On Monday Wee Man officially turned 18 months old, and while I still think of him as my baby, I am quickly learning that he is definitely no longer a baby. He went running nude out of the bathroom the other day (there's always a quick escape between undressing and bath time in which he loves to run around the house naked at top speed laughing and squealing the whole time!) and I realised all of his baby fat was gone. Gone are the days of chubby legs and belly and here - running around my house - was this tall, lean little boy!
I've noticed that nothing gets by him anymore either. I've always thought that children were like little sponges, just soaking up everything in their world around them. Watching, learning, storing, memorising, parroting - the world is so exciting because everything is new....and they just love to learn and explore! Things that I never really think about because to me they are just part of everyday get Wee Man so interested or excited. It's fun re-living life through the eyes of a toddler.
But his language acquisition from day to day - and the beginning of him forming sentences - has been the most amazing thing to watch. Last week my husband and I were trying to guess how many words Wee Man had now and so with a pen and paper I jotted them down as we played and he spoke. In a half hour period we had written down 52 words that the general public would be able to understand, 48 more that we knew what he was talking about but weren't overly clear, and 17 animal noises. Wow! Crazy. Our 'What To Expect' book says by 18 months he should have 10 words. Haha. No communication issues here.
The other day he had us in stitches with some of the things he was doing and saying and my mom said "I hope you're writing these down somewhere"....well, that is what today's blog posting is going to be about. I want to remember these things! These aren't in any particular order - just jotting them down as they come to me:
- Those that know me well will know the important part Michael Jackson has played in my life. I'm a huge fan, and have been for most of my life. So needless to say, when my ipod is on and playing you're likely to hear at least a song or two every half hour or so. The rule in my house is we don't have the TV on during the day - with the exception of the news and an occasional snippet of a show on either side of the noon-hour news cast. So music is our background throughout the day. I'm quite eclectic and my ipod has everything from MJ, to Beethoven, to 80s & 90s one-hit-wonders and pop artists, to African drumming, to kids music (Disney, Muppets), and so on. I often tell the kids the name of the song and the artist who are playing while we're listening and Wee Man loves to dance, so the faster beat songs tend to get his attention. I never really thought that at this age he would be able to tell the difference between artists. Well the other day 'Dangerous' comes on the stereo and Wee Man looks up from his Mega Blocks tower he was building and says "Jackson". A few songs later 'Black or White' came on and he said it again, "Mama. Jackson". I was floored. Good 'ol boy - knows his MJ. Made his mama proud! ;-)
- At my mom's house the other day Wee Man was climbing on and off an armchair she has in her living room. We allow him to climb up on the furniture so long as he sits down on his bottom on it when he has gotten up. This particular time he kept standing up to look over the back of it as the chair is kind of in the middle of the great-room, next to a couch making sort of an informal room divide between the living and dining rooms. I told him a couple of times he needed to sit down and he would do so, but as soon as we turned away there he would be - back standing up and checking out what was going on in the kitchen/dining room area. Finally I had lost my patience with him and told him if he continued to be bad I was going to take him off the chair. He looked at me with these big eyes and said "bad". So I asked him what was bad and he promptly replied with "Hen-wy" (Henry is the name of our cat). I couldn't help it - I burst out laughing as did my mom and sister who were also in the room with us at the time. Too funny.....and yes, Henry is quite a troublemaker in our home and the words Henry and Bad are used together on a regular basis.
- There's nothing cuter than the sound of a laughing child, and bath time at our house is filled with giggles and laughter. Pretty much since the first week my husband has been giving Wee Man his baths and it's always been one of the most favourite parts of his day. The other day I hear Wee Man yelling gibberish ("Dabba-dabba-da") and laughing hysterically in the bathroom and then everything would go silent and then about 2 seconds later my husband would laugh and the whole thing would start again. This probably went on about a half-a-dozen times. I was cleaning up in the kitchen wondering what the heck was going on! When they finally came out I asked about it. Apparently Wee Man would be exceptionally loud and then look all serious at Daddy, put his finger on his lips and shush himself! When my husband laughed of course it became a game and he'd do it over and over. We live in a condo with shared walls between us and our neighbour, so we have gotten in the habit when the noise gets a little much to shush Wee Man with a finger on our lips and a quick "shhh" as a reminder. I've noticed in the past couple of days he's been shushing himself when he gets a little loud....each time it happens I laugh. What a funny guy!
- Every night before bed we read a few stories to Wee Man in the rocking chair in his room. He has his favourites, but usually we try to rotate through them - more for my own sanity than for any other reason! We have one book that is a first-words kind of book with pictures and words below it. Wee Man loves this one (me, not so much) so it's in the rotation a bit more these days. I usually pick about 3-4 things on each page to talk about and point to and then move on or we'd be sitting there until midnight. One particular night we were pointing at some of the things on the page and Wee Man points out the "tar" (guitar). I enthusiastically agreed and went to move on to another one and he said "Daddy. Tar. Room" (my husband has an acoustic guitar that we keep away from little hands in our bedroom) - so I agreed and told him "yes, Daddy has a guitar in his room". Then he said "Tar. Undies." (Wee Man has a pair of training pants - we call them undies - that have abstract guitars all over them in different colours) - so I agreed again and told him "yes, you have guitars on your undies". Then he said "Tar. Out. Room" and pointed to his bedroom door (he has an electronic toy guitar that we keep in the living room with his other toys) - so I agreed with him again, "yes, you have a guitar in the living room". I was so pleased to see the connections he was making between the different types of guitars in our home and this cartoon-like image in a book. Very cool.
- Both my husband and I are fairly big Calgary Flames fans. I'm not talking banners and jerseys on the wall kind of fans, but when they're playing a game we'll put the TV on - we subscribe to Rogers Sportsnet West so we can get all the games on TV - and we both do own a jersey we used to wear when we'd go to the Dome and watch games (we used to go to 2-3 games a season when I used to work for a company that had season tickets and we got some in the staff rotation). So it kind of goes without say that our toddler has shown a bit of interest in hockey and that the Flames is his most recognised team (I'm OK if at some point in his life he chooses to cheer for another team - so long as it isn't the Oilers...haha!). Shortly after Christmas we were in Old Navy looking for some deals on some new pants for Wee Man. We were successful so we went to the cash line and were waiting for our turn to go up and pay. Wee Man kept saying "hot-tey" (hockey) over and over. I couldn't see anything to do with hockey anywhere, so I kind of ignored it or said "yes, yes" to his constant talking. After a couple of minutes we get up to the til and he goes "Hot-tey" and points to this little container with Flames lanyards in it next to the til. I don't know how he noticed those from about 3-people back in the line, but he did and he was pretty excited about seeing the Flames symbol. I was amazed. The flaming-Cs were about the size of my thumb nail on a black lanyard. This kid has good eyes!
- About a month ago I had the kids sitting at the Little Tykes picnic table we have, in the middle of our kitchen, colouring. I desperately needed to use the washroom so thought - great, they're busy and quiet so I'll run quick. I left the door open so I could still hear them and everything was still quiet so I figured all was going well. I was gone from the room for maybe about two minutes. When I come back out Little A is standing in the hall with her eyes all wide and I figured something had happened. I'm thinking a crayon broke, or Wee Man is standing up on the picnic bench....what I didn't expect was Wee Man standing in the middle of the living room with a dark brown crayon - our bookshelves (beautiful white built-ins on either side of our fireplace), coffee table, carpet (a very, very light beige.....we bought this house pre-children), and fireplace glass (it's gas and has been turned off since Wee Man was born) is covered in crayon. I have never gotten so mad at him....he was put in his crib in his room (usually the naughty corner is in our hallway, so this was a new thing to him) and left to cry in there for a good 10 minutes (usually it's about 2 minutes in the naughty corner) while I tried to find something that would take the crayon off of the surfaces that he had covered (Note: Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is a god-send. Worked like magic on everything except the carpet.....Woolite Pet Stain Remover got most of it, however in the bright sun I can still see a bit of his design). Finally he was allowed to come out and I brought him back to the living room to show him the colouring was gone and while I was "very sad" he coloured on the house, I was able to clean it up and it was OK now - next time he would only colour on the paper and we'd be much happier. To this day every once in a while he still remembers and will point to the side of the bookshelf or the fireplace and say "Nooooo. Bad. Mama Sad". He hasn't attempted to colour on anything but paper again!
- It's funny how kids know quickly what they can and can't do in a house, and yet will continuously try to push those boundaries by testing whether no really means no today, as it did yesterday, or whether things may have changed. In our house we have a few rules....no standing on furniture, he must stay away from the stove and fireplace (while they may not always be hot at our house, at others' houses they may be and from time to time here, too), no touching the rice-paper lamps (we have a floor lamp that's about 5-feet high and made of rice paper and a matching small table-top one, so they're quite fragile), and he can't go into our master bedroom if we're not there. Most of our house is essentially one-room so wherever we are pretty much we can see Wee Man and keep our eye on him. He knows these rules well and yet continuously tries to see if he can get away with one or more of them from time to time. The other day he was edging closer and closer to the floor lamp so my husband told him that he needed to find another place to play....he went right up to it, put his hands about 2cm from it and said "Noooo". So hard not to laugh and encourage it. He does this every once in a while with other things, too. When we tell him "no" he will look up at us, flare his nostrils and open his eyes super wide (is this our stern face?!). It's hilarious. Then he'll go right up to whatever it is that we're warning him about and get soooo close, yet not touch it, and look right at us and say "noooo" and then do this stare/nostril flare thing. It's like this taunting "not touching - can't get mad - not touching - can't get mad" and it takes everything in us not to laugh while we continue with our stern warning. What a little brat. haha!
The crayon incident cracked me up!!! What a little rascal! I can only imagine the stories I will have when my little A becomes a toddler next year!
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