Caleb at 24 months

I'm not sure if I've mentioned before that Caleb is a nail biter.  I can't remember the last time I clipped his nails.  He keeps them short by biting them all the time.  Thankfully they still look normal, as if they were clipped.  I didn't realize someone so young could get such a habit!

Caleb is starting to do some things with his right hand.  Up until now, he has drawn with, eaten with, and thrown with his left hand.  Now he will eat and draw with his right hand half the time.  I guess we're still waiting to see what his dominant hand will be.

Lately Caleb has been soaking through his diapers (and jammies) at night.  I remember Eliza was the same way right before she was potty trained, so we were very surprised that she potty trained herself at night a week after daytime potty training.  I'm hoping to have Caleb potty trained before the new baby comes.  He has been successful here and there, but I haven't actually put him in underwear and taken potty training seriously.  This is the age Eliza did it, so we'll see if it works with Caleb.  Wish me luck!

Caleb developed a love for animals while we were in California.  Of course he loved feeding the chickens with Grandpa every evening.  He was also fascinated with their very shy cat, "Heeshee."  He was always concerned that Heeshee was getting enough to eat and he would get so excited when he'd see her outside.  We also saw a number of little frogs.  Caleb loved seeing them jump.  Driving around in the rural areas near Grammy and Grandpa's house we were always sure to see lots of cows, horses, deer, llamas, sheep and goats.  Spotting animals out the car window made long trips (the only kind of trip there was) more exciting for the kids.

Caleb spent many hours under Grammy's front porch digging in the dirt.  He was completely content to be out there by himself with a garden trowel.

Caleb loves pretending with Eliza.  He pretends to be chased by a shark, to be escaping from a fire, and to be floating on a boat.  Most of all, he loves pretending to be a daddy.  He takes good care of his baby and almost always has her with him.

 Here (above) Caleb (with his baby) is showing me the "wawa-melon."  An interesting linguistic note on that: Since "wawa" (water) was one of his first words, he hasn't changed the way he says it even though his language is much more sophisticated now (he repeats 3- and 4-syllable words that he's never heard before when we read scriptures each night, for example).  So anything with "water" in it he says "wawa."  Hearing "wawa-melon" and "wawa-fall" weren't too surprising, but when he wanted to use the "flys-wawa" to hit the fly we cracked up.  "Fly swatter" sounds like "flys water" to him, which translates into "flys-wawa" for him!

 Caleb loved helping Grammy in the kitchen.

At his 2-year check-up, Caleb was in the 91st percentile for weight (32.5 lbs), the 70th percentile for height (35.4 inches), and 82nd percentile for head circumference (19.7 inches).