Kid Amnesiac

Not in this house, anyway. Simon’s budding vocabulary is increasingly lyrical, filled as it is with metonymy* and metaphor.

Consider, for example, the ball. Simon learned the word in association with the balls we play with in the house and outside. Soon after, he recognized balls in picture books, and learned to point and say “ball” whenever he saw one on the page. It wasn’t long after this that “ball” became the term for anything that reminded him of balls, specifically anything round or cylindrical. Thus, a ball is now a polka dot, the moon, the cylinder in a shape sorter, or even a puppy’s nose. When Simon reads to himself, he says “ball” an awful lot.

Not, however, as much as he says “light”. In Simon’s world, a “light” could be a table lamp, a floor lamp, a ceiling fan light kit, a spot-light, a flush-mouted ceiling light, a wall sconce, or any other artificial light you can name. He also calls ceiling fans lights, probably because many of them have light kits attached. And now, the sun, moon (when it’s not a ball) and stars in books are also lights, which I suppose is not entirely incorrect.

His calling numbers lights may be taking this poetry a bit too far. How did a number become a light? It’s not as crazy as it sounds. From the first time Simon read Do Princesses Count? (our desperation book purchase at San Francisco’s airport last month), he was mesmerized by the oversized glittery numbers that appear on each page. Since these numbers sparkled and shone, he pointed to them and said “light” on each page. All this attention to glittery numbers made him take notice of the numbers that appear in other books, and the association carried over. As a result, I can count on Simon to see a number on a page, point to it enthusiastically, and yell “light!”

I’d try harder to correct him were it not so funny and cute. I promise to fix before kindergarten.

Other examples abound. On any given day, all dogs are “cats” or cats are “dogs”. “Throw” is usually a verb, but can stand in for a noun at times if he spots a favored projectile.

Amidst all this poetry, Simon remains steadfastly literal and specific in his use of one word: Mama. Three times now Matt has asked Simon to point to “the mama” in a picture book. And three times Simon has ignored the mama in the book and instead pointed to me or to the room I was currently in. Once, when he was in the living room and I was upstairs, he pointed straight up. Right now Simon is in a major daddy phase, making his stinginess with the word “mama” all the sweeter.

*metonymy: the extension of one word to others with which it has become closely associated.

With less than twenty-four hours to go before Kentucky’s Democratic primary election, Simon has decided to throw his support behind candidate Barack Obama.

What finally encouraged him to make a decision and go public with it?  This evening’s news reported that Michelle Obama appeared in Louisville today reading The Runaway Bunny to kids at Kosair Children’s Hospital.  “Ooooh!” said Simon.  It was a tough call, but I think he finally had to settle on the candidate with the most pro-Runaway Bunny agenda.

Could anything change Simon’s mind?  Maybe if Chelsea came over and helped point out all of the lights in Goodnight Moon.

…Is imitation of course. Simon has begun to mimic our activities more often lately, and the results can be hilarious.

Example A: Last Tuesday I replaced the batteries in the Pooh Train, as the song it plays was getting a bit draggy and Simon can’t/won’t cruise behind it without musical accompaniment. (Evie compares this to the way a teenager drives, with one hand on the wheel and the other on the radio at all times.) I had to use a screw driver to take off the battery case, and once Simon saw the tool come out he wanted a part of the action. So there he sat, cheek dimpled with the effort, twisting the screw driver (sort of) into the open battery case. As the train sounded better once we both finished with our ministrations, perhaps Simon’s “help” was helpful after all.

Example B: Saturday, imitation popped up meal time. I got an apple to share for dessert after lunch, carefully cutting off bites for Simon while I bit off bites myself. After a few nibbles, Simon looked plaintively in my direction and gestured for the apple. Figuring this would be good for a laugh, I handed it over to him. Simon knew exactly what to do and dove in with surprising energy. He didn’t just get one or two bites off the core, he scraped off half the apple, maneuvered the apple to get at remaining flesh as he got close to the core in some places, and quickly learned to avoid the poles.

There are other examples as well, but these are the two that stand out the most in my mind and make me smile the widest.

What a difference two weeks makes. The last time Simon was evaluated by a therapist, he didn’t walk behind a wagon well, didn’t crawl well, and didn’t climb stairs at all. Today, he was evaluated again, this time by the physical therapist assigned to his case. Only instead of hearing about his underdeveloped upper body and unsteady gait, this morning I kept hearing things like, “Oh, he walks really well,” “I love the way he turns the wagon around,” and “Look at him climb those stairs!”

Today’s assessment concluded with the message that Simon can walk on his own, he’s just too insecure and fearful (or stubborn) to do so.

Our appointment today coincides with Simon’s 19-month birthday, an occasion we are going to mark with the gifts of a step-stool, a large ball, window forms, perhaps an easel, and certainly a meaty dose of frustration to be meted out daily.

Amy’s message to me was clear: So long as Simon can do all he wants by scooting around on his butt, he’s unlikely to let go and walk. That means we need to have fewer floor toys, more standing toys, and much more walking as part of our daily routine. I don’t have to frustrate him 24 hours a day; in fact, that might backfire, but I do have to choose regular times to frustrate him and encourage walking.

It looks like my weekend has been planned. I need two step-stools to put in front of our sinks, so Simon can begin to walk and stand to have his hands and face cleaned after meals and to brush his teeth at night. Window forms, a ball, and an easel will give us more to do standing up in our living room and the nursery, and if it ever stops raining, we’ll resume our daily trips to the park and regular play at the water table.

Meanwhile, floor toys need to be confiscated and/or set at a higher level. And during designated times of the day, if Simon won’t stand, walk, or cruise to get something he wants, I can’t allow him to have it. I don’t have to let him throw a fit; I just have to take him into a different room to play with something else so he doesn’t learn to manipulate me by fussing.

The good news is/was that we are doing many things right after since our appointment with Beth two weeks ago. Having Simon walk behind push toys has paid off, encouraging him to play on the stairs is paying off, and we’re doing a good job of praising him to the hilt for every step he takes and not making a big deal of the inevitable falls that come his way. Now it’s simply time to step up our game.

Amusingly, when I got a full look at Simon’s assessment data I learned that he is firmly ahead of the average in one and only one arena: social development. I don’t have the report yet, but Amy decided to look this up when Simon put the moves on her and then had his baby bunny stuffed animal kiss the frog stuffed animal we call Super Speedy as a diversionary tactic. Amy smiled knowingly when she saw this data and warned me not to let Simon charm me into backing off the walking exercises.

Pardon the bad pun. The weave in question here refers to Simon’s pants. For some time now, my mom has told me about how I wore out my pants on the bottom as a baby because I was a butt-scooter. I also get queried about whether Simon wears his pants out on the bottom whenever people see him do his scooting thing. This entire time, I’ve thought to myself, “No, his pants are fine” or “Why would that happen?”.

Ahhhh. Now I get it. After 6 months of scooting on plush carpet or (more often) slick hardwood floors during a Louisville autumn and winter, Simon has now taken his means of locomotion to the driveway, the sidewalk, and the playground with predictably destructive results.

• His really nice Janie and Jack gray long pants? Tear at the pocket, but wearable for play.
• His really nice Charlie Rocket lightweight jeans? Tear on the tush, can wear a few more times.
• His really nice Mish boys navy board shorts? Multiple tears on the tush. Ruined.

At this rate, Simon will be naked or I will be broke in no-time. Besides getting his butt up and walking, I have no good solution either. I can’t let him wear pants with greatly diminished structural integrity, because his diapers cost as much or nearly as much as his pants and shorts! I can’t keep buying nice things for him to trash. I don’t know if I can patch the tush. And they don’t make disposable pants, do they?

My not very good solution is to buy a bunch of cheap stuff from Target and pray to the walking gods that Simon gets up before he destroys everything he owns.

The thing about being a blabbermouth, is that when you broadcast your every thought, your words have an unfortunate tendency to come back to haunt you. Not quite 11 years ago, at Matt’s and my rehearsal dinner, my sister-in-law Stacy gave a toast in which she recalled with cheek-reddening accuracy a monologue I had given a few years before. The essence of which was that the entire wedding industrial complex is a blight on smart people and that I would never don a white poufy dress with a veil to exchange vows. As it happens, I wore an ivory poufy dress with a veil to exchange vows with Matt, so I suppose I get off on a technicality.

Last month, two other friends in California recalled with similar cheek-reddening accuracy my declaration that I’d probably never have kids and that, if I ever did, they would almost certainly be adopted. I couldn’t see myself wanting kids, and I really couldn’t imagine choosing to get pregnant or give birth in the unlikely event of changing my mind.

My imagination has never been my métier.

The first time these anti-baby thoughts had a chance to haunt me was when Simon was about three weeks old and an old friend from graduate school called to check in on us. He and his wife were considering having a baby themselves, and so he asked me, “Now that you have Simon, can you imagine your life without him?”

At the time my friend asked, Simon was a colicky infant and I was terribly sleep deprived. Could I imagine my life without him? You bet! I wouldn’t have minded a brief dip into the pre-baby waters at all. I earnestly reassured him that while I was loving being a mom, I was sure my life would be equally fulfilling had a chosen a different path. At the moment I spoke, I have to say, I’m not sure that either half of that statement was true.

When Kelley and Christine reminded me of my earlier anti-baby stance, it was as though they were describing a different person. I could imagine someone who looks a lot like me saying or thinking what I said and thought, but I couldn’t effectively empathize with her. Then, oddly, I got choked up-partly from the sense that I need to protect Simon’s feelings from thoughts that predate him, but mostly because at that moment I realized how close I came to blowing a major life decision.

Because truly, it’s not just that I can’t quite imagine my life without Simon, it’s that I don’t even want to try. I’m not deluded about the daily grind of motherhood. Lately Simon has been fighting diaper changes and getting more stubborn and emotional in general, and at times during his whining or thrashing about I’d love to put him in a straight jacket and/or toss him out a window.

But those are small moments and small truths. The larger picture is that-yes, yes, cliché, I know, a horrible, leaden cliché-Simon fulfills me in a way that prior attempts at self-fulfillment have not. He’s made me appreciate daily life. He’s freed me to play again. And the way he loves me is astonishing. Everyone tells you that you’ll love your kid more than you can imagine. What they don’t tell you is how much your baby will love you. That, I think, is the greater revelation.

When I consider how close I came to missing this, I get a shiver down my spine. Truth be told, my primary motivation for having Simon was that I was bored and unfulfilled, and it seemed like a good way to shake things up. I had also considered divesting of my worldly possessions and working a sheep ranch in Scotland or joining the Peace Corps and running off to a developing nation, but we had just bought the house, I know nothing of sheep other than their wool, I have no skills the Peace Corps need, and I’m kind of attached to my stuff. Ergo: baby.

One person alone knew how wrong I was: my mother*. She told me I’d feel this way if I ever got around to having a baby, and I spent the better part of a decade demurring. Now I have to admit that she was right and that I can’t remotely imagine my life without Simon. So happy Mother’s Day, Mom. You were absolutely right, and on this score at least knew my own heart better than I did.

* OK, so two people knew: my mother and my friend Beth. But Beth said less, and hey, it’s Mother’s Day after all…

More and more, Simon resembles the 10-11 month old babies described in What to Expect the First Year. This may sound alarming given that he’s over 18 months old, but the reverse is actually true. Those babies were supposed to be in constant motion-pulling up, knocking things over, grabbing things off tables, and generally making messes and getting into trouble. Meanwhile, Simon contentedly sat and played with his books and blocks.

By now, thank goodness, we are into our fifth week of constant motion. Simon spends a large chunk of each day doing all the messy, active things I expected him to last fall. He stands as often as he sits, and he divides his locomotion nearly evenly between butt-scooting, crawling, and cruising. Crawling is the newest piece to this puzzle, and it’s a welcome one as I know it is helping Simon build some much needed upper body strength and increase his coordination.

Tonight he finally put all his new skills together to master a new task: he climbed several stairs. I’ve been working on this for a week or so, and he’s gotten up one step to my landing a few times in the last 2-3 days. Tonight, though, he did a full climb up about four steps. Then we had to call it a night and put him to bed.

But not before we took a few pictures!

Nearly all the moms I knew in San Francisco and Berkeley-the ones a generation older than me-had a similar story to tell about boys and dolls. All these moms grew up in the progressive 60s and 70s and swore they’d work to overcome rigid gender divisions in their kids. Moms would be seen having meaningful work, dads would be seen doing their part in the house, and boys and girls would each be given dolls and trucks to play with.

To their amazement, all these well intentioned parents then sat back and watched their girls rush for the dolls and boys rush for trucks. All the moms of boys reported having unloved dolls to then dispense with-the detritus of a grand experiment in gender neutral child rearing.

Given these stories-which even make it into several child-rearing books-I never bothered to get Simon a doll. He’s got stuffed animals that he likes, but I never pushed it past that. The thought occurred to me a few times: when I’d read about a pediatrician modeling his exam on a doll before approaching his patient or when milestone check-lists would say “can feed a doll”, for example. I’ve even thought that getting a modern Dapper Dan might be good way to teach Simon to dress and undress and finagle buttons and zippers. Something like Haba’s Phil the Doll would do nicely.

But each time I’d consider a doll, the cautionary tale of discarded dolls would enter my mind. “Forget about it,” I’d think. “Why throw good money away?”

Derby eve, friends David and Lisa came over with their 2 ½ year old daughter Sophie. Sophie brought her doll, and was kind enough to share her towards the end of the night. Simon loved it! He held the doll, cradled the doll, and carried the doll around. And unlike with his stuffed animals, he never tossed the doll aside or threw her. Nope, he modeled gentle, caring behavior throughout.

Was this a fluke? Shall I bring Phil home to live with us? Stay tuned.

… And Simon has qualified for physical therapy in the First Steps program. He had his assessment today, and I learned much about him from the fabulous therapist, Beth, who came to our house.

In some areas, I learned what I already knew. He’s on track linguistically, he’s very social, and his cognition is fine overall. He is, of course, quite late in his gross motor skills, operating where an average child of 9-11 months would.

Then there were two huge surprises. The first is that Simon’s gross motor delay is affecting his fine motor skills, which used to be ahead but are no longer. Simon can’t scribble the way he’d like to, and he struggles with squares in the shape sorter and sitting up posts in pegboard, all because his underdeveloped upper body isn’t providing the strength or agility he needs to rotate and balance objects.

The next big surprise was that Simon’s delayed locomotion has had an effect on his cognition. When Beth put a wash cloth on top of a ring, Simon knew to lift the cloth to get the ring. When she put a wash cloth on top of a ring and laid down a second cloth beside it, he knew which cloth to lift up to get the ring. But when she laid down the ring, covered it with a cloth and put a second cloth down beside it, and then reversed their positions, Simon consistently reached for the wrong cloth. Beth explained to me that this level of understanding only develops when a baby has been mobile for a certain amount of time-longer than Simon has been mobile.

Beth pin-pointed several reasons for Simon’s delay:

1. His reflux prevented us from giving him adequate tummy time, and the Back to Sleep campaign prevented him from getting comfortable in that position at times the reflux was better.
2. His body shape is working against him. Simon is rather tall, which raises his center of gravity. He is lean, which also makes him less grounded. He had an ill-timed growth spurt just as he was getting mobile. And he has a large head, which throws off his balance completely. You could call these combined features a biomechanical storm of delay.
3. Genetics are working against him. I was a butt-scooter and a late walker. Matt was always a bit uncoordinated (yes, more than me). Since butt-scooting delays bilaterial coordination and he wasn’t destined to be super-coordinated to begin with, he got hit from both sides.

Wrap all these together, and it’s really no wonder that he is delayed. So what do do? I will learn more when I have my IFSP meeting next week and therapy begins. (Thanks for the explanation, Beth! You were right.) Until then, I’ve been given a few tips:

1. Move objects further apart so he has to get more adventurous in his cruising.
2. Have him hold on to a stuffed animal or towel that I hold instead of my hands, so he’ll have to power himself more.
3. Weigh down the push-toy he has so it moves slower on the hard-wood. The more he uses this toy, the better, as it encourages confidence and independence in walking.
4. When Simon walks holding on to my hands, I should kneel down so his hands are at chest or waist height-not over his head.
5. We should put him in wheelbarrow position regularly; when he’s strong enough he can then “walk” on his hands and develop better muscle tone.

At times like this, it’s hard not to engage in a bit of Monday morning quarterbacking. Should I have been firmer about tummy time? Should we have intervened earlier? Was I too cavalier or nonchalant about Simon’s delay? Beth mentioned that she would have liked to have tried Simon on a wedge for tummy time (she says bolsters do little good if any), and that she would not have been happy with his level of cruising (nearly non-existent) at fifteen months.

On the other hand, he’s happy, he’s social, he’s smart enough for now, he’s eager to develop, and Beth doesn’t think it will take long to catch him up. I hope she’s right. Simon’s preschool begins mid-August, giving us exactly three and a half months to get him where he needs to be.

Let’s roll!

I suppose the aphorism is true. On our flight from SF to Cleveland two weeks ago, Matt and I accidentally left Dirty Dog behind. We worried that its loss would complicate getting Simon to sleep that night, and indeed he looked a bit confused when we handed him a frog blanket and a taggie blanket that night. Thankfully, he fell asleep without too much fuss.

Our first day back in town, we went to the Whitworths’ house and collected Dirty Duck, Dirty Dog’s sibling, which they keep for Simon’s Thursday naps. Dirty Duck is made from the same fabric as Dirty Dog, so the feel in a sleeping baby’s hands is identical and the appearance is similar enough to make it effective as a lovey and part of our sleep-time ritual.

While Simon cozied up with Dirty Duck Saturday night, Matt went online and ordered two replacement Dirty Dogs. Frankly, we felt a bit silly about the thing, as we strongly suspected that we were more attached to Dirty Dog than Simon was.

“He’d be fine with just Dirty Duck” we told each other. “We’re the ones who are attached to Dirty Dog.”

How wrong we were! Several days later the twin Dirty Dogs arrived. I gleefully ripped open the box in anticipation of bedtime. Once 8:00 p.m. arrived and we went through our nightly ritual, we placed Simon in his crib and I handed him Dirty Dog. What I saw next surprised me, because Simon clearly recognized Dirty Dog and was happy to see him after a week’s absence.

He reached out for the blanket, but did not tuck it under his arm and snuggle up right away. Instead, he held Dirty Dog at arm’s reach, turned him around, and seemingly inspected his face. Satisfied that this was indeed his old friend, he made a part-sigh, part-laugh sound and snuggled up with him.

From that day on, Simon has been more attached to and in love with Dirty Dog than ever. He carries him around, he hugs and kisses him, we hear him talk about “dir doe” throughout the day, and he’s integrated Dirty Dog into his daily play. We have since taken to use Dirty Dog as a general comfort object and have him kiss Simon when he’s upset. It didn’t keep him from crying at the pediatrician’s office on Friday, but I’m sure it got him to calm down faster after the exam.

What a funny and endearing turn of events. All hail Dirty Dog!