"Two Scarlet
McCaws. Ca-caw! Ca-caw!"March 2005
03/31/06
Tommy can count to five in Spanish. Neither David or I have ever done this with him, so he learned it 100% from Dora the Explorer. At the park today he was counting the bushes in Spanish. Karen was very impressed.
"Two Scarlet
McCaws. Ca-caw! Ca-caw!"
Tommy was
"reading" to his frog Coqui
yesterday afternoon. He spent a long time finding exactly the right
position for Coqui. Then he said, "stay right here Coqui" and ran off to
find a book. After much searching he pulled out Rainforest Frogs
and Ten Little Ladybugs. After much consideration he chose the
ladybug book. He took it over to the couch, turned to the picture of the
frog and showed it to Coqui. "That like you Coqui!" Then he showed
him all the other pictures.
Tommy's new
favorite book is also David's new favorite book. It's
The Conscientious Marine Aquarist. It has lots of great photos of
marine life. Ah, how sweet. Father and son obsessing about their new
hobby together.
03/30/06
I've updated the "Books for Tommy" page. It is now just a "Tommy's Library" page. All that's on it is a list of the books Tommy owns. It's just meant to be a reference for family and friends who might want to buy Tommy a book as a gift. This way you won't have to worry about accidentally buying him something he already has. Instead of maintaining a book wish list on that page, I've set up an Amazon.com wish list for him. When you pull up my personal wish list using my e-mail address, there is a link for "Tommy's Wishlist" on the left side of the page. Let me know if you go looking for it and can't find it.
Anyway, here's my story for the day.
While playing on Claudia's new backyard playground toy yesterday Tommy acted even more like my child than usual. At one point he was sitting at the top of the slide and started exclaiming "Oh no!" in his most dramatic voice. He then slid down, ran over to the scattering of sidewalk chalk on the grass, and put the chalk back into the box. It really bothered him that it was lying there all higgly-piggly in the grass. This brought the chalk to Claudia's attention, who picked up a piece and began drawing on the slide. When Tommy noticed what she was doing he started to get a bit agitated. We tried giving him his own piece of chalk, but that was not what he wanted. Eventually I really listened to his disgruntled mutterings and figured out that he was saying "Oh no. Slide all dirty. Need towel. Clean it!" Cindy got him a towel and he worked very hard to clean the markings off the slide while Claudia continued to draw. Eventually Claudia stopped drawing and watched him for a while. Then she showed him how it's much more efficient to just slide down the slide. All the chalk magically disappears!
Once the slide was clean, Tommy decided that his blue-checked towel would be perfect for a picnic. He spread it out on the platform at the top of the slide, said "Picnic time!" and asked for some goldfish crackers. I helped him set up his picnic and he sat there eating like a starved cat who hasn't seen a nice goldfish in days. Claudia wanted in on the action too, so Cindy got her a towel of her own. Sharing Tommy's picnic would have been a bit much to ask of the kiddos. It took us a few minutes to get things set up so that they had enough room and would eat without fussing with each other.
03/29/06
Two conversations...
********
03/28/06
I meant to post yesterday, but I couldn't think of anything to say. It's strange how that happens sometimes. Usually, I have no trouble at all thinking of some little story to relate. Yesterday? I had nothing. And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
The fish tank guy told David he could try putting some little creatures in the new tank even though it's only been cycling for a week. David told him how Tommy spent hours every day last week looking at "his" rocks. Fish tank guy (FTG) took pity on us and gave us something more interesting for Tommy to look at. We now have four hermit crabs, four large snails, two small burrowing snails and a really cool emerald crab. Tommy loves them. And FTG is learning to love us since we're probably going to spend money in his shop every weekend.
Tommy has become even more possessive of the new tank in the past week. We had a big confrontation over it last night. I should say that we rarely have big confrontations with Tommy. He's usually pretty good at accepting some type of negotiation (bribes, trades, ultimatums, etc). Not this time! He decided he didn't want David to look at "his" fish tank. I could look, but David was absolutely not welcome. "No Daddy! My fish tank. Don't look. Don't touch. Here Daddy, that your fish tank, this one mine." He cried. He screamed. He pitched a fit. This is very unusual. It got to the point where I was saying that he absolutely must share. He even had to stand in the corner, a rare but usually effective consequence. He would not agree to share with Daddy no matter what. We eventually just ignored his protests. He ended up sharing because he had no other choice, but he was not resigned to this state. Oh no. I'm hoping he was just tired last night. We'll have to keep repeating that he has to share his fish tank with the whole family and hope it sinks in. I can't even imagine what will happen if one of his toddler friends comes over and wants to look at the tank.
This is Tommy's
neighbor spying spot. He stands on the ledge and peers over the wall, on
the lookout for neighbors. "There's one! I found him. Hello!
Hello!"
03/26/06
A conversation while reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...
03/25/06
Some successes...
03/23/06
Tommy's new
vocabulary word is Orc. He got it from David's new computer game.
"That orc! Like Shrek. Green monster. Big teeth. Orc
like ogre." Isn't he lucky to have such geeky parents?
03/22/06
Tommy had his first encounter with a rough-playing kid at the park yesterday. I wouldn't say the little boy was a bully. He was 2 months younger than Tommy and much smaller, but also more aggressive. He kept coming up into Tommy's personal space and shoving him hard enough that Tommy fell down. I didn't really know what to do about it. The little boy's mother told him not to push a couple of times, but she was busy with an older child and a baby as well, so she didn't really do anything to stop him. (Not that I blame her at all. We've all played together before and this is the first time there was a problem. I don't think she saw how often it was happening, or that it was upsetting Tommy. I can't imagine how hard it would be to keep an eye on a pre-schooler, a toddler and a 3-month-old baby at the same time. No Mommy-Judgment from me!)
First I reminded Tommy to say "No thank you" if someone does something he doesn't like. He's knows that strategy pretty well from playing with other kids, but at this age mothers usually have to step in to tell their kids what to do when Tommy says it. Stopping because someone says "No thank you" is pretty advanced for a kid who is not yet two. This mother didn't, so saying it didn't work for Tommy. The little boy would push Tommy down. Tommy would get up and say "No thank you." Then it would happen all over again. I could tell Tommy was getting frustrated and I didn't want him to get so frustrated that he pushed back. That's NOT a good coping strategy for a big boy like Tommy. I can just see him in preschool getting pushed around over and over by a smaller kid and then finally breaking down, pushing back and then getting in big trouble because he's so big and noticeable. Anyway, Tommy figured out on his own that he should say "No pushing!" He even said "Please." That didn't work. I tried explaining that he should walk away, but the kid followed him. I think the little boy thought they were playing. He certainly wasn't trying to hurt Tommy or anything. Tommy eventually just ran away every time the kid came near, yelling "No pushing! Go away little boy! Me no like it!" Poor Tommy.
Karen was at the park with us, and she said I was making a big deal out of nothing and projecting how I would feel on to Tommy, but I totally disagree. The park is where Tommy learns about social interactions since he doesn't do day care or even an occasional playgroup without me. Besides, it's my job to teach him the coping and negotiation skills he'll need when he gets to school. Maybe I should have just ignored it and let Tommy figure it out on his own, but I could tell he was frustrated and really had no idea what to do about it. I was frustrated too, and I also didn't know what the right thing to do was. Tommy talked about it with David a bit last night, but all he really said was "Little boy push me! Me no like it. No pushing!"
03/21/06
It's hard for Tommy to understand how one person can be many different things at the same time. Tommy and I were reading Is Your Mama a Llama yesterday, when we had the following conversation.
And at that moment my heart melted just a little bit more.
If you ever ask
Tommy what a cow says, and he answers "Moo Chew!", you can blame
Crunch Munch.
He doesn't quite understand that the book is about eating noises instead of the
standard animal noises.
Pretending to
sleep.
03/20/06
Happy Birthday David! His birthday was Sunday. Tommy ran around all weekend yelling "Happy Birthday Daddy!"
David got his first salt-water fish tank as a birthday present this weekend. He and Tommy are very excited about the tank. Tommy took David literally when David said it was a new fish tank "for Tommy." Tommy's been running around all morning saying "Me fish tank! Thank you Daddy! Has rocks and sand in it. Buy Nemo later. Not today. Me fish tank! No Mommy, not your fish tank, is MINE. Look! Rocks! This one Mommy's rock. This one Daddy's rock. All other rocks are Tommy's rocks!"
It's a more expensive hobby than David's fresh-water tank with live plants, but he's wanted to try it for a while now. After much research, he found this compact and reasonably priced system. It just has sand and "live" rock in it now, but after two weeks the natural, tiny flora and fauna of the special sand and rocks will have fully colonized the tank. (Sea Monkeys!) Then we can put in soft and hard corals, crabs and sea snails. After another waiting period we can buy Nemo for the boy. Supposedly this little 12 gallon system can eventually support 30-40 different types of corals and maybe 4-8 fish depending on the size. I think Tommy will be happy with a couple of clown fish and a soft coral that looks like an anemone. David will add other things slowly because most soft corals and saltwater fish cost a minimum of $25 each and can cost upwards of $80 or even $150. I don't think we'll try real anemones for a long time because they're more difficult to keep alive. Some types of soft corals look almost exactly like anemones and clown fish will bond with them just like anemones, so I don't think we'll miss them.
In other news, you may have noticed in the picture that Tommy has a big scratch on his cheek. I was lax in cutting his fingernails. I didn't know toddlers could gash their faces up with their fingernails while sleeping just like infants do. It's pretty deep, and there was blood all over his pillow when he woke up. I can't believe he didn't wake up when he did it in the middle of the night. I'm hoping it won't scar. It would be pretty bad to have a 2-year-old with "Scarface" for a nick name. Mommy-Guilt!
Here's a
picture of what the tank can look like when filled with expensive stuff.
03/17/06
You may
remember from my children's librarian days that I always claimed to be
puppet-impaired. Well friends, I'm proud to announce that those days are
over. Tommy loves playing with puppets so much that I've finally gained a
reasonable level of proficiency. I'm certainly not attempting
ventriloquism or anything fancy, but I can make the boy giggle and shriek and
believe that the puppets are real. Yay me! The toddlers in my
story times were always extremely skeptical. Maybe I just needed the right
audience.
03/16/06
Mama was queen
of the mambo. Papa was king of the Congo. Deep down in the jungle, I
started bangin' my first bongo. Every monkey'd like to be in my place
instead of me 'cause I'm the king of bongo, baby. I'm the king of bongo
bong. (Two points if you can name that song!) (Updated to add that it's
Bongo Bong from Putumayo's
World Playground CD.)
Tommy and Claudia
had their weekly play date yesterday. It's not surprising strangers ask if
they're twins when we go out together. Cindy and I think they're just
about exactly the same height because each one can look taller or shorter
depending on the angle. In the first picture they were playing boo.
They'd take turns saying "boo" while the other one would shriek and hide.
I think they're looking at a book in the second picture. It's hard to get
good pictures of them together because they're either in constant motion or
playing quietly but independently.
03/15/06
When facilitating an interest crosses the line to enabling an addiction...
I'm just kidding of course.
03/14/06
What's Tommy up to these days?
03/13/06
Tommy has been sleeping so well since Uncle Terry came to visit. I don't know what we're doing right, but it's working beautifully. He's back to cheerfully lying down with an animal or dinosaur in each hand at 8 pm and then I can relax and not worry about him. I stopped trying to turn his lamp off at bedtime, so that might have something to do with it. He goes to sleep with it on, and then I go in and turn it off by about 8:45. Some nights we hear him talking to himself for a while before falling asleep, but he's staying in bed and not trying to get our attention or open the door. We're all much happier now. He has still been waking up in the middle of the night once every third or fourth day, but he goes back to sleep really easily, so I don't really mind. So now that we've gotten things figured out we have about four weeks until daylight savings time. Maybe the transition won't be so bad this time. Hopefully. We're also traveling to a friend's wedding in mid-April, but I'm really hoping his new skill of sleeping in a regular bed will make a big difference. In any case, we have at least four weeks of good sleeping to look forward to. Time to update our Netflix queue!
03/12/06
Um... Did anyone notice that I'd been dating entries as 2003 for the last week or so? I didn't notice until today. I know being a stay-at-home mom often involves losing track of the days of the week, but losing track of the year is a bit much. I've fixed the dates now.
Freak snow storm! It was 75 degrees one week ago, but we woke up to Albuquerque's first snow of the year this morning. Strange. It will probably all be gone by tomorrow, but the newly sprouting roses and spring bulbs probably won't enjoy the snow as much as Tommy. He spent most of the morning trying to convince me to GO OUTSIDE. David took him out at about 9:30, but until then he kept asking for anything he could think of that might get him out into the snow. "Go outside?" "Go shopping?" "Water flowers?" "Go park?" We don't actually have any snow-wear for him since it was a mild winter, but the Carhart coveralls that my Uncle Clyde sent Tommy more than a year ago worked great as emergency snow pants. "Me snow pants! Ank you Mommy! Need boots please!" (We didn't have boots for him either.) Sorry for the poor picture quality. I was still in my pajamas and didn't feel like taking lots of shots.
******
Dancing!
He now knows how to the the M. C. Hammer Shuffle, complete with "Stop!
Tommy Time!" Yes. I'm really a dork... with very dated dance skillz.
Although I blame the movie Shark Tale for showing him the dance in the
first place.
******
On the way to the pet store this weekend, Tommy and I had this conversation.
03/10/06
You talkin' to
me?
03/09/06
Happy Birthday Mom!
Once more, my humorous story of the day involves bodily functions. I guess we've entered that stage of parenting. Consider yourself warned.
Tommy came into the bathroom yesterday just as I was sitting down to pee. (I know that's way too much information, but it ties in to a very funny story. Trust me.) He noticed what I was doing and immediately started doing the happy, happy, joy, joy dance for me, clapping and jumping up and down. "Yay Mommy! Mommy pee in toilet. Yay! Good job Mommy! I proud o' you! Pee! Pee from her *pee-nis!" We then had a long conversation about how Tommy and Daddy have pee-nises, but Mommy doesn't. Mommy is a girl. After many insistent exclamations of "No! Mommy not girl. That Mommy." Tommy figured out what I was trying to explain. For the whole rest of the day he would randomly shout "Tommy has pee-nis! Daddy has pee-nis! Mommy NO pee-nis!" We got some funny looks at the grocery store. No body shame in our house!
*The odd spelling of "pee-nis" is my attempt to avoid attracting nasty Google searches.
03/08/06
Evidence we are great parents: Tommy tells us things like "Good job Mommy" and "Good counting Daddy" and "Good kicking Mommy" throughout the day. We encourage him and he encourages us.
Evidence we are not great parents: He can now recognize his written name, but every time we spell it out loud he says "Tommy! Noggin!" There's a repeating segment on the Noggin TV channel where a little boy says, "I can spell my name T-O-M-M-Y. Tommy." followed by the channel plug "Noggin!" I guess our Tommy thinks it's part of his spelled out name or something.
And since you are probably wanting an update, here's some toilet training stuff. Skip this paragraph if you don't want to read about it. Tommy used the toilet three times yesterday and once so far this morning. He did finally pee in the toilet, and I'm so glad for that. We had to cover his bottom half with a towel and read books until he relaxed enough to release the hounds (so to speak). Unlike most toddlers, he's finding pooping much easier than peeing. I guess because he can DO something to poop and has to relax and stop trying to pee. Anyway, I've been letting him go diaper-free anytime he asks, and he understands that he's supposed to pee in the toilet and not on the carpet. He's had accidents of course, but he's trying. When he gets tired of paying attention or gets frustrated, he asks for a diaper and that's OK with me. I'd rather just work on it part of the day while he's feeling positive about doing it anyway. Once the mechanics of it all become routine, we'll buy him some cool underpants and work on longer stretches of time. For now, I'm not doing any sort of sit-on-the-toilet schedule. I'm just helping him up there when he asks. He can go a long time without peeing (2-3 hours) so it just frustrates him if I'm constantly nagging him. That's it for now. Since we're going the absolutely-no-pressure route this could take a few days or a few months, so don't ask me about it every time you talk to me.
03/07/06
Chant of the day...
Accompany chant with lots of jumping, arm waving, clapping and spinning around. Continue for at least 10 minutes.
I guess letting him run around naked because I have a migraine has benefits.
03/06/06
Yay Uncle Terry! Tommy had great fun with Uncle Terry (David's brother) this weekend. It was Terry's first visit to Albuquerque, so we enjoyed showing him around and feeding him lots of chile. The temperature unexpectedly climbed above 70 yesterday and today, so it was especially nice. He seemed to really enjoy the sunshine, although he didn't enjoy the spring allergens as much. Tommy went to bed without a fuss all three nights too, which made it more of a stress-free company experience than usual for me. He never goes to bed that easily! I guess all the sight-seeing and physical playing wore him out.
Tommy's favorite games to play with Terry involved lots of running and laughing and surprising. He invented one tickling and climbing game that took place on the couches and side tables. The second game was a variation on peek-a-boo and took place in and around the office using a stool, a large bouncy ball, and the arched openings in the walls. He also decided that I needed to be doing calf stretches whenever this game was played because I happened to be doing some the first time it happened.
Oh, and Uncle Terry bought Tommy two starfish and a great look-and-find book at the aquarium. Tommy loves those starfish. He's holding them in most of the pictures.
03/03/06 - later
(Double post today! I probably won't post again until late Monday or Tuesday since Terry is in town.)
Tommy plays with Claudia Sinars every Wednesday morning. It's really interesting to watch their interactions evolve. Claudia loves to give things to Tommy and to do things to/for him. He's like her very own, special Tommy-toy. Cindy says that Claudia asks if Tommy is coming over every morning when she wakes up. I'd love to say that Tommy is as enamored of her, but no. He really likes going over there and seems to enjoy playing with her toys and occasionally running around with her, but he's just not as social as she is. Our biggest focus lately has been teaching Tommy to say "no thank you" to Claudia while teaching Claudia that Tommy might not want a grape to eat or a hat to wear, etc. I guess we've been successful, because Tommy's decided that if he says "no thank you" calmly and politely then his wishes should always be respected. Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way.
I'm sure you can imagine where it goes from there.
In other news, I bought Lady and the Tramp this week. Tommy's still very afraid of dogs, and I thought it might help him warm up to them a bit. He freaked out in the grocery store the other day because there was a pocket-sized hearing-aide dog in the produce section. He did NOT expect to see a dog by the cucumbers. Anyway, he loves the Siamese cats and seems to like Lady, Tramp and the other "good" dogs in the movie. Unfortunately, I forgot to skip the scene where Tramp gets into a fight with some big dogs in an alley. My plan to ease his fears of dogs through movie-therapy? Not working out so well.
He really likes the scenes with Baby Lady at the beginning of the movie. Thursday night I'd said good night to him for the 5th time (or something like that) and told him not to open his door. We've started a new routine where we settle him into bed and allow him to come to the door once, but after that if he opens the door then the door will be locked for 1 minutes before I go back in to rock him and settle him back into bed. (I know that probably sounds harsh to half of you and wussy to the other half of you. It's working for us though and seems to be the right balance of firmness with consequences and reassuring Mommy-response that he seems to need right now.) After 10 minutes or so, I heard him get out of bed. Then he started howling like a puppy. He was standing on the other side of the door, howling and barking just like Baby Lady does when her people are trying to make her sleep in the kitchen. At least he didn't open the door.
03/03/06
The boy? He is clingy. He is easily upset. He frequently sobs with frustration.
His mommy? She is on edge. She is tired. She is glad it's springtime so we can go outside.
I think he's going through a new developmental stage or something, maybe even a new bout of separation anxiety. It's been going on for a few weeks now. I'd thought it might be because David traveled so much this month, plus we've had a lot of company. It didn't seem to get much better when things were back to normal though. He doesn't want anyone but me to do things for him. He doesn't quite know what he wants half of the time, but he knows he wants something and is very upset until he either gives up or we happen to distract him. This morning, he didn't want me to eat any breakfast. Oh the anguish. Oh the drama. He wasn't ready for breakfast himself, so he decided that if I ate breakfast it would be the greatest of betrayals. Hopefully he'll figure stuff out soon.
Uncle Terry arrives this afternoon. Tommy should be happier after a good nap, but I'm going to have to stay extra-close while Terry's here.
Poor little guy.
03/02/06
" I hungee. In me stomach." is Tommy's current favorite way to tell us he wants to eat.
After seeing a picture of a dog licking a child's face, Tommy has decided that Dog Kisses are the way to go. I have to be constantly vigilant. If I let my guard down for a second Tommy the boy will turn into Tommy the dog. Tommy the dog gives Dog Kisses. Seeing a toddler coming at you at great speed with his tongue out, ready to lick your face isn't a happy place to be.
A mini dinosaur lexicon, as dictated by Tommy, age 2... (All the links are for paintings on random websites Tommy likes to look at.)
Tyrannosaurus Rex & Allosaurus = Dino Rex
Stegosaurus = Big Dinosaur
Euoplocephalus & Ankylosaurus = Balls Tails (He can sometimes tell the difference between them.)
Parasaurolophus = Hammer Head
Triceratops = Ceratops
Styracosaurus = Like Ceratops (just one horn!)
Corythosaurus = Plate Head
Pachycephalosaurus = Hat Head
Brachiosaurus & Apatosaurus = Long Neck
Spinosaurus & Dimetrodon = Spiny Dino
Pteranodon = Flying Dino
By the way, he can correctly find pictures for each of these if asked using the proper names. He even remembers which books have the correct pictures, as they're not all in one book.
03/01/06
Did you ever notice how toddler can just DO stuff all of a sudden? We've had a few of those "Hey, when did he learn to do that?!" moments in the past few weeks.
We were at the park on Monday when Tommy tripped in the sand in front of a grandmotherly-type lady. She said all the appropriate, friendly things to him as he picked himself up. Amazingly, he didn't run to me, covering his face in shy-mode like he usually does. Instead, he continued running around, watching her out of the corner of his eye. He fell in the sand on purpose a few times, right in front of her, to see if she'd talk to him again. She did. Then he walked right up to her on his own and said "I name Tommy. What you name." I was absolutely floored. He saw someone he wanted to be friends with, initiated a conversation, and said the proper conversational phrases. All by himself! I didn't know he could do that!
Now you all know that he's always been a bit precocious in physical activities. (I guess he gets that from David's side of the family. He certainly didn't get it from me.) Lately, he's started a new game that he calls "Stop Ball." He stands on his bed and we throw balls towards him - soft ones, of course. He hits them back to us with his open hand. It's like volleyball. This seems just amazingly complex to me. First of all, he does this standing on the bed, yet he doesn't loose his balance or fall. Secondly, he connects with the moving ball at least half of the time, with either hand. Thirdly, he's even getting so he can direct where the ball goes when he hits it.
He's also started identifying with other people, animals and characters. He's always been empathetic, but this is something different. If he sees a family of elephants in a book he'll point to the baby elephant and say "this one like Tommy". Then he'll tell me and David which elephants we are like. He's not saying we are elephants, although he does like to pretend to be animals. He's saying that there's a relationship there similar to the relationship we have. I know. This is a pretty minor and vague thing, but it made an impression on me.
So he's doing all these wonderful, grown up things. But he's also still very young and does lots of baby things. He's still firmly in diapers and doesn't really get it when we make our small efforts to start potty training. He still wants to be rocked and held and snuggled, especially when he's tired or upset. He still nurses before naptime and bedtime, but that has more to do with my anxieties about sleep issues than anything else. Um. That's all I can think of. Maybe he's less of a baby now than I think he is. When did that happen?
Back to Homepage.