Kid Amnesiac

I originally snapped this pic to illustrate the “Wow!” factor in sliding (see post below). I think I succeeded, but I have to say the “Wow!” factor of static electricity turned out to be equally compelling!

Simon continues to be a boy of few words, even as his comprehension is obviously increasing at a rapid clip. He’s been able to point out things like dogs, cats, fish, babies, buses, etc. for a while, and now he can also show me a taxi, ferry, bridge, helicopter, boy, girl, and most primary colors. Among is few new spoken words is “wow!” Coincidentally, he’s learned a few new tricks that I think are worthy of this new exclamation.

In the patios of Sesame Street, this blog entry is brought to you by the word “Wow!”.

Wow! #1: Conquering the Slide:

After 3 ½ month of teasing, Simon finally decided to go down the slide last night. He went down a few times on our trip to San Francisco, then developed sudden-onset slide phobia. We’d try to have him go down, and he’d fuss and squirm. I took him down on my lap, I waited at the end for him, I climbed through tunnels, and went down beside him-all in a seemingly futile campaign to get Simon to go down on his own. No dice. Every time he’d walk over the slide, sit down by its edge, put his hands on the sides…. And then turn around and beat a path to another section of the play equipment. Every time. Last night, for reasons I cannot explain, he let go and went for it. Upon reaching the bottom he looked up at Matt, flashed a huge smile, and declared, “Wow! Indeed, kiddo.

Wow! #2: Introducing the Pronoun:

Until yesterday, Simon’s vocabulary was composed of nouns and exclamations only. (The “dirty” in “dirty dog” and the “nice” when petting the cats don’t count.) Yesterday, he added his first pronoun. As an added bonus, he almost used the correct one. Mom and Simon were playing a knock-knock game, and twice when Mom asked “Who’s there?” Simon answered back “Me.” While technically he should have used the nominative “I”, I’m not going to quibble about case with a toddler. I’m just impressed he didn’t say “you” or “Simon.”

Wow! #3 Hopping Down and Backing Up:

We’re about six weeks into this walking thing, and other skills are beginning to emerge. The big two are his ability to hop down from a step or chair and his ability to walk backwards. The backwards walking has manifest itself in a particularly cute habit: Simon can now get a favorite book, walk over to me, turn around, back up a few paces, and sit himself down on my lap to be read to.

I’m sure there are other Wow!s I’m missing. Every since Simon got up and walked, it seems he learns something new every day. If he keeps this up, the entire summer will be brought to you by “Wow!”

Simon’s memory is clearly improving, bringing along with it some unforeseen repercussions. Last Saturday Matt and I took him to Hogan’s Fountain in Cherokee Park. They have swings there, two play-sets, and a splash pad with two fountains for play on hot summer days.

Simon hadn’t explored the splash pad before, but this Saturday it was quite hot, so Matt and I encouraged him. He skirted the perimeter a few times, keeping a safe distance from the full force of the fountains. Then he spotted a golf ball on the concrete, picked it up, tossed it to the center of the fountain, and ran into the water spray full speed ahead to retrieve the ball. He played like this for some time, making a game of playing fetch with himself, stopping to grimace with his eyes squeezed shut as he stood under the  foutain’s direct spray. It didn’t always look like he was having fun, but we had to assume he would not have repeated himself so often were he not enjoying the game.

On Tuesday I brought Simon back to Hogan’s Fountain. The minute I lifted him out of his stroller, he made a bee-line for the splash pad, pointing ahead to it and calling out “ball, ball, the ball” all the while. Uh oh. The golf ball wasn’t there this time. I watched with mixed emotions as Simon toddled around the entire perimeter of the splash pad in a futile search for his toy. He looked sad and confused by its absence, and I heard him babbling about the ball the entire time we played on the swings and climbing equipment.

Wednesday night the whole scenario played out again. Only this time Matt was with us, witnessing the sad little scene beside me. On the one hand, we’re impressed at his ability to make up games for himself and his ability to remember them. On the other hand, it was hard to see him look so disappointed and confused when he couldn’t play the game again. It’s as though his favorite toy was broken after only one day.

Needless to say, Matt and I have instituted a new house rule: Never go to Hogan’s Fountain without a golf ball in the stroller. That should get us through to Labor Day-then the fountain is turned off and his little heart will break anew.

I’m on a child-related reading kick at the moment, having just purchased three new parenting books: The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, and Discipline: The Brazelton Way.

Though I should be starting with the third book, as it most directly and succinctly addresses a pressing need, I have instead begun with the second, more interesting title. Furthermore, I have not begun at the beginning of this book, either. (I rarely begin at the very beginning, even with fiction. It’s a habit that drives Matt over the bend.) I instead began with Chapter 6: Mothers and Sons: A Legacy of Desire and Distance.

The authors begin by describing a mother and her twenty-four month old son at the park. He is exploring while she sits and watches, and his motions create an ever-widening orbit around her. After each revolution, he looks to make sure she his still there and watching, comes to her for a hug or some affection, then ventures out again, perhaps traveling a bit further this time. “He is the explorer and she is ‘home base’,” say the authors, and such is the fundamental pattern of sons and mothers.

Much of the chapter was thought provoking in its descriptions of how mothers and sons interact. And much of its advice I seem to have intuitively brought to my relationship with Simon. I’m not sure who these moms are that are “toughening” their very young sons and comforting or kissing them less than their daughters, but I am certainly not one of them. I dread the day that Simon decides not to hug or kiss me; until then I’m getting in all the affection that I can!

But one section of the chapter covered something I hadn’t really thought of before: boy energy. Having read a bit more, I see that “boy energy” is a theme of this book. Simply put, boys have a superabundance of energy that girls typically lack. They have trouble sitting still for stories, they fidget when they must sit for prolonged periods, and boys’ energy must be respected and given a proper outlet for them to flourish. There was even a description of a Montessori school that cordoned off an area in the class for boys to jump rope when they felt especially antsy.

I didn’t work today, so my goal was to redo Friday’s mama-baby day, ideally with fewer crying jags and less yelling. As I started the day, I had “boy energy” and the lessons of Raising Cain fresh in my mind; the book thus informed my interactions with Simon and my schedule for him.

After the regular morning routine, we headed to the JCC to play in the pool. Simon and I tossed a ball back and forth in the baby pool, shared a snack, then went to the big pool where he learned to float, danced with me, and played the “astronaut game” in which I count down from 10, hoist him wildly in the air, and ensure a huge splash on the way down.

Next it was home for lunch and a nap. Once he woke up, we changed clothes, ate a quick snack, and proceeded to walk to the park for Part II of a fun summer day outside. Here he spent some time on the swings, but spent more playing with the steering wheel and chimes on the play equipment, and even more running around a fountain, climbing up and over things, and chasing me all over the park. The entire time, I coaxed him to try out new things, chased him, arranged to be chased by him, took him down the slide, helped him climb up, down and over things, and otherwise did all I could to physically engage him.

By 5:30, we rolled up the sidewalk for dinner with Matt and my dad. Simon was pooped. He held on for dinner, played and danced a bit for my dad after dinner, and then collapsed into a sobbing heap at 8:00 sharp.

He’s in bed fast asleep now: I have several more active hours in me. Raising Cain has put me on notice for sure, but for now at least Simon’s 21-month-old boy energy can’t hold a candle to my 38-year-old mama energy.*

*Age may have nothing to do with this. It may simply be a factor of my being twice as much Soirefman/Kahn as he is. Anyone who ever saw my mom, maternal grandmother, or maternal great-grandmother in action knows the powerful force of which I speak.

The vast majority of the time, Simon is an easy toddler to take care of. He eats and sleeps well, and his disposition is sunny and social. Last week, however, was on the tough side. Every day but Wednesday (a Camp Whitworth day) he was off his game in at least one respect, and Friday he was crabby nearly the entire day.

I didn’t work on Friday, so I had planned a lovely mama-baby day for us. We’d start at the playgroup at Mama’s Hip, then come home for lunch and a nap, then hit the JCC pool once he woke up. After our swim-date, we’d have time for dinner and play with papa, and a family wind-down session with books and music would end the day. What could be better?

According to Simon, just about anything. He spent most of the day whining and yelling. I never could figure out what was wrong; all I knew was that everything I did was wrong. I picked him up the wrong way at the wrong time. I chose the wrong toys. I made the wrong food. I read the wrong books. I went about changing his diaper all wrong. I’m pretty sure I even looked at him the wrong way most of the time. The single thing I got right was taking him to play group, but even that ended poorly when I (wrongly!) wouldn’t let Simon run up and down a busy street without holding my hand.

It was maddening, and my nerves were frazzled from a bout of insomnia the night before. At times like this, I wage an internal war between doing/saying what I know to be the correct things and giving into my frustration and doing/saying what I know to be the incorrect things. Friday, I tell you, my internal reserves were low, and I gave in to baser instincts, like yelling at Simon to just be quiet, more than once. I may have even told him to shut up. (I sure hope not, but I can’t remember.) I’m not proud of this or excusing myself in any way. In hindsight, it’s clear as day that I lowered myself to his level and was something of a toddler myself.

On the other hand, there are some upsides to days like these. They make you a bit less judgmental about the public parenting of others. They make you appreciate the good days more. And in this instance, some crabbiness helped me to solve an emerging sleep problem of Simon’s.

For the past week or two, Simon has woken up after two to three hours of sleep many nights. Unlike his previous partial arousals, these times he’s wide awake, lucid, and unhappy. We got into the habit of picking him up, bringing him into our room for a bit, and then putting him back down. When this happened once a month, I didn’t think too much about it. At four times a week, it began to emerge as a new and unwelcome routine.

Most nights, after the crying would begin, Matt would suggest we let Simon work through it on his own. I’d half-heartedly agree, then insist on intervention the minute the crying went past five minutes and/or escalated in tone. Friday night, though, I was so tired from Simon (and, frankly, of Simon), that once I put him down for the night, I had no desire to see him again for at least 12 hours.

So when he awoke howling at 10:05, I was more willing to try Matt’s suggested course of inaction. I let it go. At 10:14 the crying reached a crescendo and I got ready to go get him. And then, just as abruptly as it began, it stopped. We repeated these non-actions when Simon awoke unusually early the next morning, letting him be unsettled and cry until he dropped back to sleep and woke up happily babbling at his regular waking time. The payoff was that Simon slept in late Saturday morning, had a terrific day, and got himself back to sleep when he awoke during his Saturday nap and again that night pretty easily.

It just goes to show you that sometimes doing nothing is the best thing you can do for everyone. And that there’s some value in even the most annoying of days.

Now here’s a milestone I didn’t know to be on the lookout for. Simon sang in the back seat of the car last night, adding his own little grace note (no pun intended) to a busy and happy weekend.

We first heard the beginnings of singing, what I jokingly call Ur-singing, about a year ago. Right after putting him down for a nap or for sleep at night, Matt and I would hear a slightly melodic “da da da” from his room. It was Evie who first recognized this as singing; she thought Simon had taken matters into his own hands when his care-givers didn’t sing to him.

The next phase started a few weeks or months ago, I’m honestly not sure which, when Simon began to babble along with songs on the radio, doing his best to sing along. The problem here was finding a song whose only words were “no,” “light,” or “bus.”

Then, last night, The Rolling Stones came over the airwaves with “The Last Time,” a song whose stanzas all end with the refrain “Oh no, Oh no.” Hey, Simon knows those words! So after a verse or two, Matt and I heard a small voice from the back seat join in on the “Oh no, Oh no” part. We looked at each other, had one of those “Did you just hear what I did?” exchanges, and smiled broadly.

Such a little thing, but such a delight nonetheless. Also, quite possibly, the first and last time I will feel any real affection for the Rolling Stones. Oh no, oh no!

I’m a good three weeks behind in uploading and organizing pictures. This might not sound dire, but given how many pictures I take, I’m perilously close to having to declare photo album bankruptcy.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, the toddler in all his spectacular messiness and glory.