Kev is still learning to talk and the words he uses don’t sound like the words we use, but we’ve learned to pick up on which of his sounds equates to words we use. Here’s a sampling of sounds and their associated words:
Bwow! - (probably his favorite word) means truck, car, or any kind of vehicle with wheels really.
Me! - help me!
Ball - ball
Eh - egg
Ay - onion
Haaa - hot
Yay! - Yay!
Yeah - Yeah
Grunt grunt grunt in quick succession means “water” though we’re encouraging him to say “wa-wa”, which he’s perfectly capable of doing.
a (short a) - means Altoid, which he’s obsessed with, and we have to set rules around when he can have an Altoid. Right now he only gets an Altoid when we get in the car.
Keeshz - Keys
Cheeshz - Cheese
Bee - Berries
Buie - Bunnie (usually in reference to his stuffed bunny which is one of the animals he likes to sleep with)
hmmm? hmmm? - Means he’s looking for his Puppy, which is his favorite stuffed animal
Animal Sounds, ie “mooo, BAH BAH, cheep cheep”
He carries his Puppy with him wherever he goes, except when we go outside, then he knows to put puppy on the couch. Whenever we say that we’re trying to find something, he’ll “help” us, all the while saying “hmm? hmm?”. If he makes that sound on his own, we know he’s looking for the Puppy; this happens frequently and often leads to a house-wide search and rescue mission.
We let him pick out his clothes, as we’re trying early on to let him make as many independent decisions as possible within reasonable bounds, and there’s no reason why he can’t pick out his own clothes. We accept his decision even when it’s not “correct”, such as wearing a pair of pajamas during the day, or a mix of pajamas and daytime clothes.
He loves playing records and we let him pick what record we listen to next. He’s developed his favorites, which mostly consist of Jamaican ska, reggae, and dub. Now that it’s winter, our usual activity of walking around the block is very sadly not as feasible, especially with it getting dark early, so I often drive him around in the car as we listen to music (he also gets an additional Altoid or two). If we put him in the car without turning on music, he’ll make sure to remind us that we need to have music playing at all times. I certainly don’t complain about that.
He’s developing a more finicky toddler pallette. It wasn’t that long ago that he would eat anything we put in front of him, and we tried to take full advantage and we put as a large variety of food as we could manage. He still likes mushrooms, lemons, capers, salmon, roasted onions, green beans, and broccoli. He used to like pineapple and watermelon, but one day I guess he decided he’s not a fan. He tends to be leery about trying new things now. For example, we recently tried to introduce him to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the first time(!) and he eyed it with suspicion and ultimately gave it the toddler thumbs down. So now we’re dealing with a toddler who loves onions and mushrooms but refuses peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That’s amusing, if not a little frustrating at times.
His all-consuming obsession right now is trucks and cars of all sorts. He loves it when we take him to see real construction machinery (there’s a John Deere store we frequent), but he is also perfectly content playing with his toy versions. His favorite stories for us to read to him are - you guessed it - stories that involve trucks, cars, and heavy machinery. Right down the road is a row of real-life 18-wheelers of various kinds, but on miserable winter days which are happening more frequently, we take him to a store like C-A-L Ranch that has shelves of trucks that he can pull down and play with. He’s very good about putting a truck back before playing with a new one, and so far we haven’t been thrown out for loitering (knock on wood).
We just celebrated Kev’s 2nd birthday and he got plenty of new wheels to play with which has so far been keeping him nice and occupied as winter turns harsher. He doesn’t seem to mind staying indoors for long periods of time, even though he hated being cooped up during the summer.
He’s 34.25 inches tall and 25.7 pounds, and he often surprises us with how much older he seems all of a sudden. He likes helping out with the chores around the house such as cleaning the knobs on the cupboards, watering the plants, putting clothes on hangers, vacuuming (he’s great at pushing the on/off button on the vacuum), throwing things away, getting new garbage bags out, and helping push the laundry basket. He’s a relatively good-natured kid and the terrible twos haven’t been too rough so far, although I’m sure I just jinxed it.
PS - we prefer that people call him Kev (not Kevin). The name Kevin just doesn’t seem to fit him and it always feels strange to us when people call him Kevin.