almost 2!

My baby boy is almost 2.  I can't believe it.  He still doesn't talk that much.  He can say mama and dada on demand now.  But he still doesn't really call me "mama" directly.  He recognizes and understands so many things though.  It's amazing.  There's this book we read him - Sesame Street Book of Opposites and he turns lights on and off to demonstrate what's happening in the book.  They mention old and new / dirty and clean sneakers and he'll grab his dad's sneakers and bring them to me when we reach that part of the story.  It's so cute.  We try to get him to say thank you and he'll imitate our intonation but it doesn't exactly sound like thank you..more guttural sounds than actual words.  Shouldn't he be talking more by now?  I guess he'll go at his own pace.  The important thing is he is comprehending what we are saying.  Like when he screams at a restaurant and we tell him he shouldn't scream - he'll scream more.  Ah, the terrible two's.  I would be more worried if he didn't understand and react to what we tell him or talk to him about.  His personality definitely shines through though, even without speech.

He's a pretty stubborn kid.  He definitely wants to do the things you tell him not to do.  Stop turning the light on and off..He'll continue to do so.  Stop pulling the leaves off the plant.   He'll shake the plant even more.  Please stop jumping on the sofa..he'll keep running back and forth on the sofa.  I tried the time out thing and he doesn't want to sit in place or he just laughs and thinks it's a joke.  Is he too young to understand time out?  Sometimes he knows he shouldn't do something like wreak havoc on the plant or shake the floor lamp and when we say, "Do you want to go to timeout?"  He'll go over to the time out chair and sit himself on it for like 2 or 3 seconds.  I think he thinks it's ok now to do something bad as long as he sits on the chair for a few seconds after.  So that whole time out thing isn't working.  There's got to be a more effective way to discipline him, but we still need to figure it out.  I don't want to ignore his bad behaviors or we'll have a raucous little crazy kid who does whatever he wants.