he has a way with words and sleeping

I am falling down in my reporting in that I should be relaying all of these stunning sentences the boy puts together. I should be taking notes at all times. He should have a list.

But I don’t take the notes, so… yeah. Ummm…

I’ve also been wanting to note the words that he still pronounces his own way. And this is a kid who can accurately pronounce Chameleon and Bucket Loader so you know something interesting is going on, just not sure what. He’s deliberately being cute? He likes his way of saying things? While much of his brain is on fast forward, some parts are still hovering in toddler-hood?

He still calls Popsicles “Pokibohs” — and that’s particularly ironic since it means that t-shirt we bought him remains accurate.

Blueberries were “Bowlies” and then they graduated to “Blue Bowlies” where they’ve hovered for a long time, but today, I heard him say “Blue Bea-weees” so I think that one’s almost done.

Elephant, amazingly given how often we see and talk about elephants, is still “Elent.”

That’s it. I thought there might have been one more, but I can’t recall just now.

Darn brain (mine, not his).

(Oh wait — I remembered the other word! He recently learned to say “robe,” though he says it this way: “Mommy put on a Row-Bowbe!”)

He just talks and talks. All day. Non stop. Pretty much.

A recent favorite sentence of mine: “Mommy, out of the chaayir, sit down on the floouerr, do puh-zuls with Jo-NAH!” Okay, so maybe it was three sentences strung together.

Yes, I got out of the chair and did the puzzles.

He’s started waving more, when we say goodbye to people. According to Jenny, his palm towards self clutch-clutch hand gesture is how the Italians wave. I knew the boy was from Italy, by way of North Carolina, at least in his accent.

He walks around the house holding his ukulele-guitar and singing the Hello and Goodbye songs from Music Together class. He’ll sing them to us, “Hello, to MOh-Meeeeyeuh, Heh-loh to Bam-BI-Nohhh,” and to objects “to DAH phounnne,” etc.

And then “Gooodbyeh, so lonnnng, faeur weyulll,” that’s as much of the song as he sings, which is a lot, actually.

And that’s a word I regret using. Because whenever I’ve corrected him, “Actually, Jonah, that’s a bulldozer,” you know, like that. So now he uses it to correct me. “Ackshulleee, itz ahhh….”

* * *

For those of you curious yet about our sleep travails:

We were going to be people who sit in the room while the boy falls asleep until he left for college but we had some nights where he woke up in the middle of the night and Scott had to sit in the fershlugeneh chair and wait for Jonah to fall asleep — REPEATEDLY, which made us decide to try the next level up.

Scott did the “I am going to leave for 5 minutes” routine, which, for some kids means that the kid will lie there quietly, waiting for the parent to return, and generally falling asleep while they wait. Sometimes the parent has to exit more than once. Sometimes you get to make the exits longer the next night and the next until the magic happens.

We tried it two nights in a row, for two five minute stints each. But they were only three minute stints because Jonah got hysterical each time (you go back early if they freak out).

So that didn’t work.

Now Scott’s doing the chair scooch thing. He currently sits in a chair in the room but outside of Jonah’s field of vision (unless Jonah stands up, which, oddly, he doesn’t choose to do) and reassures him verbally.

The first night, Jonah complained/yelled for 1.5 hours. Scott has the patience of a saint.

At this point I should say that there is in fact crying going on here. I was talking with Laura and I’d said we weren’t doing CIO. I hadn’t thought of this as CIO since we’re with him. But I guess that’s splitting hairs.

The second night he was down to 25 minutes of moaning and groaning. Tonight he complained for longer, but with half the vigor.

Scott will continue to sit in the chair in the room but out of view until Jonah is able to fall asleep without complaint.

And we hope eventually to get Scott out of the room and for Jonah to not be angry about it. We’ll see.