Kid Amnesiac

Last year, all spring it seemed, Simon increased his rate of daytime sleeping, had more night-time sleep disturbances (usually involving waking up between 11:30 and midnight and hollering “Ow!”), and ate non-stop. At the end of this period, he had grown about four inches in six months, hit a plateau, and started eating less, sleeping less, and yelling “Ow!” less.

That period of tranquility appears to be drawing to a close. For the last week, Simon has resumed non-stop eating, mid-afternoon napping, and nighttime partial awakenings. He’s also grown another inch since we last measured him in late July.

So is he gearing up for another giant spurt? I’m sure he is, but I’m not sure what kind of spurt is coming our way. It could be height again, but Simon seems to be on the cusp of a huge cognitive shift as well. Here are some signs we’re seeing:

Creative:

More imaginative play, and imaginative play that lasts longer. It is largely because of this that Simon has been seeking out the company of slightly older boys of late.  He’s also started drawing more pictures and telling us stories about what he’s drawn. Drawing still isn’t a big draw for him (see what I did there?), but he’s doing it way more than he used to.

Math Readiness:

The leaps in math understanding have been huge and are largely owing to playing Cars Monopoly. All that obsessive money counting has resulted in Simon’s ability to do simple addition and subtraction in his head up into the teens. He can’t do it all the time, and the longer he thinks about something, the more likely he is to make a mistake. But more than half the time, if I ask how much money he will have after he buys a property, collects rent on a property, or has to pay rent, he gets it right.

He’s also begun writing all his numbers correctly and likes to play a game where I say a three-digit number and he writes it down. This comes after months and months of Simon obsessively quantifying things: How old is X? How much older is X than Y?  How old will X be when Y is Z?  How tall is the tallest man? How tall is Daddy? How much taller is the tallest man than Daddy? And on, and on, and on.

Then there’s the endless grilling about what we do every hour of the day I’ve been subjected to for a few weeks now. I was just about to stop answering him when one day last week he read the clock in the car and announced that at that time the next day he’d be in swimming class. Now I understand that he was measuring, sorting, and categorizing time the same way he measures, sorts, and categorizes everything else.

Reading Readiness:

And the biggie… Six months ago or so, Simon was trying hard to read. He knew all his letters and their corresponding sounds, but he couldn’t blend them. I couldn’t help him, nor was I inclined to. I’m not a teacher, and I suspected he wasn’t truly ready yet. Then he abruptly turned his attention away from books and reading to more physical pursuits: We spent the next several months hitting balls in the back-yard, biking, taking swim lessons, learning to climb, and kicking a soccer ball.

And now we’re back. Today, as we got ready to leave school, Simon looked at the sign beside our car and said, “No, paar…” The sign read “No Parking”, and Simon was able to get two of the syllables. Later, when we stopped for a treat while holiday shopping, he noticed the sign on the coffee shop door. “Mommy, what’s that? No  smoh…” That would be the “No Smoking” sign.

Now, I’m not saying he’s going to start reading next week, next month, or next spring. I have no idea, honestly. What I do think is that the wheels inside Simon’s head are spinning at an accelerated rate these days, and that a few months from now I’m going to have a kid who linguistically, socially, or mathematically is far ahead of where he is now.

Also? He might be doing all of this while wearing size 6 pants. Cross your fingers for good post-holiday sales, eh?

I didn’t think Simon looked that different this year from last. Then I got his school pics back. Last year’s were better, fyi. His hair has an odd bump  here and I’m not sure why we buttoned the top button. Regardless, the boy has really stretched out in the past year; everything here—-face, hands, arms, neck, torso—is so much longer and leaner than it was in last October’s portrait. I miss some of that old, little-boy soft roundness he used to have.

If you have ever been to Vegas, you will no doubt remember the sight of people sitting at slot machines, putting in their tokens and pulling the arm, or more likely pushing a button, over and over again. What’s most remarkable about many people sitting at casino slot machines is how little fun they appear to be having. So many look so serious or detached over it. From an outside perspective, the whole thing resembles nothing so much as a publicly sanctioned compulsion. Sometimes I think that after losing a fair bit to the slots, those sitting at them keep spending their money in a desperate attempt to break even and forget that the original goal was entertainment.

If you can picture this, you can get a pretty good insight into how the game Cars Monopoly has devolved at our house. Simon got the game for his birthday, and it was/is his favorite board game at present and was a brilliant choice for him. Unfortunately, we’ve reached the point where his “favorite” board game is bringing out some obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

The game is a simplified version of Monopoly with cars as properties and a track with a car that replaces the dice. It’s cute; the makers knew how to distill the game down to its essence and make it kid appealing, no doubt about it. However, Simon is leeching all the fun out of it. He spends most of his turns worrying about who will land on Nigel Gearsley or Lightning McQueen, the Park Place and Boardwalk of this iteration. He’s begun to memorize the number of spaces between spots on the board, so sometimes he will groan over a turn (his or mine) before a car is ever moved on the real board. And he’s so eager to get to his turn that he will often move my car for me so he can get down the business of obsessing over whether he’ll spin the number he needs to land on Nigel or Lightning.

I have explained and demonstrated to him that owning Nigel and Lightning do not assure victory. I’ve lost while owning that monopoly. He’s lost while owning that monopoly. We’ve both won without owning either property. And yet, no matter how many times I review this information, the next game will inevitably begin with “I sure hope I spin a X so I can buy Nigel Gearsley.” It’s exhausting.

Then there’s the money. On the one hand, I’m grateful to the game for teaching Simon how to add and subtract in his head. Whenever he passes go or collects rent, he tells me his new bank balance without counting the bills. Similarly, when he has to pay rent or buy a property, he can quickly tell me how much money is left in his coffers. He’s even learned the basic principle of savings:

“I only have five dollars. So I don’t want to land on Nigel Gearsley now, because then I’d have zero dollars. I really need you to land on some of my properties first. I think I should have 10 dollars before I buy Nigel. Maybe 15. 20 would be best.”

Isn’t that awesome? The first time I heard it, I was entranced. Now, however, I get a bank balance as it relates to Nigel or Lightning after every single turn. And that’s after he’s already spent time analyzing what he has to spin to land on Nigel or Lightning, what I have to spin to land on them, or what either one of us would have to spin to avoid Nigel or Lightning.

And then! Yes, an exclamation point already because it’s going to get worse, after a full trip around the board or more than two transactions, Simon stops play to count his money. So here I sit, trying to play a cute little kids’ game with my son, and here he sits amid a pile of money awash in math and stress. This isn’t fun!

In fact, it’s gotten so out of hand that I’ve taken to cheating when we play. I “forget” to pay myself when I pass go. (Lately he’s caught me and has begun to run the bank since “Mommy is silly and forgets.”) When he’s not looking, I put a few of my bills back in the bank. I have, heaven help me, shoved bills up my sleeve or in a pocket. And if my spinner lands on a line, I choose the number of places that will cost me the most money. Anything, anything, to end the game.

A week or so ago, I thought it was important to win with regularity to reinforce earlier lessons about sportsmanship. At this point, I don’t care about any of that. I’ve begun rationing the game. If that doesn’t help, we might “lose” it for a week or so. Really, I’ll do whatever it takes to break the current cycle and get us back to having fun with it again.