About halfway through the month I thought, I should really make an interim post. So much has happened! And then I didn't and now I can't remember what I was going to say - it seems that he has always been this bright, talkative, person that he is now and that he was never any other way. Progress what? Progress who? But there has been progress, there has.
He's developed opinions, and the time of choices and options is upon us. If told what to wear, half the time he will refuse. So we offer him "this one or that one?" and let him pick, and so far so good. He's also gotten pickier about his food - he licks the peanut butter off his sandwiches instead of just eating the damn sandwich, refuses any pasta that I pack in his lunches, and makes specific food requests. Today at the grocery he leaned toward the cookie display. "Cookie cookie cookie!" he exclaimed.
"No, we're not buying any cookies today," I told him.
"Buy cookie!" he insisted. Thus is the begging-in-supermarkets behavior begun. I did not buy him the cookies, but I mourn the end of this golden era nonetheless. Soon I will be the woman dragging the weeping and inconsolable toddler through the aisles, grimly purchasing staples as he howls for marshmellows. Is it too late to crawl under the bed and never emerge?
He talks a blue streak now. Not only does he repeat everything we say (notable utterances immediately echoed by Squid, include "Oh, crap," and "Oh my god!") he makes sentences now, real ones of his own that aren't just parroting other people's phrases. Everything gets the definitive article - "the plane!" "the mama!" "the daddy!" "the cereal!" - and really, I can't imagine a clearer linguistic marker of the way toddlers see the world; it sort of encapsulates the immediacy and centrality of their own experience.
He talks a lot about potty things, as all two year olds do, and about the neighbor kid, who is nine months older and the Coolest Thing Ever, and about the dogs, bugs, the helicopter, and about cars and motorcycles and trains and trucks (VRUMMM! VRUMMM!). I heard him babbling to himself near the beginning of the month as I was washing dishes, and some of the sounds seemed familiar; I turned around and he was playing with the alphabet magnets he had gotten for his second birthday. Just for kicks, I leaned down and picked one up - "What's this?" I said.
"The ESS!" he informed me, delightedly. I boggled. I took him through the rest, and it turns out he knows about half his alphabet. I assume this is daycare's doing. He's also obsessed with numbers and counting - he recognizes the difference between written numbers and written letters, and can get reliably to "four" in the sequence before leaping to "six" and thence onward. I'm not sure he recognizes that numbers designate quantities of things, yet, but by the time that clicks in, he should have 1-10 at least. Wow, my little guy!
"Sorry, you okay?" is still a favorite phrase. I just heard him say it to his Daddy, totally at random. One day it was all he would say to me, for hours, and it really started to freak me out, but mostly he pipes up with it whenever someone has bumped into something or a game has gotten really exciting or changed pace. He's just very interested in decoding how other people feel, which is awesome - he is worried that characters in his books are "sad?" and he can tell me who is happy and angry, too, though I'm trying to get him to substitute "frustrated" for angry - "mad" is much easier to say than "frustrated," but frustrated is (IMHO) at the root of most anger kids experience, and I'd like to have that identification clear early on.
The new daycare called, and he'll have a spot there in July or August, which is awesome. They're an unpretentious play-based daycare (located at the YMCA, so convenient) that is full of a whole pack of kids near his age for him to rat-pack around with. His current daycare is run by a wonderful woman, but there are only one or two other kids there on any given day, and only one is his age. Not enough for a curious, active, friendly guy like the Squid. And the new daycare will take him even though he isn't potty-trained...and potty-train him! My co-worker sent her kids there and said they loved it and came out with alphabet, numbers, and dry pants...the Squid is almost there with both alphabet and numbers already, but dry pants would be a real coup.
He's also been spending a lot of time with Daddy, at the park and just around the house. As he says, "Yay, Daddy!" Tonight he made me sing the "C is for Cookie" song, only with "D is for Daddy" over and over and over. Our childcare situation has really equalized - I feel like we have a good division of labor, and that it skews my way as often as it skews Himself's - and I think it is reflected in the shift in the Squid's affections. Daddy is the one who takes him to the park and the airport! Daddy makes him oatmeal and talks to him about what he dreamed last night when he wakes up in the morning! Daddy is his buddy for playing in the backyard! Yay, Daddy! Himself often works from home in the morning, on conference calls, and half my a.m. Squidwrangling involves keeping him away from the office door, so that he does not knock at it incessantly and demand "Daddy!" or "[Himself]!" over and over.
He'll walk places now, preferring to walk over using the stroller, though hand-holding is still a negotiation. He'd like to be carried everywhere, but at twenty-nine pounds, not likely, kiddo. He can climb up to the slides at the park and slide down them All By Himself, and climb on some of the more tricky climbing structures as well, much to my trepidation. He's reached the toy stage of getting them all out and playing with them for fifteen seconds and then leaving them in the middle of the floor, but we're working on the concept of putting things back with some fair success. He has a stuffed monkey he sleeps with every night. Things are good.
As for la mama, I am tired. No, I don't know why, I sleep plenty (8-10 hours a night plenty), I eat fine. I've just been exhausted for a few weeks now for no good reason. Life is good, work is good, Squid is good, Himself is good. I'm just tired. I'm off my game as a result; I made it halfway to work this morning before realizing there was still someone in the back of the car talking about "the truck!" and had to turn around and take him back to daycare. I've googled "chronic fatigue" to see if it is a symptom of anything, but I'm pretty sure I don't have mono, and nothing else on the list looks real likely. I think what I have is a toddler. And a job. But I made a doctors' appointment anyway, because this is ridiculous.
Tonight I made the Squid a hot dog in the shape of an octopus for dinner. Himself called over to the Squid, who was playing in the living room, "Come eat your octopus!"
"It's a special kind of octopus," I added. "Not like calamari."
Himself looked thoughtful. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "It's kind of like trailer park calamari."
He's developed opinions, and the time of choices and options is upon us. If told what to wear, half the time he will refuse. So we offer him "this one or that one?" and let him pick, and so far so good. He's also gotten pickier about his food - he licks the peanut butter off his sandwiches instead of just eating the damn sandwich, refuses any pasta that I pack in his lunches, and makes specific food requests. Today at the grocery he leaned toward the cookie display. "Cookie cookie cookie!" he exclaimed.
"No, we're not buying any cookies today," I told him.
"Buy cookie!" he insisted. Thus is the begging-in-supermarkets behavior begun. I did not buy him the cookies, but I mourn the end of this golden era nonetheless. Soon I will be the woman dragging the weeping and inconsolable toddler through the aisles, grimly purchasing staples as he howls for marshmellows. Is it too late to crawl under the bed and never emerge?
He talks a blue streak now. Not only does he repeat everything we say (notable utterances immediately echoed by Squid, include "Oh, crap," and "Oh my god!") he makes sentences now, real ones of his own that aren't just parroting other people's phrases. Everything gets the definitive article - "the plane!" "the mama!" "the daddy!" "the cereal!" - and really, I can't imagine a clearer linguistic marker of the way toddlers see the world; it sort of encapsulates the immediacy and centrality of their own experience.
He talks a lot about potty things, as all two year olds do, and about the neighbor kid, who is nine months older and the Coolest Thing Ever, and about the dogs, bugs, the helicopter, and about cars and motorcycles and trains and trucks (VRUMMM! VRUMMM!). I heard him babbling to himself near the beginning of the month as I was washing dishes, and some of the sounds seemed familiar; I turned around and he was playing with the alphabet magnets he had gotten for his second birthday. Just for kicks, I leaned down and picked one up - "What's this?" I said.
"The ESS!" he informed me, delightedly. I boggled. I took him through the rest, and it turns out he knows about half his alphabet. I assume this is daycare's doing. He's also obsessed with numbers and counting - he recognizes the difference between written numbers and written letters, and can get reliably to "four" in the sequence before leaping to "six" and thence onward. I'm not sure he recognizes that numbers designate quantities of things, yet, but by the time that clicks in, he should have 1-10 at least. Wow, my little guy!
"Sorry, you okay?" is still a favorite phrase. I just heard him say it to his Daddy, totally at random. One day it was all he would say to me, for hours, and it really started to freak me out, but mostly he pipes up with it whenever someone has bumped into something or a game has gotten really exciting or changed pace. He's just very interested in decoding how other people feel, which is awesome - he is worried that characters in his books are "sad?" and he can tell me who is happy and angry, too, though I'm trying to get him to substitute "frustrated" for angry - "mad" is much easier to say than "frustrated," but frustrated is (IMHO) at the root of most anger kids experience, and I'd like to have that identification clear early on.
The new daycare called, and he'll have a spot there in July or August, which is awesome. They're an unpretentious play-based daycare (located at the YMCA, so convenient) that is full of a whole pack of kids near his age for him to rat-pack around with. His current daycare is run by a wonderful woman, but there are only one or two other kids there on any given day, and only one is his age. Not enough for a curious, active, friendly guy like the Squid. And the new daycare will take him even though he isn't potty-trained...and potty-train him! My co-worker sent her kids there and said they loved it and came out with alphabet, numbers, and dry pants...the Squid is almost there with both alphabet and numbers already, but dry pants would be a real coup.
He's also been spending a lot of time with Daddy, at the park and just around the house. As he says, "Yay, Daddy!" Tonight he made me sing the "C is for Cookie" song, only with "D is for Daddy" over and over and over. Our childcare situation has really equalized - I feel like we have a good division of labor, and that it skews my way as often as it skews Himself's - and I think it is reflected in the shift in the Squid's affections. Daddy is the one who takes him to the park and the airport! Daddy makes him oatmeal and talks to him about what he dreamed last night when he wakes up in the morning! Daddy is his buddy for playing in the backyard! Yay, Daddy! Himself often works from home in the morning, on conference calls, and half my a.m. Squidwrangling involves keeping him away from the office door, so that he does not knock at it incessantly and demand "Daddy!" or "[Himself]!" over and over.
He'll walk places now, preferring to walk over using the stroller, though hand-holding is still a negotiation. He'd like to be carried everywhere, but at twenty-nine pounds, not likely, kiddo. He can climb up to the slides at the park and slide down them All By Himself, and climb on some of the more tricky climbing structures as well, much to my trepidation. He's reached the toy stage of getting them all out and playing with them for fifteen seconds and then leaving them in the middle of the floor, but we're working on the concept of putting things back with some fair success. He has a stuffed monkey he sleeps with every night. Things are good.
As for la mama, I am tired. No, I don't know why, I sleep plenty (8-10 hours a night plenty), I eat fine. I've just been exhausted for a few weeks now for no good reason. Life is good, work is good, Squid is good, Himself is good. I'm just tired. I'm off my game as a result; I made it halfway to work this morning before realizing there was still someone in the back of the car talking about "the truck!" and had to turn around and take him back to daycare. I've googled "chronic fatigue" to see if it is a symptom of anything, but I'm pretty sure I don't have mono, and nothing else on the list looks real likely. I think what I have is a toddler. And a job. But I made a doctors' appointment anyway, because this is ridiculous.
Tonight I made the Squid a hot dog in the shape of an octopus for dinner. Himself called over to the Squid, who was playing in the living room, "Come eat your octopus!"
"It's a special kind of octopus," I added. "Not like calamari."
Himself looked thoughtful. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "It's kind of like trailer park calamari."
posted by The Stute Fish at 20:41
1 Comments:
Hee hee trailer park calamari.
A lot of people in my office have been tired and we've been blaming it on the unstable weather.
--Anon
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