2 years + 6 months

Lincoln is now officially 2 1/2 years old.  He has a personality all his own, but he loves copying people and trying to keep up with his big sister.

Lincoln can pretty accurately count from 1-10, but I'm pretty sure it's just memorized and has little meaning to him.  When he sings the "ABC's" he sometimes just repeats, "Q, R, S...Y and Z." over and over.  He is about 75% accurate when naming basic shapes.  All colors are either green or purple.

Speaking of colors, Lincoln LOVES coloring with markers--especially black and blue.  If you leave him unattended for any amount of time downstairs you will most likely need to scrub his face and hands.  That's why we only have washable markers in our house. ;o)

Lincoln loves playing some of the games Emily got for her birthday.  His favorites are Head to Toe and Steady Freddy.  It's funny listening to him ask for them and carefully enunciating every syllable.  He may not follow the game rules (or Emily's rules), but he is learning how to take turns.


Something Lincoln does NOT love is wearing a coat.  I haven't been able to get his winter coat on him at all.  As a compromise, I have been using a lined hooded sweatshirt and the inside part of another coat as a double layer.  The problem is that as soon as he sets foot inside any building, he immediately strips and drops both layers.  This can get very annoying on errands day when we make 4+ stops plus preschool drop-off and pick-up.  That's a lot of zipper zipping!  Once in awhile he'll let me put the hoods up if it's windy.  We haven't even fought the real battle of hats and mittens yet. :op

The other thing Lincoln does not love wearing is pajamas while sleeping.  He will excitedly put on pajamas after bathtime and wear them just fine while reading books.  However, as soon as you turn off the light and walk out the door he strips them off and drops them on the floor next to his crib.  If you go in to check his diaper and redress him you have a 50/50 chance he'll strip them off again.  So, about 90% of the time he sleeps in only a diaper, often wrapped up like a hotdog in his little fleece blanket.  Then when you come into his room in the morning, the little stinker wants his pajamas back on again and will play in them happily until you get him dressed for the day.  He has even requested to change into pajamas for nap time.

At first I thought it was an aversion towards footed sleepers, so I bought three new two-piece pajama sets in three different types of fabric.  It doesn't seem to make a difference.  Your best shot is with the light-weight lion pajamas, but I think that's more because of the lion and less because of the material/style.  I know this is probably just a phase, so I've learned to look on the bright side--less laundry and wear-and-tear on jammies!

On a somewhat related note, Lincoln has a huge issue with bedhead.  I thought maybe if I gave him a shorter haircut it wouldn't be so bad, but at 7/8 in. it's still all swirly and unruly in the morning.  I guess the only real solution is a total buzz job.  Sigh...