Sunday, November 14, 2010

32 months

Today you are 32 months old. Yeah, that's right. No half-month posting today! Who's unnaturally on the ball... ME! Woo!
So many things..  good AND bad. Let's get the bad out of the way first, shall we? I say bad, but it's more like par for the course stage of toddler development. Annoying and highly frustrating. But not bad.  It's your mouth, child! Hoooo boy, do you have a mouth on you. I have no idea where you get that, as I am sure that I, for one, almost never smarted off or tested my parents' patience levels to the point of insanity. I certainly wasn't known for this quality. So, it's anyone's guess. Your propensity for the word NO is becoming more and more.. disturbing. You have no remorse whatsoever as you look me straight in the eye and tell it to me, when I ask you to do something - usually mundane, like put your shoes up, please. And when I respond with 'we don't talk to mommy that way' - your response is 99% of the time: 'yes, we do.' Cue the time-out chair. There is counting..  and when the counting stops (usually when a normal child is eager to be finished with time-out) you bellow from the chair 'keep counting!' The act of me choosing to do something (stop counting), prompts you to make an opposite response to my decision. I am growing leery of what older, wiser mothers have been known to say - that the terrible twos are nothing compared to the horrendous threes. I am beyond grateful for your advanced vocabulary - but I also know this will be your undoing. It should be an interesting next few years, to say the least!
You are very testy when it comes to sharing the spotlight when both your father and I are together. If I have something I want to tell him, in your presence, you will usually find some way to make yourself be heard - yelling or otherwise. We have had to teach you that when one of us is talking to the other, that you are to be patient and let us talk til we are done. This goes well maybe 40% of the time. And when it does, and you are a sweet patient quiet boy, you look at us the SECOND we wrap our conversation and say 'thank you for being so quiet.....' SO desperate for praise! Related to this need to intervene, is how you really keep me in check with my tone of voice, concerning your father. If I am trying to get a point across in a harsh tone, you will YELL at me - 'mommy, don't talk like that!' - Thanks son, now I try to save my harsh tone for when you are not around! ;)
This sharing of the spotlight thing is surely going to come into play in the spring-time, when you welcome your forever-spotlight-stealing little sibling! I'll certainly be able to empathize with you, but it'll be your new life as you know it.
You are very much into counting. Counting items, anywhere, and counting out loud before you start something. You'll perch yourself on your little indoor-scooter we have, and say 'ok mommy, I'm gonna count to three, then I'm gonna ride my scooter! ok?? ok? one.. two.. three!!' You are so into counting, that you countdown to count. That's right, you say 'I'm gonna count to five, then I'm gonna count these beads!!' - and you count out loud, before you.. count. You love to put up 1 finger on each hand and proudly say 'how many is this?' and you count your fingers to total two - and you smile like a crazy little genius. You count before I flush the toilet in public restrooms. You count cars as they pass by out front. You count rocks and sticks. You count planes as they fly by.
You crack us up with the random things you say sometimes. You went through a short phase (a few weeks) of totally randomly saying (as you pointed at us) 'mommy! you have a nipple! daddy! you have a nipple!' Strange, but funny. Or very emphatically saying 'oh mommy, you're so handsome!' You cracked yourself up over that one. And when you see a car back up in the middle of the road (doing a two point turn or something) - you will yell at it 'what is that car doing???!' laughing maniacally.
You have a definite sense of good and bad.. scary and not scary. There's very little gray in your world right now. You make bold statements of 'spiders are not good.. doodlebug are good.. ants are not good.. butterflies are good though' (*I think this stems from what you have seen me 'take care of' -kill- and what you haven't!) When your father does his dinosaur impression, which you used to love but are now scared of, you'll say that dinosaurs are not good - but monkeys are okay. You somehow picked up the word 'excellent' -so that is usually what you say now instead of good - things are either excellent or NOT excellent.
Preschool is wonderful. And not just for the time it gives me while you are there! You have made some great friends, which you talk about all the time, and you now love to do crafts and color. You sing songs out of the blue that we've never heard of, that you apparently sing at school. One of which you call 'the bible song' - and goes to the tune of 'the bible book is a gift God made me'... you repeat this line over and over. You started singing the days of the week song, which I certainly never taught you. You sing the clean-up song, which helps immensely. And one day, you told me it was November. I just looked at you, stunned. But you are used to this.
Halloween went very very well. About a trillion times better than last year, the year of the Mad Cow. Your costume was very airy and comfortable - and it represented something you were obsessed with. You got candy, something you really didn't know existed last year (and sadly, are very aware of this year!). It was a success all around.

You tell us stories now. We've been telling you stories for so long, we decided to kick back and have you attempt the story-telling. You come up with some great (and very random) plots. Always starting with 'once upon a time' and usually involving an elephant named Lulu and a dust storm and something getting splashed by a lake. You do some pretty cute hand gestures along the way, too. You raise your hand towards the sky, in increments, to convey how big something is. And the pitch of your voice gets pretty darn high, too - the more excited you make yourself.
I think you are known as the welcome-wagon on our street. No car passes by without you stopping to give it your full attention, as you wave to it. When it's passed on by, you'll turn to me and either tell me that they didn't wave or 'didja see that??! they waved!'. I've noticed quite a few cars that pass by daily around the same time, that wave to you way sooner than you do to them, as they are very used to seeing your smiling face and anticipating your friendliness.If people are on foot. you'll wave til I think your arm is going to fall off, not calling out to them. I had to teach you to say something like hello, very loudly, if they don't see you - but I've had to witness maaany way-too-cool teenagers in our neighborhood give you the cold shoulder. Five feet away. And this makes me want to say very bad things to them. I am pretty surprised I haven't, given my level of pregnancy hormones.
Summing up this novel of a post, you do something everyday that blows my mind - in awe at your sheer brilliance and sometimes in awe at your advanced manipulation skills. Either way, I am one lucky momma. Thank you for every day.