I'm starting to get the feeling that Alex is even smarter than anyone gives him credit for. Not in a child prodigy kind of way, but he is so aware for his age. And he is so so stubborn.

He's been regressing a bit in his potty training and his listening (i.e. doing as he's told). I honestly think that like an adult, he's insulted when he's told he has to do something "because I say so". Even if he's told to do something he was going to do anyway, if he's told to do it, he refuses or does the opposite. He wants to be in charge of his own path and his own choices. Sometimes he throws tantrums about it, but most of the time it's in such a matter of fact way. He simply doesn't want to be "ordered" around as though he's a child.

And he's very aware of the world around him. Last week, I gave him some shrimp to eat which is one of his favorites. But it was left over shrimp cocktail (so it looked more like the animal) and he decided that he couldn't eat it because "it has lungs." Only after I explained to him that shellfish don't have lungs because they don't breathe the way we do would he eat it. What 2 year old thinks about those things???