i should have my blogging license revoked

Seriously need to get back to updating the blog more often. Darn it all to heck.

* * *

Walking down the street yesterday with a couple and their 8-month-old, me pushing Jonah in the stroller. Husband of couple says dam* as part of an exclamation in a story. “Darn,” I correct him. “Really?” he asks. “You care about that word?”

You know, I didn’t think I was being prude, but I guess I am. Proudly prude.

Now that I’m reforming my potty-mouth ways in the presence of the boy. For me, the D-word is on the list with the rest of them.

* * *

On Saturday, Jonah and I went to the park. A large, round girl with chocolate ice cream stains on her shirt approached us and asked if she could play with Jonah. I said, “Sure,” and stayed close to supervise. She told me, “I’m 8 years old. I’ll be 9 on August 5. My teacher says I’m the smartest person in my class in reading and science, but not in math. I’m very good with kids. I play with my cousins a lot. My mom says I can start babysitting when I’m 12 or 13.” Her name was Sky.

Her mother came over to us somewhat apologetic for her daughter’s forwardness and also to supervise.

We three climbed on the play structure together. He was oddly taken with her. Kept asking her to pick him up for “snuggles,” a word he’s only recently learned, and a request which she gladly obliged, staggering slightly under his weight (he being about 1/2 of her size). Her mother gave the five minute warning. Jonah requested swings. We all let her push him for a little bit. She was very careful, barely moving the swing at all with her hand.

After she left, I heard drums. I packed the kid into the stroller and headed towards the sound. the Emeryville Taiko dojo was having a demonstration class in the colonnade by the lake.

Jonah was in HEAVEN. Drums! Drums! He shouted, impatiently tugging on me as I circled around the stage area to pick the best viewing spot. More, he chanted after each song. The drummer closest to us laughed. We probably watched and listened for half-an-hour. It was pretty loud, but he didn’t mind. Eventually, he became interested in the ducks on the lake and so we talked about those for a while. Ducks! Quack! When I got tired of trying to keep him from swimming WITH those ducks, we left. It was nap time after all.

He fell asleep in the stroller on the walk home. When he woke up, he said, “Drums! Ducks!” as if he was dreaming about them, was surprised they were no longer there.

* * *

Speaking of sleep, we have a new addition to our routine. After the bath, the potty, the books, the bottle, the songs, there’s a final potty, and then I put him down in the crib. “On you,” he says, because I asked him a few nights back, “Do you want me to put the blanket on you?”

I put the blanket on him. I put his angel lovey in one arm, his puppy lovey in the other. “Snuggles,” he says. He goes back and forth regarding whether his feet should be out of or under the blanket. He settles. We say goodnight to everything in the room, the sky, the world, people, toys, whatever I can think of.

I tell him I’ll see him in the morning. Morning, he says back.

I leave the room.

He doesn’t cry.

It’s. Amazing.

* * *

This routine has been working at naps too (a less elaborate version). Except when it didn’t today. Nanny and I took turns trying to get him down for half an hour. And then she took him for a drive which knocked him out.

* * *

He now has two songs he likes to play on his drum, the aforementioned Old MacDonald, and  Bingo (was his name-o). A few weeks back, he was only singing the fifth verse’s refrain (pause pause pause pause O!). Now he sings the third over and over: N-G-O! and that with his banging on a drum or any object that might be pressed into service as a drum is just enough to indicate, even to the uninitiated, which song he would like to hear.

He also points to any toy vehicle and says “Move! Back!” as in Wheels on the Bus (The Driver on the bus says, “Move on back…”).

Today in mom-toddler yoga I could hear him playing with one of the caregivers in the next room as he systematically demonstrated his choice snippets, thereby cajoling her into singing these songs for him. Not that she minded. You have to be the sort of person that likes to sing kids songs to work in that environment, and besides, hanging out with Jonah and guessing what he’s trying to tell you is fun like winning on a game show would be. He’s all bells and flashing lights and six and a half toothed smile back at you when you get it right.

* * *

Our capacity to teach our child archaic exclamations continues unabated.

He now (in the appropriate circumstances) puts a hand to his face and says “Oh my!”

Similarly: “Goodness Gracious!”

With gusto: “All right!”

After someone sneezes: “Bless you.” (Sometimes he’ll say “Achoo!” so that you’ll say it or you’ll fake sneeze so he might say it, or he might just enjoy that you fake sneezed too.)

Other interesting language developments:

When he’s done eating something (a banana, two-thirds of a popsicle) he’ll slap it down on my lap and say “Thanks!”

He says “Okay” a lot. Only he says it like he’s just arrived here from Italy and learning the language (think Roberto Benigni in Down By Law) “HOH-Kayye.”

His style is spreading. A two-year-old girl in yoga class now also calls blueberries Bowlies. Although lately he’s been trying to work out the real word for the fruit.

His best personalized pronunciation to date: He’s still and forever working on growing that seventh tooth. There’s drool, there’s requests for Ty-nol. And Pockibohs! (Popsicles.)

* * *

File under: best potty(less) moment ever

Lately I’ve been letting him crawl around diaper-less. The weather is warmer. He enjoys it. The general area can use an occasional airing to help prevent rashes. I was initially under the illusion that it might help me to move his potty training forward but in reality I only succeeded in becoming one of “those people” who let their homes become the diaper.

One time, I sat him in his high chair entirely naked, so that he could enjoy a Pockiboh, and I could enjoy not having to work hard to clean up the sticky aftermath.

Which was fine, that time.

The next night, he was fussy. Post potty-time he practically leapt up into my arms before we could get a diaper on him, he was clinging to me like a monkey, and demanding Pockiboh.

So I put his naked butt in the high chair, handed him the frozen treat (homemade, apple juice and water).

I’m puttering around the kitchen while he’s eating. Suddenly he announces, “Pee pee,” and looses an impressive stream floor-ward.

(Two points added to the boy’s final score for having the capacity to name the urge just in advance of the performance.)

* * *

And now, as a reward for having slogged through what should have been a week’s worth of daily posts… for you, photos.

I call this series, Eating, with Hat (a.k.a. Peekaboo).