The last month or so has seen some big developmental leaps from Gideon.
In the month before Christmas he went from "solo toddler, playing by himself" to "Small child who loves playing chase with Sophia, even if he gets overwhelmed sometimes". Occasionally I have to remind her that she has to let go when he pushes her away, but he's always right back in there ten seconds later.
Since then he's been going further. In December he wasn't happy sharing at all. I had to strictly tell him when it was Sophia's turn to play with a toy, and he perfected a "sad look" to deploy when that happened. But once he got usedto the idea that he'd get the toy back again a few minutes later he got much less grumpy about sharing, and now seems as reasonable as you can get from a 2-year-old!
Last night the two of them were taking it in turns bringing each other the witch hat so that the other one could be the "scary witch" and chase them around the room, and then hiding under the duvet cover from each other repeatedly. And then he was playing with his cuddly shark, sticking his finger in its mouth, and squeaking when it "bit him", before bringing it to me to kiss it better, which must have happened a dozen times. It was terribly cute.
He's also getting better at spending time with me. Even a few weeks ago he was terribly unhappy if Jane left the room, with me having to restrain him so that she could use the toilet in peace - and then yesterday he was happy for me to take him upstairs and play with him for ten minutes until she came out.
He's still not speaking very well - he's now adding vocabulary okay, nothing like hers was at that age, but definitely improving regularly - but his pronounciation is very "blurry". The hearing team have finally passed us on to the Ear Nose and Throat department to see if anything is actually up. He can definitely *hear* but I'm not sure if things sound a bit underwater to him, he has regular ear infections, and when I was young I had hearing issues, so definitely want him to be checked out.
But overall I'm delighted with his progress, and am enjoying time with him more and more as we go along.
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