Max is 29 months old.

Amy and I sat here trying to figure out exactly how old Max is. I tell everyone he's two and half because I don't want to go through the hassle of counting months anymore. So here Amy and I were counting with out fingers to verify that Max is now 29 months old--I'm sticking with two and half and after he turns three, no more month counting.

Max is more curious now but not so curious that he breaks thingsm he's more cautious now. If he does it is usually an accident that could have happened to anyone or something that he just wasn't familiar with. His motor skills are really sharp now as he can do many things carefully using his hands. He still falls a lot though. Max is very eager to do things and seems to be in a hurry to get from one place to another, he runs everywhere. My mother calls him a "busy little squirrel". He is not napping as much anymore so I am seeing a transition from a baby schedule to a curious little boy's schedule.

I am a little confused by what Max is ready to learn. There are some things that he seems to understand the first time I tell him and other things that he does not appear to understand. I can tell when he understands what I tell him because he will take over whatever I just showed him and do it himself. When he does not understand something, he leaves--probably to do something he can do or more fun. Or, he understands and does not feel like listening to me. Obviously, teacher(parent)-student(son) relationship will improve as he learns to communicate.

Max had a difficult time at the barber shop, last week. He has a melt-down whenever I take him and kicks, screams and appears very, very sad and then gives me a dirty look, "how could you let them do this to me dad?". His barber is extremely talented because she can cut his hair in sections as he shakes his head. I think he's simply curious about why he needs this done and absolutely fascinated by the all the gadgets his hairdresser uses. Every time she switched clippers, Max would swing his head wildly to see what else she was going to do. He tracked her every move. I need to let him hold on to our clippers and run them so that he gets used to getting his haircut without being restrained by several adults. In the end, he walked out with a neat and short haircut and a brand, new lollipop.

Speech:

Max is putting simple two-three word sentences together. I think that he knows more than what he can say. He is very specific about his needs and if you cannot produce what he is requesting, he will push or pull you in the general direction of what he wants. Luckily it is mostly things like a DVD, cocoa or a snack. He is officially bilingual (English and Spanish) but he knows where to use the words. He never speaks Spanish to Amy in fact, if I saw something to him in Spanish, he will ignore me.

Toys:

We are doing everything we can to keep him well rounded in terms of his interests. I did not wan him to only be aware of toys for boys, (e.g., guns, lasers, grenades, robots, etc...) and gave him legos, chalk, a nice wooden train set. But it does not seem to matter. He likes robots (refers to them as "ahbahts"), jets, rockets ("ahket"). He frequently uses his robot to destroy the wooden train set. Yes, that's probably all my fault(daddy) for showing him things that I thought were cool when I was a little boy. But I also showed Max other things, he just seemed attracted to the rockets and robots. He understands what batteries are and what they do. So, I may as well say it now that I am probably going to get him mostly science related toys.

Knowledge and memory:

Max can identify most of the letters in the alphabet and even some numbers but I don't think that he understands what order these things fit in. When he does rocket countdowns, he'll say, "2-9 blah blah!". He knows what some of the planets are and seems understands that you need a vehicle of some sort to get from one planet to another although I don't think that he understands what planets are, but he understands the concept of a vehicle. He appears to have an amazing memory but obviously selective. Sometimes I will forget where I parked the car, or approach another car that looks like mine and he will correct me immediately, "no, no, no". Location of certain people and things he needs are important to him now and he will ask by saying, "where is he?" or, "where is she?". Also, he can remember certain expressions made on movies and tv programs that he watches a lot.

Generally:

I can tell that Max is going to enjoy teasing people although I do not know how much he is going to enjoy being teased back. It is difficult to say what his personality is going to be like because I see new and wonderful developments every week.

Until next month...