Phases

There is so much advice and so many anecdotes and sayings that people love to tell you about raising kids. Depending on the giver, I find most of these things annoying, some occasionally amusing, and only about 20% right, by my experience. One of the good ones lately, though, is "it's just a phase."

I'm almost uncomfortable about how true this statement is, and how it can be applied to almost any aspect of the dink's life. What a fickle little thing he is, that dink. Here are a just a few.

THINGS THAT I HOPE ARE JUST "PHASES":

Elmo Larger Than Life: While it's true that the dink's love and admiration of Elmo have far surpassed the phase level, what I'm talking about now is a new approach that the dink has taken to incorporating Elmo into his life. The dink has a special, extremely high-pitched voice that he reserves only for pointing out important things to Elmo: "See duck Elmo. Elmo, see quack quack quack..." or "See cars, Elmo. See 'rucks, Elmo." Then it gets worse. "Elmo, seat" (which means that Elmo eats dinner in the booster seat instead of the dink); "Elmo, potty" (self-explanatory); and even "Elmo, teeth" (I'm actually considering buying Elmo his own toothbrush). I can only dream about that fine day when I'll hear the dink say "Elmo, trash."

Bad Mommy: The dink is getting into enough trouble by his own making lately that he's quite familiar with what a "no-no" is and when and where we might discipline him for one. Only problem is that he doesn't understand that the privilege to dole out "no-no's" is not universal. The other day I misinterpreted what he was asking me to do, and I dumped out his entire dump truck full of blocks on the floor. Seconds later he was fighting back tears, pushing out his bottom lip, and firmly shaking his finger at me while saying "No, no, mommy." Oops.

Using Words as a Weapon: I know that all kids embarrass their parents from time to time by saying completely innocent yet wildly inappropriate things...I just didn't realize it would start this early. A couple weeks ago, I was wheeling the dink around Target at the speed of light (by necessity) when we passed a display of nuts. The dink recognized them immediately because J often snacks on nuts first thing in the morning. Couple that recognition with the dink's recently learned language skill of using possessives (Mommy's car, Daddy's shoes), and before I know it he's yelling to strangers: "Daddy's nuts! Daddy's nuts!" A little awkward.

"PHASES" THAT I HOPE LAST FOREVER:

Dancing machine: The other day, a college friend called and asked me if the dink had started taking after his father and become a dancing machine. And the answer was YES. D loves nothing more than for J to plug his iPhone into the speakers, turn on the Pandora kid's music station, and dance, dance, dance. He does the classic toddler running in place dance, and then the twirl in a circle move I'm most fond of, and even some jumping up and down, running through the living room, and swaying side to side for slow songs. He calls music "sikic," and if you're sitting on the couch and he points at you and yells "Sikic!", that means you better get your booty up and dance, fast. Occasionally, he'll trade in his dancing shoes for a good march around the house, best led by daddy, and have us all high-stepping around the house in single file until someone calls "Salute!" and we all freeze in place with our hands to our foreheads. It's one of J's best kept secrets in his professional career that he was a drum major in high school...Lord knows what we've got coming.

Yes to Food: When something tastes really good to the dink, he'll look at me very seriously while eating, and shake his head up and down, saying yes, yes, yes. Yes, mommy, this is what you're supposed to feed me. Last weekend, Jon made a chocolate cake for my family birthday party, and the dink was in food heaven, his head bobbing up and down the whole time he worked every last bite of that cake into his mouth. Occasionally, he would look at me and throw in an "Mmmmm" while he was chewing. Then when I was putting him to bed that night, after he said his cousin S's name 4-5 times in reverence (S played with the dink quite patiently at the birthday party), he told me "Cake, yummy." Dancing he may get from his father. Going to bed thinking about chocolate...now that's my son.

HUG

He'll hug and kiss perfect strangers. He loves to get on the couch, instruct me to put a blanket (kit-kit) on him, and pretend to go night-night. He holds two loveys and Elmo all in his little arms when I pull him from his crib each morning... I'd say I definitely got lucky on getting a snuggly one.

The dink's favorite thing to snuggle with lately is unfortunately not his mommy; it's the cat. The formerly-feral outside cat. Actually, it's a good thing that he's taken so much interest in Number Two lately, who has been hanging around the driveway more since we buried poor Number One in the backyard. And Two doesn't seem to mind. The dink's goal in the afternoons is to get as many "hugs" from the cat as possible. I attract her by sitting on the driveway and inviting her to come get her "pets" from me. I stroke her a few times to get her feeling amorous, and then the dink moves in for the kill. He yells "HUG!" and points at her. Then he squats down and leans his head into her side, and she does that cat thing where they arch their back and rub it against you (the dink's face). He loves it. One successful hug like that is usually repeated by 8-10 attempts for more. And then of course I have to join in a few times ("Mommy! HUG!", and he points at the cat). I have to give it to Number Two, though--she sure doesn't run away.

The other day when J got home from work, the three of us were sitting on the floor of the dink's room playing with Mr. Potato Head, and the dink suddenly jumps up and yells, "Mommy! HUG!" and points to J. He wanted to see Mommy and Daddy hug. Then last night he tried to pull the same game, but this time he wanted us to kiss. He leaned in and gave J a sweet kiss on the mouth and then looked at him and pointed his finger at me, going "Mommy!" Soon enough, that turned into the three of us trying to kiss together at the same time, and the dink almost hysterical with excitement from it all.

To see how much enjoyment he gets out of watching us hug or kiss is really remarkable. For all the effort you put into making sure that your child knows that you love him so he'll feel safe and taken care of, you don't realize that you could accomplish half that task by showing your partner the same effort. When J walks in the door in the evening, I enjoy sitting back and watching his reunion with the dink, which usually involves the dink screaming "Daddy!" the second he hears a car door, then running around the house excitedly waiting for J to chase him, catch him, pick him up, throw him, etc. And I don't usually take part in the celebration. But I should. The dink needs to see us hug and kiss hello as much as we need to take the time to appreciate each other's presence on a daily basis. Leave it to the dink to teach me a lesson about taking care of the ones you love.

Songs

Lately the dink’s been learning how to sing. We’ve had to cover our mouths from giggling a few times during mass when he chimes in with his high-pitched mono-syllabic whinnies. I would never stop him from trying to join in, but I offer up a prayer each time that he’s inherited his dad’s singing voice and not my tone-deafness.

He’s also pretty good at catching the last word of each line of Mary Had a Little Lamb, about 50% of the words in Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and about 9-10 letters in the ABCs. And any day now, I’m expecting him to sing all 10 verses of Wheels on the Bus by himself because he makes me sing it so many damn times before bed each night. After reading his favorite Cars and Trucks book and naming all the animals in A Day at the Zoo, then prayers and nighttime diapers and kisses for Daddy and turning out the lights, we sing Wheels on the Bus 2-3 times, the first time complete with hand motions and beepbeepbeeps and ups and downs, the second time with dink joining in only on his favorite verses—the people going yakety-yak and the babies going wah-wah-wah… And then the third time, I sing alone as the dink yawns and snuggles with Elmo and Lovey in my lap. Occasionally he’ll lift his face up to me in between verses for a kiss, and I’m usually sold then on singing that never-ending song as many times as he requests.

The other night during story time, I guess the dink was feeling adventurous and brought me a new book—Love You Forever. Now I know I’ve read this book before but for some reason I felt myself hurrying through the pages to find out if the old woman would actually break into her grown son’s house to rock him in his sleep. And of course she did. The dink was interested in the drawing of her car with a ladder on top and kept wanting to see the “truck” page again and again while I was quickly flipping through to the ending. And when I got to the part where the man holds his dying mother in the rocking chair, I started crying so hard that my tears were falling all over the dink’s arm. Is it wrong for me to wish my own son the pain of holding me when I die? To fantasize about sneaking into his house as an adult and summoning mammoth strength to rock him in his sleep like a baby? Hmm. Probably so. Better enjoy Wheels on the Bus while it lasts.

Language

I just love witnessing the dink learning how to talk. It’s so funny to note the words that he takes care to say perfectly (Elmo, juice, yucky) versus the words that he haphazardly throws out in a close-but-nowhere-near-correct collection of syllables (beece[beads]/wowa[flower]/koss[cars]). I don’t know if there’s really a hierarchy in his mind, or if a speech expert would explain to me that some consonant/vowel sounds are trickier for virgin tongues than others. Either way, it’s endless entertainment. His intonation is most amusing. He uses the highest-pitched, questioning tone to say things like “no” when I ask him if he’s ready for bed, “more” when he wants not only more of something, but something for the first time, or to do something again…and of course the ever-persistent “hey, kitty, kitty” that reaches sky-high levels of pitch.

And then there’s the seemingly mindless babble that you realize is actually very serious discourse when he approaches you with his brows furrowed and a questioning look in his eyes and speaks about four sentences of totally unintelligible language, the last one always ending in a question. In the end, I 1) feel like a moron for not being able to answer him back appropriately, and 2) feel really sad that I can’t answer him back appropriately.

I do celebrate the occasional triumph when I finally understand what he’s been trying to say for while, making the connection between the random syllables and the actual object or action he’s referring to. For some, it’s like, Of course that’s what he was saying! But then there are some “words” that I’m embarrassed to even admit that I understand because they are so far off-base…

Dink language:
Ah-poo=open (cute)
Beyops=blocks (weird, but reasonable)
Gersh=fish (really funny to hear him say, but still an honest mistake)
Lum-lum=water (extremely embarrassing to admit to his daycare providers and even strangers)

And then there are those words that he refuses to say, preferring instead to use hand signals and sounds—the way he first learned them. So when we look on the “E” page of his alphabet book, and I point to “egg” and “envelope”, the dink attempts to say each, but when we get to “elephant,” he simply raises his right arm (trunk) in the air, and makes a high-pitched “brrrr” sound with his lips, because he learned when he was 12 months old that that’s what noise elephants make.

Lately, my favorite thing to hear him say is “hey” first thing in the morning, when I open his bedroom door, and he’s sitting up in his crib in the dark, holding Elmo and Lovey or both, and even if he was in mid-scream trying to get me to hurry to his room, he immediately changes gears, switches his voice to a soft, southern, sing-song manner, and tells me “hey” just like I would say to J when he walks in from work in the evening. But I can’t complain about that one—it’s a really nice way to start the day.

Elmo

A few weeks ago, the dink surprised us all by uttering his first sentence: I want Elmo. The level of surprise experienced by me and J, and then later by his maman and papa who heard it too, was not at his mastery over the English language, but by the subject matter that has spurred him, in recent weeks, to not only achieve a higher level of communication, but to throw temper tantrums at the television, to squeal and laugh almost uncontrollably with delight, and to snuggle, snuggle, snuggle.

By now, the dink’s relationship with Elmo is almost unnatural. There are so many things about it that I don’t understand—like how it began, where I’ve gone wrong in accidentally encouraging it, and if Elmo will one day demand a seat at the dinner table or a prominent location in family Christmas photos. What is it that you see in him, son?

Actually, I blame the daycare—the same people that introduced him to cheese puffs and goldfish. Apparently, they show Elmo to the kids during their once-a-month movie day. Seemingly harmless enough. But somehow that red, furry creepy thing took up permanent residence in the dink’s brain, and one day, he came home from daycare, made the connection that the half-animal, half-baby creature in a couple of his books was the same very Elmo that he so enjoyed once a month on tv…and such began the affair. Weeks later, his teachers were mentioning to me D’s strong affection for Elmo, and I exacerbated the situation by buying him a set of Elmo dvds one weekend when I was feeling guilty for dropping him off at my parents’ house for the night…and then of course the movies were complemented by a small stuffed Elmo doll that now goes outside, in the car, around the house, and more importantly, to sleep by the dink’s side…so I guess I’m partly to blame. But this is the first time that he’s ever been emotionally attached to any object (except my breasts), and I just never expected this. Not that I’d dare try to end it now. I guess I’ll just keep telling Elmo night-night, try to make sure the dink doesn’t start talking about himself in the third person (“Elmo loves his goldfish!”), and hope that by the time we all memorize those 3 dvds, my love for Elmo, like the dink’s, has blossomed in ways I never thought possible…

Order

I think all parents must go through the ritual of examining their children every few months or so and naming the different emerging characteristics that are derived from one parent or the other. It starts at birth, when that new face and body is placed in front of you, fresh from communion with your organs, and you’re desperate to know it on every single level like you’re desperate to be reassured that you will never stop knowing it for the rest of your life. With the dink, it was pretty clear from the get-go that he represented a “good mixture of the two of us,” but I was dead convinced that his feet and toes were the exact replica of his daddy’s. J thought that his eyes were mine, even though the eyes are the last thing you’re supposed to pass judgement on since they change over the first few months, like puppies. But neither of would claim his inverted nipples.

Lately, as the dink’s unique personality emerges more and more, the traits that he’s stolen from others are becoming more apparent and more undeniable. From J—he likes to be the center of attention, to make people laugh, and to snuggle, snuggle, snuggle. With dish towels, dirty laundry, any stuffed animal, maybe even books—he holds it up in the crook of his neck, then hits the floor to roll around all over it and sometimes pretend to go night-night with it. I actually caught him snuggling my mom’s dirty rubber boots once.

And from me—the latest is my uncontrollable sense of order. I don’t even know how a kid his age can have such definite ideas about the ways things should be, but he will certainly let you know when they disturb his sensibilities. Playing with blocks is very telling. When J builds a Mega Bloks mountain, and he places one block in a direction that’s counterintuitive to the way you’d think it would face (i.e. it’s sticking out to the side when it should be lined up forward), the dink will take it off the pile and turn it the “right” way. J thinks it’s so funny that he’ll do it 3-4 times in a row, but the dink never tires of righting his daddy’s wrongs. And when it’s time to pick up the blocks—don’t dare try to throw two interlocked blocks in the bucket. Oh no, every single block must be disengaged and thrown in the bucket singly.

One of the most amusing displays of order the dink had recently involved all of his pots and pans friends in the kitchen. One by one, he carried every single skillet, pot, and lid from the lower kitchen cabinet into my bedroom. After 20 minutes or so of play, I told him to bring them all back to the kitchen, and I watched from the bedroom as he struggled down the hall carrying every single piece one by one back to where they belong. When he was all done, we cheered that they were all gone, and he walked me to the kitchen to show me his proud work: every single pot was lined up in a perfect line across the kitchen floor. All pots had their appropriate lid on top, and I dare say that the handles were even pointing in the same direction. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cheer.

It was like one of those moments shortly after the baby’s birth, when everyone in the room has agreed that the heritage of his nose or his lips or his ears are undeniable, and you look at the child and you think: Yes, you are truly mine.

18 months

I can't believe it, but the dink is already 18 months old. I took him in to the doctor for his well visit, and while the doctor was asking me all of his milestone questions like Does he know five of his body parts? and Does he mimic things that you do?, I was marveling that this time a year ago, we were concerned with "Does he still spit up a lot?" and "Can he crawl?"

According to the doctor, the dink should be starting to speak in sentences now, like "Mommy go." I nodded along politely as the doctor explained that I am 100% responsible for the way he learns to talk, and then carefully mentioned that, although the dink does say about 30-40 words, he has never spoken in such complex language as "Mommy go." What I didn't have the heart to tell the doctor is that sometimes, actually often, he still refers to me as "Da" instead of "mommy." Or maybe I just didn't want to admit it out loud--that my son has more interest in properly naming his blocks, his pants, his shoes and socks, and his juice more than he cares to learn his mother's name.

But the good news is that when he does learn a new word these days, he's not afraid to say it over and over again to make sure he commits it to memory. This evening, while we watched his bubble bath water go down the drain, he pointed to the remaining bubbles in the tub with his two little pointer fingers and said "bye-bye bubbles" no less than 45 times in a row.

Probably the dink doesn't really have a need to use sentences to communicate just yet, since I usually interpret what he wants before he has a chance to speak up. But when the kid is reaching up to the doorknob and trying to turn it with all his might, and he looks back at me and says "uh, uh"...who has time to wait for him to explain that he wants me to open the door for him? We don't have that kind of time in our life. But I guess that's probably the wrong approach. At least it's a family approach, though, shared by the dink even (photo above). Why sit around trying to explain to someone at the crawfish boil that you would please like more Doritos when you can just march on over there and get them for your darn self?

Learning

I can hardly keep up with the dink lately. Every day he demonstrates to me something that he knows that I am 90% confident I did not teach him. I don't know if that means that I am slacking as a parent in my daily instructionals ("you have peas, tomatoes, rice, and chicken for dinner")...or if I'm really just as oblivious as my loving husband always says I am to what's going on around me...

Although I try to refrain from gagging or saying "yucky" every time I change a poopy diaper, I guess I've said poo-poo at just the right time enough for the dink to finally make the connection. Although he doesn't need to announce when he's pooping because it's written all over the awkward grimace on his face, he now grabs the front of his diaper and says "pah-poo" with great seriousness. And the other day, J told me that he had to get down on all fours to retrieve something that the dink had thrown under the bed, and when his butt was up in the air, the dink came over and patted his daddy's lower back and said "night-night."

There are still some things he does that must be the result of original thinking because I know that I would never, ever teach my son to do them. Like shoving handfuls of catfood in his mouth when he sees me coming at him to take it away, or spending large chunks of time in the bathtub trying to carefully place a Mardi Gras cup over all of his genitalia. Or laughing hysterically every time I say the word "rough." I hope he never stops showing me all of the things he's learned each day.

Stinker

To J and I, the dink is a lively, bright, silly, super-busy little boy who loves to dance, scream, and smile. But somehow, in the presence of others, he becomes an emotion-less, unresponsive toddler with incredible levels of shyness that prevent him from saying hello or goodbye, interacting with other humans, and really doing much else than burying his head on my shoulder or looking off blankly into the distance. It’s purported that when J or I leave the dink with said “others” that he returns to the land of the living and drops the act. When picking the dink up from daycare the other day, I stopped and chatted with one of his “old” teachers, and the whole time D laid his head on my chest and looked down or to the side…anywhere but at the teacher’s face. She tried to talk to him, and he smushed his whole head into my armpit. I told her that I couldn’t believe he was acting so shy, and she said “That’s okay, he gave me a hug and a kiss this morning.” Stinker!

I guess we all do this to an extent—act differently with our parents than we do with others. But it’s hard to believe that the dink has caught on to that already. Is he putting on a show to protect my feelings? Is he afraid I’ll get upset if he shows affection for other female figures in his life? Or is he really just painfully shy? I don’t buy that he is. The kid stands at the end of the driveway in the afternoons and waves and yells “hi” to all of the kids walking home from the bus. My mom says that my sister and I were similar as children. Granny used to take us around town to the makeup store and country club, trying to show off her smart grandkids, and supposedly all we would do was stare dumbly at the floor are barely even say hello. We may have even picked our noses. I think at one point Granny threatened to stop taking us anywhere if we insisted on acting like idiots. So I guess it runs in the family. I hope one day the dink switches gears and takes after his daddy's love for showing off and being in the center of attention. Can genetics work like that?