The Zorio Family: 2 Year Update

24 months is such an awesome age! Dawson can communicate SO much to us, which I think is the main reason we are loving this age! Dawson had his 2 year check-up last week. He is 35 inches tall (1 inch shy of 3 feet!), and he weighs 29.5 pounds. He is still tall for his age, in the 90th percentile. Dawson's appointment went really well and was relatively uneventful. Normally I have a long list of questions for the doctor, but this time I only had one...I think the doctor was surprised! After checking his stats, examining Dawson, and talking to John and I, Dawson only had to get one shot before we were free to go. He, of course, cried when he got the shot (and John and I had to hold him down, which I always absolutely hate). He did, however, get over it pretty quickly. His doctor was impressed that two times while we were there Dawson announced he had to go potty and he actually went!

Dawson has been very interested in using the potty, and so I started working with him on potty training. He is doing AWESOME! When we're home he wears cloth training pants, and he has a few accidents. He hates it when he has an accident though because the training pants (unlike pull-ups training pants) don't really absorb much. I think that is helping him to want to go to the bathroom because when he does have an accident he says, "Ewie!" and "Gross!" the whole time he's wet. He continues to amaze us at how well he is doing though. Yesterday, he only had 3 accidents all day...that even involved staying dry during nap time! Last week when we drove to Tennessee, he stayed dry the whole 4 hour car ride. I have been very impressed! His doctor did warn us, though, that sometime when boys start potty training right at 2 they can do great and then fall off the wagon. She just told us not to worry if that happened. I have just been thrilled that he is doing so well, so we will see what happens down the road.

At 24 months, Dawson is a chatter box! He can say way more words than I could ever list. He puts together 4-word sentences on a regular basis, and he has even had a few longer sentences! His favorite thing to talk about right now is still his birthday and, of course, the CAKE! :)

Dawson is so active; some days it seems like he does not stop running, jumping, and climbing. We spend most of the daylight hours outside getting out all of that energy. From the moment he wakes up he wants to be "out," and a lot of days that's the first word that comes out of his mouth! Outside, his newest obsession is the sandbox. For his birthday his Lolly and Pop got him a sandbox which Dawson absolutely loves! (The only downside is that we constantly have sand in the house! Just feels like we're at the beach all the time!) He also loves to look at the garden and talk about the veggies, dirt, and strawberries.

Dawson's favorite book is still Hello, Smokey. On every page Dawson says, "Hello, MOKEY!" or "Go Vols!" We actually had to take the book with him to the doctor's office because he didn't want to leave home without it. His doctor went to Vandy, so she accused us of brainwashing him early...we assured her that it was his favorite book! :) Then Dawson started telling her all about "Mokey" (Smokey). I love it! On one page in the book, we sing Rocky Top, and now Dawson even knows when to put his arms up to do the "woo" part! :) A future Volunteer in the making, I'm sure!

Another obsession at the age of 24 months, is our mower. Actually, anyone's mower. Some days it's all we can talk about. He will ask to get the key to the shed to get the mower out. He has a toy mower which he loves, but he will do anything to get a peek at a real mower. If there's a mower going in our neighborhood, Dawson can hear it and we have to find it! He also loves to talk about "weed-eats" (weed eaters) and "bowwers" (leaf blowers). He's all boy!

One new thing we have discovered that Dawson enjoys is playing on inflatables. After we saw how much he enjoyed the one at his birthday party, we have taken him to a couple of places with indoor inflatables. This morning we went to a new business called The Play Place that was awesome. It had several large inflatables, bean bags in front of a projector tv screen, a lego table, and best of all several of Dawson's friends. We met a lot of Dawson's friends to play, and they all had a blast running, climbing, and bouncing for about 2.5 hours! It was the perfect day for it too, since it was rainy all morning.

Although I can't believe how big my little, baby Dawson has gotten to be, he continues to be more and more fun the older he gets! Enjoy the pictures below...