September was a hell of a month. And that's why this is late. I'm just recovering. And who knows if I'd be recovering if I were in LA this weekend like I am supposed to be. A surprise cold kept us away from the 96-year old Grammy, whose immune system can't be trusted to withstand toddler snot, so I had two days off to catch up. Of course, then he was diagnosed with child asthma, so we have our first really big health worry. But we had some premonition that this was going to happen. There was the emergency room visit in the middle of September, after all, when he couldn't breathe to say more than a word at a time at eleven at night. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I was just distracted and down for the month. It seems that my tension and anxiety and depression are seasonal as well as chemical, but the ~iatrist suggested B-vitamins and exercise as remedies. I looked at him in disbelief. B-vitamins, yes, fine. But when the hell does he think I can find the time to exercise? No, seriously. He has me on meds that make me sleep 9-10 hours a night, I work 9+ hours a day if you count in my commute, and I need to spend time with my kid, deal with errands, cooking, cleaning, and other life maintenance, and have a little time to myself. I told him flat out that I had higher priorities than working out, and he tried to convince me that it would help my overall quality of life. Well, yeah, duh. So would more hours in the day, independent wealth, or a magic wand, and those aren't especially probable either. I'll try - the Squid's daycare is at the Y, so if I can get him there early, I can (maybe) do 20 minutes on the treadmill before I pick him up. I did a test run last week and it didn't really work (and I missed out on precious kid time) but maybe I just need practice. Gah.
This last month was particularly hectic. Himself was gone for a week and a half, the spaniel went into diapers, the shepherd had lifesaving emergency surgery, and the Squid himself was sick for a good portion of it, including that middle-of-the-night emergency room trip. He was diagnosed with child asthma last week, which means his chances of having it as an adult, given his family history, are now hovering around coin-toss levels, and we spent a lot of time in pharmacies and waiting rooms. There must have been ten vet visits, four or five pediatrician visits, thousands of dollars in medical bills, both canine and human...I don't know. It's all a bit of a blur, honestly. I lost things, forgot appointments, and grimly plowed through the last of my freelance contract with the help of the teenaged girl down the block, who played mother's helper and took the Squid to the park some afternoons.
September, September. The problem, of course, is that I've forgotten it already, except for the highlights, which were more sort of lowlights. Checking back through the last Squidbits entry, many things are holding constant. Preschool - still awesome. Alejandro - still BFF. Verbal hilarity and intentional humor - still going strong. He's started telling little stories - like lies, but they're obviously not intended to be believed. He's talking about things he wishes were true (I see the garbage truck!) and things he wants to make me tell him he's silly for - telling me orange things are blue, that kind of thing, like a proto-joke. He also gets on a roll, with "yeah" or "no" and will respond to pretty much anything he is asked with whichever one he is stuck on at the moment.
People are starting to comment on how articulate he is - his preschool class leader, his doctor, a friend in from out of town - and he is fairly intelligible, it's true. I don't have to "translate" him to others often. Of course, we've let him keep his cutest mispronunciations. "Hoptopter" and "mocomopive" are current favorites, although he was chair-dancing the other day, and when I said, "Look at you dance!" he looked over and grinned, then informed me solemnly, "I wock out." He was late to talk, so the clarity and outside confirmations of his articulateness are somewhat of a relief. He's making up for his early silence now, anyway. He never shuts up. I think we all probably know which side of the family he got that from. /o\
We were sitting at the table and naming body parts the other day, and when I asked him where his nose was he pointed at his ears - just being silly, of course, he knows the difference. And I said, "No, silly, that is your ears!" and immediately kind of went *ack* because, way to model subject/verb agreement, mom. And he looked back and me and said, "These are my ears."
He corrected my grammar. He may look almost entirely like his daddy, but there is definitely plenty of me in there, oh yes. He's gotten more bossypants in general - pushing and telling me what to do, though we're trying to discourage the pushing and having the discussions about how hands are not for hitting, you need to use your words, etc. The other day when Himself was beating out a rhythm on his thighs for the Squid to dance to, he danced for a few moments and then went to put his hands over his Daddy's and still them. "No whacking the me, Daddy!" he ordered.
Repetition is here, oh joy. We went down to the train station the other night to watch the trains go by and the release of the brakes was so loud it scared him. So for the last week, we have heard incessantly about how "the locomotive is too loud," and "the train makes loud noises on the tracks," and "I was scared of the locomotive," and "The train makes loud noises and I scared." Over. And over. And over. Next comes the "why" stage, which (as I recall from my brother's childhood) doesn't sound annoying until it arrives and drives you mad. I love it all, of course. I'm so thrilled that he and I can have real conversations! He's even starting to be able to tell me about things that happened in his day when I ask - what he played with, if he had a time out, where he went, what he saw. Before, I had to prompt him very specifically, which meant I more or less had to know the answer before I asked. Now he's got the vocabulary and understanding to convey the info on his own.
He can count to twenty fairly reliably, climb up on the bed by himself, jump, ask politely for things he wants, and copy a circle (sloppily) when drawing. He seems to have gotten the idea of "coloring" - his crayon scribbles are more localized than they once were - and we have our first few pieces of preschool art on the fridge. And now this post window has been open for a week and it is mid-October and I have not finished the entry. So: abrupt end. Perhaps I will do better when I try again in a few weeks.
