Halfway to 3

My child is an official 2 ½ year old this month. Here is what he is up to now.

• He has discovered that the cushions can be pulled off of the couch and strewn around on the floor for him to jump on. He jumps off the couch yelling, “Gump!! Gump!!” and then when he lands he claps for himself. I will not tell you who taught him how to do this, but his name starts with “T” and ends with “im.”

• He has a very very good memory. Too good, maybe. One time, he had a little friend come over. The boys were having so much fun that the friend, let’s call him “C,” didn’t want to take the time to go potty, so we had a bit of an accident. I changed him and let him wear some of Marcus’s pants so he wouldn’t have to go home. Now, whenever Marcus wears the pants he calls them, “C’s pants.”

• He’s started performing his nighttime ritual on his little stuffed animals. I will find them all lined up side by side with their heads on a pillow and a blanket on top of them. He even brings them a book and says, “Night night, animals. Night night.”

• Every time we tell Marcus that he gets to go to nursery, he says, “Firetruck?” I think this means that there is a firetruck that he plays with when he goes, but I am not sure. Maybe there was some kind of exciting incident that the parents were never told of . . .

• Every morning I let Marcus choose which shirt he wants to wear that day. The conversation always goes like this:

“Marcus, which shirt do you want to wear today?”

“Firetruck?”

“Oh, you wore that yesterday. It’s dirty. Which other shirt do you want to wear?”

“Digger?”

“Oh, you already wore that one too. Let’s pick a different one today.”

We love you, Marcus!!