Malcolm at 26 months

Malcolm is doing great at 26 months. He continues to be a very self-possessed little boy, wanting to do everything by himself and be involved in everything. He is very attentive to his older brother (who he still calls "brudda" - don't think we've ever come close to "Michael" yet) and always wants to wake him up, play with him, and chase him around. He does also like to provoke him, either by snatching away something of Michael's or jumping on his tricycle and racing off with a very mischievous look in his eyes. We are trying to teach appropriate behavior and I don't want to jump in the middle of every interaction, but I do try to stop any hitting, screaming, and stealing of toys. Malcolm very contritely says, "Ah sorry brudda" when he is told to apologize, which Michael doesn't always accept. But Michael does always politely respond "You're welcome, Malcolm," when Malcolm thanks him for something ("Tuh duh, brudda"). Actually, their interaction makes us smile and laugh a lot - they are starting to have a lot of little conversations. Michael will direct Malcolm to play something or ask him a question and Malcolm will say "Oh!" in a very knowing tone, or "Uh-*huh*." I love it.

Happy boy

Malcolm recently had his own run-in with a furniture edge that he had pulled the edge guard off of ... sigh.  This time we got off with just a late-night visit to the urgent care center, not the ER, and he fortunately did not need stitches, but now he and Michael have mirror-image scars across their eyebrows.  In the medical arena, we also recently discovered that Malcolm has a tree nut and peanut allergy :(  He snuck a cashew at a party last month and we had no idea what was going on at first because we didn't see him actually eat it, but he went through the textbook symptoms over the next couple of hours - throwing up the nut, starting to sneeze violently, and breaking out in awful hives all over his body.  I didn't recognize what was happening for too long but when Mike saw the hives erupting around his eyes he quickly recognized it was an allergic reaction and we got him some pediatric Benadryl right away.  Fortunately his reaction was "mild" because there wasn't any difficulty breathing (no anaphylaxis).  But when we took him to the allergy doctor a few weeks later and did a skin test on his back, it confirmed an allergy to tree nuts (cashews, almonds, pistachios, walnuts, etc.) and peanuts.  It is possible he would grow out of it someday (although less likely with tree nuts than if he just had a peanut allergy), but it is also possible it could be a more severe reaction next time.  So now he has an EpiPen prescription and we are going to have to keep a close eye on what he eats from now on.  It's not to a point where he'd be someone who can't have nuts anywhere in the vicinity -- otherwise he'd be in trouble with his brother eating PBJs pretty much every day -- but we will have to learn to be more vigilant.

Let's not do this again

Malcolm has good weeks and bad weeks at church.  When we say it's time to go, he says, "Oh, chuh!  Shhh."  So he gets it, but as our Curious George books say, sometimes it is easy for little monkeys to forget.  Once a few weeks ago he barely made it to the "I confess" before freaking out -- screeching all the way back to the vestibule.  Last week and this week he was great -- constant movement up and down on the pew and kneeler and back and forth between Mom and Dad -- but he stayed quiet overall.  We are very affirming of these days!  He touches his head for the sign of the cross and clasps his hands when we say grace.  He can say a good approximation of "Jesus" too.  It's very encouraging :)

With Aunt T

Riding in the shopping cart like it was a Segway