PhiLLy RoLL

It's Starting to Feel Like Spring

I am tired of life always feeling so busy that I can't keep up. And by keep up, I mean, get enough sleep and not have the apartment look like a tornado just blew through. And I certainly never seem to manage to write posts here on a regular basis.

But this weekend I got out of the house - out of the state even! (okay just to New Jersey) - on a "mom date", which stereotypically involved the grocery store and coffee. That's what moms are supposed to do, right? But it was wonderful. My friend D took me to a Vietnamese grocery store, then to Wegmans, and then to Panera Bread (after all, we were playing suburban moms with a car). Among my exciting purchases: a 50 lb bag of premium rice (Kokuho), sticky rice and banana wrapped in banana leaves, noodles, Chinese broccoli, and Firecracker chocolate (dark chocolate with chipotle, salt and popping candy).

In the past couple of weeks I am rediscovering the importance of getting out beyond the small world of my family and my immediate work colleagues. It's not that there's anything wrong with them, but keeping my sphere of interactions so small makes me think very narrowly about life in general. Of course, it's hard when you have two small children and a full time job to just go out on a whim. But what I end up doing is living week by week, each week feeling the immediate pressures of things that need to get done, and not taking a little time out to relax and gain some perspective.

Also in the past few weeks I am starting to enjoy my family life a little bit more. Squeakles has largely gotten past the tantrums. There are still remnants, but he no longer throws a fit when we bring him to school, bring him home, or basically ask him to do anything. When he tries it we are usually either able to talk him out of it, or some time in his room by himself does the trick. Today he was in a fantastic mood - chatting all day long to anyone within earshot, or when we attempted a (failed) nap, he just kept talking happily to himself. He even chatted up one of our neighbors when we were in the laundry room. I was standing at the washer throwing him wet clothes which he was trying to catch and then put in the drier. Every time he caught one, he would crane around to see our neighbor, saying things to her like "I did a good job catching what Mommy throwed me!" or "I caught that one with my face!" Later I asked him if he remembered her name and giddily he joked that her name was Cilantro. He was so pleased with this joke that he brought it back hours later, calling me Cilantro with a big laugh and a look of utter delight on his face.

Because I like to keep track of his language development, here's a little picture of what he's saying lately:

• "I ate the rice all." (analagous to "I ate it all")
• "What is that in the world?" (trying to say "What in the world is that?")
• "How is that crazy?" (trying to say "How crazy is that?")
• Whenever I comment on anything he does, he repeats back what I say as a "why" question. Although he's finally figured out which pronouns to use (he no longer refers to himself as "you"), he hasn't mastered the correct agreement on the verb, so he says things like "Why weren't I?"
• He also hasn't mastered gender pronouns fully, though I actually suspect he's not really clear what gender/sex actually is. He does tend to correctly refer to me and Weeble as "she" and J as "he", but it's not 100%. And he's definitely noticed a difference in our anatomy, though I think he's simply just mystified by it. As for people outside the family, he tends to refer to everyone as "he". Just the other day, a woman with extremely long hair said something to him and when she passed by, he asked "What did he say to me?"
• Sort of related to the above point, a couple of weeks ago we were standing in front of the elevator doors at his preschool, musing about whether anyone would be inside. The doors opened and a middle aged woman came out and walked past us. I am pretty sure she was within earshot, but I'm not sure she was able to make out what Squeakles said (I hope not): "It's a grandma!" (My concern about her hearing is that she was not all that old. I take that as a compliment to his own grandmothers who do not look the least bit elderly, but I doubt that the woman who was called a "grandma" would assume that!
• J got back from a trip to San Francisco on Wednesday morning after flying overnight. He crawled right into bed and I commented to Squeakles that Daddy was going to bed in the morning! J tried to explain to him that in San Francisco it was still nighttime even though it was morning here. Squeakles thought it over for a second and then said, "Two suns!" I was so impressed with his reasoning that I jumped right in with an explanation about how the sun moves around the earth, then tried to correct myself, and then was kind of relieved to notice that no one was really listening to me. :)

And our Weeble is such a little sweetie who is happy almost all the time unless she has a specific need to eat or sleep or have her diaper changed. Otherwise she spends her time either raising her arm up in the air and smiling at us, or inspecting the floor for anything she can put into her mouth. She loves to laugh in that way that babies do - uncontrollable belly laughs when something surprises her or strikes her as really funny (like fingers crawling towards her). At ten months old, she still isn't talking, but yesterday she started saying "uh oh" with a little glint in her eye whenever she dropped something (usually on purpose).

She is also an amazing sleeper. For which I am so, so grateful.

Squeakles continues to have his sleep problems, but we have just compounded them by taking the "fier" (pacifier) away. We tried about a week ago, but gave in because no one was sleeping well to begin with because everyone was sick, and anyway both J and I were going out of town the following weekend. But last night I just told him no more fier. He already doesn't use one at school for naps, so he didn't freak out about it. He definitely has more trouble getting to sleep, but I've been being really gentle about it - not getting frustrated with him when he tells me he's having trouble sleeping (over and over), but instead trying to help him relax and go to sleep - a couple of head rubs, some quiet (and hopefully) boring counting, etc.

But now both kids are asleep, so I would be an idiot if I stayed at my computer any longer. Good night world!

A Total Change of Heart

I've been a bit backlogged for the past few days, due to a combination of working hard on a presentation by day and not sleeping by night, so I haven't had a chance to write about Squeakles' miraculous overnight change.

...

It was Thursday morning of last week - the day after my previous post detailing Squeakles' major resistance to preschool and, well, everything.

At 7:40 I went into his room to wake him up - ten minutes later than I'd intended to, and about half an hour later than I really should have if I'd remembered that I had to get both kids ready and out the door by myself. (J needed to leave early for work and we knew that the whole family would never be able to get moving even earlier than usual.) I reached into Squeakles' crib and held his hand for a minute while he continued sleeping. Then I gently rubbed his arm and asked him if he'd like to get up and cuddle. He quietly said "yes" and stood right up, letting me pick him up and then nestling his face into my neck and shoulder. I brought him out to the rocking chair in the living room and sat with him for a few minutes, warm underneath a down blanket.

As we chatted a little bit, I brought up school, mentioning that the kids in his class would be wearing green today, which he agreed would look very funny. Just as I heard Weeble stirring in the bedroom, Squeakles asked to play with his firetruck and firehouse, so I easily moved him to the floor and let him play for a little bit. The rest of the morning he was willing to do almost everything I directed him to do and we enjoyed being silly together (for example, wondering whether there might be a tree in the toilet, like in the story "Wacky Wednesday" that we've been reading for the past few nights, and peeking around the corner into the bathroom to check out the situation).

It wasn't until I was actually putting him in the stroller that he said he didn't want to go to school today. "Why not?" I asked. "Is it because you're sad when we leave?" He said yes, and so I offered to stay for a few minutes before leaving him. "Would that be better?" I asked him. He said that it would. This was a surprise - in the past few days he hasn't been willing to accept any compromise or comfort.

"I'm going to be good today" he suddenly announced. "I'm not going to cry."

Double-check, is this Squeakles here, or did someone switch out my child for another who looked suspiciously like him?!

Well, okay then, good for you, I told him. Out the door we went. On the way down in the elevator, I asked Squeakles, "Is there anything I can do to make it easier for you?" "Hmmmm," he thought. "I think maybe... kisses." I was already swooning. Now I melted. My sweet child! I could hardly bend over backwards any further as I asked, "Would you like a kiss now?" Yes, he would, and so I planted one right on his face.

Off we went to school without further complaint. As we arrived at the elevator outside of school (there's an "outside" elevator that you can take from the bridge we arrive on down to the street level below), I let him push the button to open the door. Usually at this point he has resumed complaining about going to school, but this time, nothing! We went down the elevator, followed the sidewalk, and into the school, still with no hint of whining.

I parked the stroller outside of Weeble's classroom and offered Squeakles a non-choice (i.e., an option whereby he gets to make a choice, hopefully giving him sense of control, even though the choice is fairly obvious). "Would you like to go into your classroom by yourself while I take Weeble into her room, or would you like to wait here while I bring Weeble to her room and then I'll come back and get you." Naturally, he chose the latter.

After I dropped off Weeble, I came back to find Squeakles waiting patiently in the stroller. "I think I'm a little bit sad," he said. "Okay, well, would a kiss help?" I answered, as if this were a totally solvable problem. "Yes." I asked where he wanted it, he told me his cheek, I gave him a little peck, and he pronounced himself better. I helped him out of the stroller, handed him his lunch box, and he walked right into the classroom all by himself.

I could see that the teachers were aware of our presence when we entered the room, but they waited off to the side as they have been doing, ready to intervene if necessary. Squeakles, however, needed no intervention. He brought the lunchbox over to the refrigerator and unloaded the things into the refrigerator himself. Then while I signed him in, he took off his own coat and hung it up. He willingly went to the bathroom with me to wash his hands (required of all the kids when they arrive), and then asked me to tell him "it's time to go out" (the other kids were gathering together for circle time). The second those words were out of my mouth he was ready to run off, and I had to stop him for a kiss good bye which he gave me rather hurriedly and then ran off to join in the circle.

The teachers looked at me with astonishment, and all I could do was shrug. I almost cried again that day, but this time out of sheer relief.

Since that morning, Squeakles has been remarkably improved. He went to school with no problem on Friday as well, and this morning too. When we ask him if he's going to scream and yell when he goes to school he says "nooooo" in this knowing voice, as if to say, of course not, he knows he's not supposed to do that. I've asked him why not, and he says "because I know you are going to come back for me!" Is that what the problem was? I don't really know if that's a post-hoc explanation he's come up with - one that maybe we gave him - or whether it is truly something he was worried about and has learned that indeed, we come back for him every night.

At times he still announces that he's going to scream and yell, but he hardly actually does it. He continues to threaten to eat various things - lately his fingers, and occasionally the crib - but when he call his bluff he doesn't do it. The same goes for his other threats - that he's going to pee in his pants or not eat his food. When we say, okay if that's what you want to do, he says "but then my pants would be wet" or "but then I would be hungry" and we say yes, that's true.

I appreciate everyone's emails, comments, and texts offering shared stories and parental comfort. It really, really helped me to hear stories about your own wonderful children having similar kinds of stumbling blocks and meltdowns - it put Squeakles' behavior in perspective and reminded me that we're not the only parents distraught over how to deal with this.

Next up: how a tiny baby tooth caused all of us to lose a week's worth of sleep.

And So It Continues

My mom wrote to tell me that I left the last post on a bit of a cliffhanger. Unfortunately, this week finds our hero (Squeakles) still embroiled in the tumult of emotions involved in going to school.

If you remember, Squeakles and I were both in tears when I had to leave him at school last Friday. I got a couple of updates during the day that suggested he was doing better, but was still a bit upset. So when I went to pick him up (ice skating that evening ended up being canceled anyway), I was surprised to find him really resistant to leaving. In retrospect, I am not sure it was because he was having so much fun (though he was having fun, which was good to see), but because he didn't want an outside force to come in and shift his activities again wihtout his consent. But such is the nature of the end of the day - you have to go home. He started whining and yelling as I left the school (with him in the stroller and Weeble in the mei tai carrier on my chest), and did not let up the entire way home. Nor did he let up at home either for at least an hour.

Over the weekend and so far this week, Squeakles has continued to react to things he doesn't want to do with a lot of yelling, crying, and the occasional thrashing. For those of you who know Squeakles, this is really out of character. It makes me simultaneously frustrated and sympathetic. On the one hand, I do not ever want to accept this kind of behavior. On the other hand, I know that it's coming from a place of real frustration and he doesn't know how to handle these new strong emotions. He flips back and forth between what he claims to want (he wants us to stay, he wants us to go, he wants to eat, he doesn't want to eat, etc.) - whatever we offer, he suddenly wants the opposite. If we leave him to yell by himself, telling him that we are happy to talk to him as soon as he stops yelling, he simply keeps on yelling. I've found some advice online to leave the child alone and let them figure out that they aren't getting attention, but most of the advice implies that kids will stop pretty quickly - like within a few minutes. But not Squeakles - he will spend an entire hour thrashing around (usually in the crib).

What I think he needs is a combination of not attending to him, and periodically checking on him to give him opportunities and some help calming down. I pop in and say, "are you ready to stop yelling yet?" When he's really worked up, he just keeps yelling. When he's starting to calm down, he will often tell me in a somewhat normal voice, "no, I'm not done yelling yet" and then will wait for me to leave the room so he can keep yelling, or sometimes will tell me that he likes yelling. Finally when I can see he's on the edge of really calming down, I can try to be a little bit playful and pull him out of his mood.

This is all fine and good when we've got two hours to kill. It's infinitely more frustrating when we have to get out the door to get to school and work.

The latest development is that, while he's starting to tone down the yelling a little bit (somewhat shorter durations, and sometimes telling us that he's going to yell without actually doing it), he's come up with a new approach that he thinks will drive us crazy. He claims he's going to eat whatever it is that is closest and inedible - the floor, his blanket, his shoes. If you tell him something he doesn't want to hear, he says in a rising about-to-cry voice, "and I would just eat the floor!" I don't mind this too much because it's a little bit of comic relief. And it's always something that we know he really doesn't actually want to eat, so it's pretty easy to call his bluff and tell him that's fine, go ahead and eat the floor, and when you're ready to come out and play in the living room let me know.

(He also threatened, over the weekend, to throw himself overboard out of the crib. I found him sprawled out along the top rail, clutching the corner of the crib, claiming he was going to fall and hurt himself. But clearly he didn't actually want to do this - he just wanted me to think he was gong to do it.)

His teachers at school don't have any cure-all advice, but they seem to be doing the same things we're doing. They give him every opportunity to calm down and join in whatever they're doing, but leaving him to himself if he really starts screaming. They are being really sympathetic and I am grateful for that. I know it's incredibly hard for them to deal with this when they have a classroom of 20 other kids who want (and deserve) their attention. They seem to think this is probably normal, but they do admit that most of the new kids aren't usually this worked up. At the same time, most of the kids who enter their class have previously been in a toddler room at the school, so they are only adjusting to the new room, not the concept of going to school in the first place.

We're all trying to find our footing here. Squeakles wants to have control of his life back, and is trying to figure out how he can make that happen. He has never tried tantrums before and he doesn't know yet what effect they will have on us - he seems to think they might work. J and I are trying to balance being firm and compassionate. This means figuring out when we need to give him a time out to show him that he can't get what he wants by screaming and when we need to stay by him to show him that we're always there for him and we are actually listening to him.

This is exhausting.

Tears All Around

Remember when I said that Squeakles loves school?

Well, now he doesn't like it quite so much.

This morning he whined, cried, yelled, and screamed at every step that got him closer to school. He didn't want to change his clothes, he didn't want to eat breakfast, and even when I plopped him on the toilet before going, he tried to stop peeing mid-stream to demonstrate that he did not want to do these things. My approach was simply to soldier on, get him ready and out the door by 8:30, whether he'd eaten or not. But I will confess to losing my cool pretty early on when he was screaming. In fact, both J and I got angry when he was doing that, but now upon further reflection, we think that our getting angry wasn't having the effect of laying down the law, but instead was ramping up the tension.

We left the house at 9 am, only half an hour after I'd wanted to. That's not bad, but I was really annoyed and vowed in my head to start getting Squeakles up at least half an hour earlier next week in case he intends to throw a long drawn out fit again. Right before leaving, Squeakles asked for a pacifier "so that I won't scream and cry". I was torn because he never uses a pacifier except when he's sleeping, but at the same time he asked without whining and he seemed aware that he was trying to find a way to keep calm. So we gave him the pacifier.

J stayed at home because he'd suffered the same sudden vomiting the previous night that I'd had two nights prior. When I threw up, we thought that maybe I was actually just that stressed out because we'd eaten all the same food that day and yet he wasn't sick. But when J got sick after eating the leftover spare ribs that we'd had on the day I got sick, I suddenly remembered that I'd bought three packages of individually cut ribs (instead of one package of ribs I would have had to cut myself). Probably J had eaten from the good packages the first time, and then yesterday when he had leftovers, he ate the ribs from came from the package that had made me sick. I had only eaten one rib, so I couldn't have eaten from multiple packages. I guess there must have been something wrong with the ribs to start with, because I don't think they were undercooked - they were cooked at 300 degrees for three hours and the meat looked fully cooked, fell easily off the bone, etc. I'd been nauseous and tired after I'd been sick, and J was the same, so he decided to rest at home. (Fortunately, Squeakles had only eaten a little bit of the ribs on the first night and didn't get sick that night, and then didn't eat any of the leftovers.)

Squeakles was quiet on the way to school, but when we got to the door he started saying again that he didn't want to go to school. I quickly dropped Weeble off at her classroom, giving her a little kiss as she started to cry when she saw me leaving. (She was either crying because I was leaving, or because the teacher had the audacity to try to take off her coat. Maybe it was both.)

Then I got Squeakles out of the stroller and with a bit of cajoling, into the classroom. He immediately pulled me over to the play kitchen and tried to make sure I would stay with him and that we would not go anywhere near the other kids. I talked with the teacher a bit, who completely understood the situation and has been observing the exact same kind of behaviors from Squeakles that we've been seeing at home. In the meantime, across the room, I watched as the other little boy who started in the class on the same day as Squeakles, was bawling and hanging on to his dad. (This poor kid is crying his eyes out almost every time I see him.) I showed Squeakles that this other boy was also sad because he didn't want his daddy to leave, and then pointed out the other kids in the classroom who have been coming to school for a longer time and who are now having fun together. I think Squeakles got the point, but it didn't convince him to drop his guard.

Soon, Squeakles willingly took off his own coat and laughed with me a little bit as we joked about where it was supposed to go - on a chair? in the sink? in the trash? Squeakles brought me over to the hook where the coat went.

It looked like things were going well, but then I suggested that we go over to where the other children were, and his guard went right back up. I picked him up, thinking I would bring him over to the group and he would know that obviously that meant I was coming too, but of course he also realized that he no longer had control over whether he was going over there or not, so he started yelling. I tried to get him to be quiet, and he just yelled louder. At that point, one of the teacher's helpers came over and took him from me, saying that he they would go over to the "library" (some books and pillows in a corner) to calm down. I motioned to ask whether she thought I should go, and she nodded, so I stepped out.

Once in the hallway, I immediately teared up and I headed for the stroller, passing another two other parents on the way, wondering if there was a discrete place I could cry. I only made it the few steps to our stroller before I heard Squeakles' classroom teacher behind me (not the helper who was currently with Squeakles), and in one quick motion she was there, saw my tears, and gave me a hug. It was an extremely sweet gesture and I really appreciated that she'd just known to come out and see how I was doing. She told me that this was all very normal, and I told her that I knew that rationally and knew that they were doing the right thing with Squeakles and with me. After she left, a mom that I had passed in the hallway came over to me and said that she had the same issue with her daughter for the first month. She said she used to come back to the classroom every hour and would look in and see that her daughter was doing fine, and then after a while, school drop off wasn't so hard anymore. That was nice to hear and I thought it was just so nice of her to reach out to me like that.

Tearily, I gathered my things and, before going, stopped back at Weeble's room. I'd said that I would come back after I dropped Squeakles off (because I'd been in a rush), but the lights were now off in the room. I could hear Weeble crying from her crib and I saw the teacher in the room go over to her. I decided that going in there wasn't going to help anyone, so I left.

On my walk to work, I talked with J, and reminded myself that our goal at the moment is to get the kids comfortable with the school. Yes, I can comfort Weeble better than the teachers can. And yes I am the person Squeakles wants to be around, rather than the teachers or the other kids. Of course that's true. But part of growing up and attending school is learning to trust and be comforted by the people at the school, and that will help them learn to be more independent. So although I may want to stick around with Squeakles until he feels comfortable enough for me to leave, that may not be the best approach because then he's not actually trying to get comfortable there - he's just using all of his energy to interact with me and try to keep me there with him.

Shortly after sitting down at my desk at work, I got a call from Squeakles' teacher, telling me that after I'd left, they'd taken Squeakles to another room where she and another teacher (from a different class) gave Squeakles some water and made him laugh and calm down a little. They then brought him back to the classroom where he seemed fine but subdued. A little while later I got a second phone call, from the teacher again saying that Squeakles wanted to talk to me. He told me over the phone that he wanted me to come back and get him, so I told him that I would talk to his teacher about when I would come back. I don't know how he felt about that because suddenly all I heard was "snotty nose! snotty nose!" and then the teacher took a little break to help him wipe his nose. Then Squeakles said bye and I was back on with the teacher, who said she thought that had helped him a little. I said I didn't think he was under the impression that I wouldn't actually be coming back for several hours, and asked her to let me know if he needed me to come get him earlier. If he doesn't need to be picked up earlier, we may stay for a pizza and ice skating party they have tonight, so she will keep reminding him about this as something fun that will be happening later that I will be coming for.

I don't know if we'll actually make the ice skating part of the night. J might not be up for it, Weeble is often tired when I pick her up, and who knows what state Squeakles will be in. But that is still hours away...

I woke up this morning feeling simultaneously tired (because I never get enough sleep) and good because my stomach was no longer churning from whatever it is that was bothering it the past 24 hours. I got ready quickly and headed to the kitchen to make my coffee and prepare the kids' things for school. Shortly, Weeble woke up, also in a good mood, and it was looking like we were on track to get out the door, not only on time, but without the usual chaos. It looked like I might even manage to eat some breakfast.

(It's not that we're normally incapable of getting out the door, but previously we just had to get the adults out. Now we also have to make sure both children are awake, fed, and clothed, had a diaper changed or made a bathroom trip, and are packed into the stroller and the baby carrier.)

I went in to Squeakles room to wake him up and ... he pulled the blanket up over his head and said he wanted to go back to sleep. I gave him a few minutes and tried again. Same thing. And then again.

Squeakles has been sick, but it seems to be a lingering cold at this point, not a fever or anything that is completely wiping him out. I figured food would help and eventually we convinced him to get up and to start eating some cereal.

But he still said he was tired. J volunteered to take the hit and stay home with him today because lately I've been the one doing it. But guess what ... Squeakles wanted me to stay home with him, not Daddy. And upon the realization that he had a choice between staying home with Daddy or going to school, he completely lost it. He refused to make the choice, and would only say that he didn't want either of those things.

Crying. Yelling. Nose running. A bit of thrashing. He was not happy about it and intended to cry and cry until he got his way, which unfortunately (for him), wasn't going to happen. We let him cry it out in his bed, occasionally trying to talk to him but he did not want to talk or listen.

And so we decided that he would stay home with Daddy today. Given the choice of literally holding him down to dress him and put him in the stroller and then hand him off to the teachers in this state, or leaving him to cry in bed and then have a day of rest at home, we figured that rest might be a good thing for him. And, at the same time, since he didn't actually want to stay home with Daddy, we figured we were not exactly giving in to his demands.

It's not that he's a stranger to whining, complaining, or crying. But school is a bit stressful to him, and I think that being sick on top of it is making it all a little overwhelming to him right now.

Last night J was asking him about some things he doesn't like about school, and Squeakles told us that he doesn't like it when the kids yell at him and take toys away from him. They don't actually yell at him (I don't think), but they reinforce the rules - things like telling him to hang his coat up and pull up his pants. J explained to him that he has to learn the rules and the other kids are just trying to help him learn them. But as for the other kids taking toys away from him, J told him that when that happens, he should just hold onto the toy and say no.

I had tried to tell Squeakles that he can say, "not right now, you can have it when I'm done", but it didn't occur to me (miss passive aggressive people pleaser who abhors saying no) to give him the simpler approach of just saying no! I'm sure we can politen the approach as needed, but of course the first step is teaching him to have the confidence to say no.

(J did clarify that if a teacher asks him to give her something, then Squeakles needs to give it to her. And of course he also explained that Squeakles shouldn't go around taking toys from other kids - so far this has not been a problem.)

So although the teachers are telling us that Squeakles is doing a really great job of adjusting to the new environment, we do see that there are quieter things going on under the surface that are stressing him out.

And so we left Squeakles in his bed screaming and crying this morning, until suddenly - he stopped. J went into his room probably no more than one minute after the crying stopped and found him fast asleep. So I bundled Weeble up in the mei tai carrier and took her out into the rain, where she promptly fell asleep and I considered walking around with her like that all day, cuddled up against me. (But no, she is now at daycare, hopefully finishing up her nap and I am at work, finishing my breakfast.)

Listening

Here are a few of the amusing things Squeakles has been saying the past couple of weeks:

After I showed him how to clear his throat: "Does my voice look better?"

Asking about Weeble: "What is he coughing about?" My response was "Do people usually cough ABOUT something?" Squeakles answered, "I don't think so. People cough when they're sick. And then their throat comes out."

"Is Weeble gonna have blue teeth when she grows up to be a big boy?"

"This is destrosting." (I think he was trying to repeat some things I'd just said, including the words 'destroy' and 'disaster'.) (We were talking about a bulldozer knocking down a building.)

I noticed a piece of cat fur in his cereal bowl and Squeakles commented: "Koji (our cat) must have droppen it in there." (I think that's interesting both for the fact that he is using "must" correctly, and because of the way he inflected the verb drop. He does the same inflection in the next one.)

"My hand hurts because I must have bumpen it or something."

Putting on a hat with a brim and thinking that now he looks like Baka (Grandpa), while also holding a screwdriver up to the brim and pretending to write with it: "I'm gonna write something on my hat so that I can say something to my self. I'm gonna say Baka. I write a letter Baka." (I think he meant that last part as if "Baka" were a letter, like "I write a letter B".)

Seeing a little girl skip past us at the preschool and apparently mistaking her for Weeble: "Weeble's all grown up!"

Joking about putting the paper towel in the soap dispenser: "Should I put it in the soaper?"

When I went into his room in the middle of the night because he called me, he said "I need some water", then picked up the bottle and turned it over as if to show and observe that there was no more water in it. "Can you run some water for me?" (I assume he got that from me often saying I'm going to run the water for the bath.)

Of course, Weeble isn't saying anything much yet - just lots of babbling. But in the past couple of days she's gotten herself up on hands and knees and is starting to crawl - so far she only goes about 1-2 steps before reaching whatever it is she wanted to put in her mouth.

Three Years Old

Two weeks ago on Saturday, Squeakles turned three. This is not a concept that makes any sense to him, but he likes to peel his fingers away from his fist to show you that now he is three and then he'll be four and then he'll be five!

My little boy is ... still a little boy. Of course he's growing up every day, and when I think back to when Weeble was born and Squeakles was only two years and four months old, well the difference is really striking. For one thing, at the time, he'd just started climbing on the furniture and just would not stop, certainly not just because I told him to from across the room where I was trying to nurse a newborn. Now I just have to ask him to stop, and generally he will stop. Though of course, being three, he has to ask why. And then why to my explanation. And then why again.

The Monday after his birthday, he started preschool (after two and a half years on a waiting list). Our preschool is pretty much the greatest place on earth. The facilities are amazing, the staff is simply great, and Squeakles absolutely loves it. When I brought him home the first day, he cried when we reached our apartment door saying that he didn't want to go in. Actually, he hadn't napped at school, but had run around all day, so he was overtired and overstimulated, so it turned into a 20 minute fit like I've never seen him throw before. But the fact that he just didn't want the day to end was, in my mind, a very good indication that he loves the school. The same thing happened the next time he went, with a slight reduction in the length of his fit upon coming home. And then the next time he only complained about going in the apartment, but was generally ok about it.

The biggest adjustments for Squeakles at school are sleeping without a "fier" (pacifier) in a roomful of other kids, having to do a lot of things for himself that previously we were doing for him, and learning to interact with other kids.

The last one - learning to interact with other kids - isn't particularly traumatic at the moment, but the teachers observe what we've always noticed on the playground which is that he tends to play by himself. Of course, up until about 2 1/2 years old, kids are often doing parallel play anyway, but I think Squeakles is particularly tentative - letting other kids take things out of his hands and hanging back and just watching other kids play together. But at school, the other kids come up to him and say things to him and expect him to react, so I think that soon enough he will be feeling more comfortable and will start playing with them.

Sleeping without a fier is also not a really big deal. He managed to do it when he was there on Monday. But at home, we've continued to let him sleep with a fier because he's been sick and we really just want him to get his sleep. Also, to be completely honest, we want to be able to sleep too and we're a little wary of how the night will go without a fier. But we are thinking that it's worth trying soon. It's entirely possible that it will not be a big deal at all, especially if he's been doing it at school.

The biggest adjustment is learning to do a lot of things on his own. This has also been an eye opener for us. I don't think I noticed that he was growing up, especially because we don't usually have other kids around, so I didn't realize all the things that three year olds do independently. Like pull their own pants down to go to the bathroom and pull them back up and wipe their own nose. When Squeakles has a runny nose, he yells "snotty nose" and only recently has learned to actually blow when someone holds a tissue up to his face. But guess what - at school he learned where the tissue box is and will go over and blow his own nose. Sometimes they help him if he's just smearing it all over his face, but they are really working with him to learn to help himself so they are standing back as much as possible.

On top of starting school, Squeakles has been sick on and off for the past couple of weeks, so I think he hasn't really been feeling up to the challenge of doing things for himself. Sometimes he does want to do them, but other times he really just wants me to take care of him. And I get that. But for the most part, we're following the school's model and encouraging him to do these things on his own.

Weeble also goes to the school, but of course she's in an infant room. In contrast to Squeakles who has always been more focused on things than people and never showed any reluctance to be held or played with by a stranger, Weeble is much more concerned about where we are. She cried a lot the first day - actually, she cried a lot the first week. Worse, she got sick right away, so she just wasn't happy at all. I kept her home the morning she woke up with a fever of 103 and after a dose of baby Tylenol and a nap, she woke up much recovered and clearly very happy to have me around. I'm hoping that she has a better day at the school today, but we did hear her crying as we left. (Though for all we know, maybe she was just suffering the pain and injustice of having her nose wiped.)

J and I have also been sick. For J, this is an almost yearly occurrence - he gets sick and then has a lingering cough for a couple of months. But getting sick is an anomaly for me, so I was quite annoyed when it hung around for over a week. I've been recovered for almost two weeks now, but then last night my stomach decided it was not at all happy with what was in it, so today I'm feeling a little drained. (That might also have something to do with the fact that I only got about 4 1/2 hours of sleep.)

But it's Spring Break, so my office is very quiet and I have no meetings or seminars to go to. I'm enjoying working on a talk for an upcoming conference. or well, I will be, when I get back to work.

But first, I'm going to post this, as well as a second post of some of the things Squeakles has said recently that I find either cute or interesting from a language development standpoint.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh

Squeakles seems to think that he can trigger realization, memory, or even new knowledge in other people, just by saying "ohhhhhhhhh" in the way people do when they realize or remember what someone is talking about. Like if someone asks you about that thing you did yesterday and you're confused, but then they clarify, you know that thing you were doing yesterday out in the backyard, and you say "ohhhhhhh, right, I was ..." and then you explain whatever it is they wanted you to know about it.

But Squeakles seems frustrated when other people don't know what he's talking about and he urges us to remember or understand. In the last five minutes I've heard him do this three times to the babysitter.

Squeakles: What's that blue and white thing?
Babysitter: What blue and white thing?
Squeakles: Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, that blue and white thing over there? [pointing]
Babysitter: Oh that blue and white thing on the floor? (She was right.)

Squeakles: [asked something I didn't quite catch]
Babysitter: When what?
Squeakles: Ohhhhhhhhhhh, when you throwed up last night?
Me (from my desk where I'm supposed to be working and not paying attention to them): Oh, you mean how you threw up this morning? (He only threw up a little bit.)

Babysitter: [Brings sponge over to clean up the high chair.]
Squeakles: Can I have that sponge?
Babysitter: What do you need that sponge for?
Squeakles: Ohhhhhhhhhh, like I did? To use to wipe so I can throw up lasterday tonight?

Have I mentioned that Squeakles is also totally confused by time terms? He uses past tense terms to refer to things that happened in the past, but he is pretty much never correct about whether it was actually last night or yesterday. And he doesn't ever say anything means "more than 24 hours ago" (like "last week"), though he clearly remembers things from a long time ago.

And "lasternight" is his own brain child.

Sayings: 2 years 11 months

Although I haven't had the time to blog lately, I've been keeping track of a few of the things Squeakles has said lately.

Some of them are silly.

• I found an arm pasta! (referring to a piece of elbow macaroni)
• (when he misplaced something) I thought it was here, but I couldn't think where it might be!
• They drinked a little bit of that water, remember that, when Mommy was there lasternight?

And then there are the ones about crying. Sometimes Squeakles tells us in advance that he's going to cry, and other times he simply says he's going to cry but doesn't actually do it...

• J: Furikake is not for fingers. And now I have to put it away.
  Squeakles: And now... I have ... (face crumpling) ... to cry.
• Squeakles was put in a time out in his crib for biting me (it wasn't hard, but it was the gesture). He screamed and yelled for us to come back and get him. Eventually J went back to tell him that he could get out when he stopped screaming at us.
  J: You can get up when you stop yelling.
  Squeakles: PLEASE CAN I JUST YELL?!!!
• Yesterday Squeakles locked the pantry door, which for some reason has the lock on the inside of the door, so once it's locked you can't open it unless you happen to be inside the pantry. Although I didn't yell at Squeakles for doing it, my frustration was obvious on my face. I don't think Squeakles was mocking me by what he said next, but I do think he was channeling what I was feeling and was trying to figure out how he should act in response to the locked door. He stopped still and said, in a very sad sounding voice, "I'm so sad. I have a tear. A tear is coming out of my eye and going down my face. I'm crying." Then he turned and stood right in front of the locked door and said in a particularly woeful voice, "I'm so sad."
  (Eventually I managed to get the door open by sliding my arm up through the space between the wooden slats which I'd thought were barely wide enough to stick a finger in but which J noticed had enough give to fit my entire forearm.)

And what is the Weeble saying lately? Some "da", some "tha", and lots and lots of raspberries. She stands up in the exersaucer, balls up her little fists, takes a deep breath, and then turns red in the face as she spits and makes raspberry noises for as long as she can. It's really hilarious.

Not Sleeping

We hope to pass on our good traits to our children, and when we see the not so good traits we work hard to help them conquer them. Unfortunately, I seem to have passed on the terrible-sleep-gene to Squeakles who spent over two hours last night lying in his crib trying to go to sleep. Some nights he does a better job than others at actually lying there the whole time, staying quiet and trying to go to sleep, calling out every 20 minutes or so for a sip of water or a trip to the potty, or when he realizes that we won't keep getting him up for these things, then at the very least he wants a hug. When he whines and yells, as he sometimes does, we make a big point of not capitulating to his demands, knowing that both the whining and the things he wants are not going to help him sleep. But on the nights like last night, when he lays there quietly, trying his best to sleep for over two hours, I definitely sympathize.

Not being able to sleep is a tough spot to be in, and it only gets worse as you get older and not only have more things to worry about, but earlier and earlier times that you have to wake up in the morning. All my life I've been a night owl and have trouble sleeping when I do finally go to bed. I have memories of trying to convince my parents to let me stay up as late as possible, and when that failed, sneaking a book under the covers. You'd think that being tired would be enough to make falling asleep a natural outcome, but this just wasn't always the case.

Eventually I learned that I can usually get past it by counting and I find that I rarely make it to 100 before falling asleep. (My rule is usually that if I get to 100 then I can get out of bed and do something else for a little while.) So clearly my problem is in my head. It's a matter of putting my thoughts to rest, and if I can't, then lulling them out of consciousness.

If only Squeakles could count past 20. And in numerical order, rather than bits and pieces of ordered strings and numbers, such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 3, 17! (The exclamation point there is meant to indicate Squeakles' final shriek as he reaches what he thinks is the final number in the sequence.) Or maybe it doesn't matter if they're actually in order as long as he thinks they are.