Little Monkey's nightmares have stopped thankfully, why they started and why they stopped I really have no idea, they lasted for a month, he'd wake up almost every night sometime between 4am-9am crying, sometimes it was just whimpering in his sleep, sometimes he'd cry out but go back to sleep on his own and sometimes he would cry out, and come to us. It was very frustrating because nothing in our lives was different, no major changes, he was watching the same cartoons he always did, so nothing to scare him, and with him not verbal there was no clue as to what it was. All I did in hopes of remedying the problem was put him to bed way earlier than usual and only allow him to watch Elmo before he slept, something that in no way would scare him.

Discipline wise, there are some improvements, he is no longer banging his head against the floor when he gets mad or wants attention, instead he's banging his fist, which is better than his head but still something I would rather him not do, I will work on that eventually but will let it go for awhile. There also aren't a lot of tantrums and he usually does what he's told without much complaint. My main issue is the food spitting, I have no idea why he does it, my dad kept saying cuz I forced food on him, but that's not it at all, I dont feed him anything unless he asks for it, so he's hungry and asking for food, and I get him what he asks for which is something he likes he would either spit at the first bite or take a few and then spit, he's not full, he's still hungry and the food tastes fine, no reason to spit it out, I've tried the naughty corner and removing tv or toy rights, I've tried shouting, hubby tried totally ignoring it as if it didnt happen but still he kept spitting that whole day, one day I removed all snacks from him and he didnt eat anything that day and the next day he ate whatever I gave him without spitting. The spitting reminds me of his vomiting days and really frustrates me that I dread feeding him and dealing with all that. He doesnt have a sore throat or anything else because he can eat snacks and have cold juice with no problems. I guess he's getting picky and it's an age thing but I really dont like it because I never had any problem with eating and feeding before, he ate almost everything...

His vocabulary is expanding, he's learnt a few more words and recognizes things and plays with things differently and its all very cute, but still nothing is pronounced completely or correctly, but the way he looks me in the eye and talks to me as if he's having a totally normal conversation is the cutest, I have no idea what he's saying unless he points at it or takes me to it. Here I am waiting and hoping for the best.

I take back any accusation of drama that has happened in the past year that I thought was a lead up to the terrible two's. What's going on now is definitely the terrible twos. We have a few issues we're trying to deal with these days, a time out or a cool-down time works most of the time.

* he spits his food
* he has a very bad temper from the smallest of things, his toy falls from his hand (loud screaming), he tries to stick something big into something small (loud screaming), if I don't respond in a millisecond (loud screaming) and so on, and its such an obvious fake loud scream, no crying or any emotion in it, just screams
* when the screaming doesn't get my attention (i totally ignore it), he would either get louder but usually would get down on the floor and bang his head against the floor, and today he gave himself a bump from all the banging.

Yesterday I was out with my high school buddies, and I had gotten him a Lightning McQueen balloon on a stick to keep him busy, so if the balloon fell from the stick it was the loudest ever screams from him in the middle of the restaurant, either me or my friends would rush to him to fix it. It was quite embarrassing.

I really wish I could control his temper, my brother is like this but he was never this bad, and my brother takes after our uncle, who has the worst possible temper when he's in a foul mood, so I guess these things are genetic, but I want to stop it, cause like my mom was saying shit happens and he should learn to deal with it and not have a meltdown, especially when its this minor.

This has been bothering me for awhile now. I really don't know how to play with Little Monkey. He's 27 months old and still not speaking, he has a vast vocabulary in both English and Arabic but they are all half words, barely any pronounced correctly and too far from creating phrases or sentences.
He's a little monkey, his main interest is to climb anything and that includes us, if i go sit beside him he would suddenly turn and start climbing my back and trying to sit on my shoulders or head and in the process I usually get kicked in the face or get my hair pulled, if it was particularly painful I might shout at him or I just get up and leave him.
Even the way he hugs us is odd, he would twist his mouth and bang his cheek or forehead against us and its painful, he does this with us and with his stuffed toys.
His favorite toys are anything with wheels, he has a huge collection of toy cars and trains and he can spend hours pushing those around the living room or around the dining table, he also enjoys little people or animal figures, where he has them walk around or he lines them up or even tries to make them ride the cars and trains. He has other toys but he doesn't play with them too often, when I try to play with him, like push cars around, we either end up with a tantrum or I end up painfully bored, I do things in a way he doesn't like and because he cant tell me what's wrong he throws a tantrum or he wants me to keep doing the same thing countless times or he wants me to do something impossible like balancing a large figure on a car and drive it around. He doesn't care for books, I've tried so much since he was really young, he would keep opening and closing the book or turning the pages before I could point out anything to him. I tried coloring and all he does is make a line with each crayon and placing them neatly in a row on the table and leaving. Puzzles totally frustrate him and lead to tantrums. Blocks are fun for both of us but he doesn't play with them for too long, always moving onto something else. Watching a movie or TV is something we can do together with no complaints from either of us, but how much TV will we watch. He loves playing outdoors and running around and going to the playground but sadly most of our days are spent indoors without much chance to go outside. He's a happy child and doesn't seem bothered by my lack of playtime with him, he's very independent and can keep himself busy for hours, which is really helpful when I'm cooking or getting something done, its me that's feeling guilty, I spend most of my day in front of my computer keeping myself busy with something online and occasionally try to play with him till I get kicked and give up and come back here.

I used to imagine reading books to my child or coloring together, I imagined I could sit down and teach my child something as simple as colors, letters, numbers, or shapes, but he just can't or won't sit long enough to grasp anything and I'm sure that is one of the reasons he's behind in speaking.

So what suggestions or ideas do you have....