Quarterly Report: 2.5
Every day with Henry at two and a half is a
choose-your-own-comic-ending adventure. He now has enough independence
and creativity to engage in the sort of hijinks that I've long read
about on other mom-blogs and wondered why my kid didn't do that.
Surprise! It's not because he's innately well-behaved. With his
new-found ability to climb out of his crib, open doors, and exploit my
divided attention, things have gotten more interesting. Today I went to
rescue him at the end of (non)nap time and found him out of bed and
sitting in his big chair, which was formerly all white. Apparently we
had failed to remove the fat black crayon from his pocket before putting
him in his room. My first reaction was to get mad about the chair's
new abstract-zebra motif. Then he told me, just as proud as could be,
that he drew a forest and it grew and grew just like Max's room.
How can a book-loving mother not love that? I gave him a big hug and a
really unconvincing rebuke about how crayons only go on paper.
Henry is right on the cusp of being a preschooler. The physical awkwardness of toddlerhood is gone and the prime directive is to understand more about the world. I think of "why?" as the hallmark question of the preschool age. Henry hasn't adopted "why?" yet -- his all-purpose inquiry is "What's X about?" We're going to go outside and meet some folks. What's "folks" about? I'm cleaning the bathroom (which he normally doesn't see me do). What you cleaning the bathroom about? We're watching a new show. What's this movie about?
He talks constantly and picks up new words every day. One day Karl told him it was time to go to bed because it was nighttime. Henry smacked him down with, "No, Daddy, it's DUSK." A couple of weeks ago he asked me what "exile" meant, so I told him it meant you got sent away forever, and he said, "like banished?" Um, yeah. This week we had to have some long TALKs about how the "idol" from Curious George movie is different from the "idle" in How the Camel Got His Hump. It's hard to explain homonyms to someone who can't spell.
Potty training is basically done. He very rarely has accidents during the day and very often stays dry during naptime. He usually takes himself to the bathroom when he needs to go, without prompting, and handles most of his business by himself. The other day, Karl heard suspicious rumblings upstairs during naptime and went to investigate. Henry had (as he matter-of-factly informed Karl) climbed out of his crib, gone poo, wiped his own butt, and put on his baseball uniform. We still put him in a diaper at bedtime, but when I check on him at night he has often removed the diaper and put his pajamas back on.
He's in the process of transitioning to his big-kid bed. We decided to leave him in the crib until he learned to climb out, and marveled at the fact that he didn't learn to do it long ago. Then we went on vacation and put him in a pack 'n' play, which of course was just begging for him to learn to jump ship. He was out of that thing in two seconds flat and the jig was up. The baseball-uniform incident happened during his very first naptime back at home. So we started putting him in his big-kid bed, which he thought was super duper awesome at first, then he regressed and got stressed out about sleeping there. The crib is still in his room so we let him pick where to sleep, and it's about 50/50 crib/bed right now.
He may or may not be in the process of dropping the nap. He probably only napped 6 total times in all of April. After an initial period of panic and grieving, I came to accept the change and even started to enjoy it. We instituted quiet time in bed after lunch-- he tells me he's just taking a little snooze, not understanding that "snooze" means "sleep" -- and I was getting better at accomplishing my own tasks even when he was awake. He slept later in the mornings and it was nice that we had more flexibility in our daily schedule. With Ingrid napping at 10 a.m., it was tough to do anything if we had to rush home for Henry's nap at 1:00. Then, lo and behold, the nap made a comeback in May and he has napped nearly every day since we came back from vacation. We'll see what happens over the next few months.
Blankie and puppy are still his best favorite friends, but he has been passionately attached to a string of random objects. For awhile he absolutely had to sleep with two hammers, then it was his Lightning McQueen matchbox car, then a drumstick from Rock Band, then a box of dental floss . . . woe unto the parent who cannot find the objet du jour.
It has been very interesting for me to spend more time standing back and observing him with other kids. He does not enjoy it when I take him to meet a group of kids and expect him to play. We basically stopped going to Tuesday playgroup because he never wanted to play and just complained the whole time (but he does want me to TALK about how we came home from Violet's house one time because he didn't want to play with those kids), even though he does get along with a couple of the kids if we see them for solo playdates. When I take him to the park, he usually manages to find a buddy or two. His regular playdate friends (i.e. our friends' kids) are mostly girls, and he loves to see Lily, Annie, and Elsie, but if left to his own devices at the park or gym, he usually makes friends with other boys. He seems to get along best with kids who are about a year older -- probably not surprising, since he is about the same size and has the same vocabulary as a three-and-a-half- or four-year-old. But if the kids are much older than that, their play usually involves much more elaborate imaginary scenarios than Henry can keep up with. I'll be curious to see whether this changes as he gets older, or if it's a permanent genetic handicap, since he also seems less interested in playing make-believe than his friends of the same age. He's also very willing to jump into any group activity that could be described as "running around." We often head to the park after nap/quiet time and there are two elementary schools that bring their Kindergarten kids out in the afternoon. Henry loves it when those big kids come out and will boldly insert himself in their games of soccer, tag, chase, and dirt-throwing. They're not really playing with him, but he's playing with them. He runs around, grinning from ear to ear with glee, rosy cheeks, hair blowing around, little arms swinging as hard as they can go, sweaty and dirty and the very picture of boyhood exuberance.
Henry is right on the cusp of being a preschooler. The physical awkwardness of toddlerhood is gone and the prime directive is to understand more about the world. I think of "why?" as the hallmark question of the preschool age. Henry hasn't adopted "why?" yet -- his all-purpose inquiry is "What's X about?" We're going to go outside and meet some folks. What's "folks" about? I'm cleaning the bathroom (which he normally doesn't see me do). What you cleaning the bathroom about? We're watching a new show. What's this movie about?
He talks constantly and picks up new words every day. One day Karl told him it was time to go to bed because it was nighttime. Henry smacked him down with, "No, Daddy, it's DUSK." A couple of weeks ago he asked me what "exile" meant, so I told him it meant you got sent away forever, and he said, "like banished?" Um, yeah. This week we had to have some long TALKs about how the "idol" from Curious George movie is different from the "idle" in How the Camel Got His Hump. It's hard to explain homonyms to someone who can't spell.
Potty training is basically done. He very rarely has accidents during the day and very often stays dry during naptime. He usually takes himself to the bathroom when he needs to go, without prompting, and handles most of his business by himself. The other day, Karl heard suspicious rumblings upstairs during naptime and went to investigate. Henry had (as he matter-of-factly informed Karl) climbed out of his crib, gone poo, wiped his own butt, and put on his baseball uniform. We still put him in a diaper at bedtime, but when I check on him at night he has often removed the diaper and put his pajamas back on.
He's in the process of transitioning to his big-kid bed. We decided to leave him in the crib until he learned to climb out, and marveled at the fact that he didn't learn to do it long ago. Then we went on vacation and put him in a pack 'n' play, which of course was just begging for him to learn to jump ship. He was out of that thing in two seconds flat and the jig was up. The baseball-uniform incident happened during his very first naptime back at home. So we started putting him in his big-kid bed, which he thought was super duper awesome at first, then he regressed and got stressed out about sleeping there. The crib is still in his room so we let him pick where to sleep, and it's about 50/50 crib/bed right now.
He may or may not be in the process of dropping the nap. He probably only napped 6 total times in all of April. After an initial period of panic and grieving, I came to accept the change and even started to enjoy it. We instituted quiet time in bed after lunch-- he tells me he's just taking a little snooze, not understanding that "snooze" means "sleep" -- and I was getting better at accomplishing my own tasks even when he was awake. He slept later in the mornings and it was nice that we had more flexibility in our daily schedule. With Ingrid napping at 10 a.m., it was tough to do anything if we had to rush home for Henry's nap at 1:00. Then, lo and behold, the nap made a comeback in May and he has napped nearly every day since we came back from vacation. We'll see what happens over the next few months.
Blankie and puppy are still his best favorite friends, but he has been passionately attached to a string of random objects. For awhile he absolutely had to sleep with two hammers, then it was his Lightning McQueen matchbox car, then a drumstick from Rock Band, then a box of dental floss . . . woe unto the parent who cannot find the objet du jour.
It has been very interesting for me to spend more time standing back and observing him with other kids. He does not enjoy it when I take him to meet a group of kids and expect him to play. We basically stopped going to Tuesday playgroup because he never wanted to play and just complained the whole time (but he does want me to TALK about how we came home from Violet's house one time because he didn't want to play with those kids), even though he does get along with a couple of the kids if we see them for solo playdates. When I take him to the park, he usually manages to find a buddy or two. His regular playdate friends (i.e. our friends' kids) are mostly girls, and he loves to see Lily, Annie, and Elsie, but if left to his own devices at the park or gym, he usually makes friends with other boys. He seems to get along best with kids who are about a year older -- probably not surprising, since he is about the same size and has the same vocabulary as a three-and-a-half- or four-year-old. But if the kids are much older than that, their play usually involves much more elaborate imaginary scenarios than Henry can keep up with. I'll be curious to see whether this changes as he gets older, or if it's a permanent genetic handicap, since he also seems less interested in playing make-believe than his friends of the same age. He's also very willing to jump into any group activity that could be described as "running around." We often head to the park after nap/quiet time and there are two elementary schools that bring their Kindergarten kids out in the afternoon. Henry loves it when those big kids come out and will boldly insert himself in their games of soccer, tag, chase, and dirt-throwing. They're not really playing with him, but he's playing with them. He runs around, grinning from ear to ear with glee, rosy cheeks, hair blowing around, little arms swinging as hard as they can go, sweaty and dirty and the very picture of boyhood exuberance.
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