eyes are a greenish hazel, almost exactly like daddy's. He loves to jump and attempts somersaults more often than I'd like. He is bashing his head into things much less and while he always has bruises they are not as numerous as they had been just half a year ago. He must be more stable these days.

Lately he has taken to giving us a bit of a mean look when he doesn't get the response he wants. He's just as persistent as ever, but if he doesn't want to comply with what is being asked of him he'll just repeat "I can't" over and over again. A close cousin to "I don't like that", and one of his first sentences "I don't want it". When you do something "wrong" he says your name with a bit of a whine as if to ask "what were you thinking mama?!". This is much too close to a teenage reaction for me. He can be a bit bossy, we're working on that...

He says "I love you, too" when you tell him you love him though. Just last night he asked me to "snuddle" before bed. He has always been a pretty independent kid, wanting to play on his own and do it his way. Lately though, he's been asking us to join him in his play and he plays really well with other children. He has also been trying to interact with Desmond much more. Today he tried to pick him up and lay him on a pillow. He constantly tries to put the binky in Des' mouth for him, and he has a strange fascination with brother's tiny hands.

Malakai has always had some issues with sleep. He hasn't stuck with a pattern for more than a month, unless it was a pattern of not going to bed easily. He has been skipping at least one and sometimes two or three naps a week. He'll get into EVERYTHING in his room (and there's not much in there) or just stay awake tossing and turning until he cries to "come out". We're suspecting a bit of anxiety when it comes to sleep as he's had some pretty severe reactions to bed/nap time.

His biggest obsession is numbers (nuh-muhs) and letters (yetters). While he says some things a bit incorrectly, his pronunciation of most words is actually really good. When it comes to the alphabet, he knows it all. He has been able to sing the entire thing for a long time now. He can also point out any letter and name it no matter what the order or if it's upper or lower case. His latest thing is letter sounds. Kai knows the sounds of almost every letter. He loves to make up games where he takes the letters out of his puzzles and then looks for them to put them back, narrating the whole time: "Where's the 'a'? There, there, there's the 'a'!" We're pretty sure he got this from the PBS show "Super Why".

When it comes to numbers he can correctly count up to 13 and then there's an 18 and an eleventeen in there somewhere before he gets to 20. He correctly counts items though, pointing at each while he counts.

He loves to explore, indoors and out. He'll go through all of his toys or investigate things at Grandma's house. He is fascinated by every leaf and rock in our yard. He's so adventurous that he's already climbed the rock wall at the park to get to the big slide.

{we had snow today!}

As long as I can remember I've referred to Kai as "strong willed" and that hasn't changed one bit. He knows who he is, and what he likes/dislikes and isn't afraid to let you know. He's also quite sweet and over the past few months has become a much better listener. He always says please and thank you and is sometimes coy with new people, even if he was the first to say (shout) hello. He is such a happy kid.

When I look at him compared with little Desmond I can't believe that just 30 short months ago Malakai was a brand new little baby. I wish I could remember the details of every single day that has passed since then, it's going much too fast for me.










Don't forget to keep up with our day to day at my Project 365 blog!