Z Update

Since I have been doing updates on Declan, I thought I would also do one on Z.  So, as of 25 1/2 months, this is what I can report.

The Good: Z is super fun.  He loves to laugh and play with kids his age.  He gets so excited when we have play dates or playgroup.   On that same note, he is a pretty good sharer.  Sharing seems to be such a huge thing at this age and Z does a pretty good job.  I always say he is about 80% great at it and 20% of the time we have sharing problems.  This doesn't seem to be too shabby compared to his peers.

Food- Z still is obsessed with fruit and it is usually our go to choice.  He actually likes frozen fruit the best lately.  Otherwise he likes bawk, bawk, or chicken, hotdogs, cheese, and nuts.  He will try most food but those seem to be our staples.  

Sleep- Z continues to be a good sleeper when spoiled with his terms of sleep.  For naps we tend to take him for a drive and then he will sleep for 2-3 hours, most days.  It seems like we have been having shorter naps more often, but I guess that just comes with getting older.  He is sleeping about 11 hours at night and finally can wake up crying and sometimes put himself back to sleep.

Play- Z's favorite things to play with are his blocks (see first photo of a block tower he built himself,) Mr. Potatohead and he is getting into his train table.  He still loves to swing, jump, and swim. 

The Bad: I debated if this should be in the good or bad category, but we don't have much for the bad so I will put it here for now.  Obviously his speaking is our main area of concern.  We have made so much progress in the last few weeks that I, for the first time, am no longer stressed about it.  Z now will imitate anything you say.  Most of is words are still approximation, that is fancy speech therapy talk for- partial words.  However, a lot of kids have approximations when first learning to talk (think of a kid saying p-weese for please.)  I feel confident that in the next 6 months Z will be able to communicate all of his needs (well, as well as a 2 1/2 year old can.)  For now we will keep working.  He tends to drop the first letter of words.  He is now getting an hour and 45 minutes of speech per week.  Oh yeah, it should also be noted that he is such a hard worker.  Both of his speech therapist always comment about how hard he works.  He will sit at his little table and work for 45 minutes a time without getting upset.  I love watching him.

Tantrums- We do have a two year old and we do have to deal with some tantrums.  Z is usually pretty good about calming down.  The reason he has the most tantrums are when he has to say goodbye to people which I think is rather endearing.  As shy as Z can be, once you are in his comfort zone, he doesn't want to let you go.