14 posts tagged “24 months”

T’s imagination is really starting to show a lot these days.  Over the last few months we’ve had tea parties using his shapes from his shape sorter, made omelets in his pan in the kitchen, and made and eaten bath soup. Recently however it has kicked up a notch.  

Two nights ago T was crawling on the floor in the living room and told B he was a mouse.  “I a baby mouse.  You the daddy mouse.”  I walked over and T climbed in my lap.  “Mommy is a big mouse too.  Mommy is a mommy mouse, I is a baby mouse.”

Last night we were playing with the blue ball in the den. It was getting to be time to brush teeth, so I suggested we run to the bathroom really fast.  “I’ll be an antelope,” I said and put my pointer fingers up by the side of head like antlers.  “What animal are you going to be T?”  “Elephen,” he said.  “With your trunk swinging low like this?” I asked and put my arm up by my nose and waved it around.  We walked out of the room with T in the lead, first with his arm in trunk mode, then with his fingers up like antlers.

Yesterday or the day before T pushed his big fire engine around on the floor driving it (this is new).  I had asked if he was going to save a cat up in a tree (like in his book Pickles the Fire Cat.)  “Yup,” he said, then he turned to Bis who was under the coffee table and said, “Here Totie, I safe you.”  

This morning he was again pushing the engine around and pushed it into his bedroom.  “Help mommy, help,” he said.  I went in to investigate.  “I wan rescue some toys,” and he looked up at me from behind the engine.  The step stool was in the way and he couldn’t get close enough to the toys in baskets.  I moved the step stool, and he pushed the engine over and pulled a bulldozer out of a basket.  “I safe you,” he told the truck.

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Last night I was able to cook dinner so we all ate together!  We had French bakes - baked sweet potato and russet potato "fries", and broiled salmon with garlic, thyme, pepper, and grape tomatoes.  Although eventually T spit out a tomato and said, "I don like tom-a-toe," he ate several with his salmon and munched on the salmon like he had always eaten it.  His liking of the potatoes depended on whether the piece had skin or not and whether he put too much in his mouth.  It was a good dinner over all and left me time to do other cooking later.  :-)

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These videos are from about a week ago.

T is becoming a little conversationalist - in a toddler fashion.

This is some of what we talked about on the way home from his school yesterday:
T:: Pandasaygrrr.  Lionsoy.
M:: Panda is a girl?  And Lion is a boy?  OK.
T:: Panda say Grrrrr!
M:: oh!  Yes, Panda says Grrr.
T:: Lion say Raoooorrr!
M:: Lion say roarrrr!
T:: An elephen
M:: What does elephant say?
T:: Yrheer
M:: Yrheer!
T:: Wheres my frens?
M:: Some are at school and some are at their homes.
T:: Maybe so; maybe they’re at home.  Maybe theyr at pwaygroun.  I go Canler Pac pwaygroun.
M:: I don’t know if we have time; it’s late.  I didn’t know it was so late when we left your school. [T wanted to play at school and we played with toys in the toddler two room before going out to the car.  I got him to leave by saying we could go to the playground at a park on the way home.]
T:: Go Canler, Canler Paack pwaygroun!
M:: When we get close we’ll see what time it is and if there is time to go.
T:: I wan go Canler Paack pwaygroun!  … Whes daddee?
M:: Daddy is at home; he wants to see you.  Do you want to go home and see Daddy?  
T:: No.  Go Canler Paack pwaygroun.
M:: T it’s late, I don’t think we have time.  We wouldn’t be able to stay long and then you’d get mad.
T:: I get mad … I wan go pwaygroun.  Go pwaygroun?
M:: I’m sorry sweetie, we need to go home and see Daddy.  He wants to see you!
T:: go museeum?  Go big dinosaur museum.
M:: We need to home sweetie, it’s almost time for dinner.
T:: No home.

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This morning I had to wake T up.  As I was opening his curtains and quietly singing the birds and squirrels song my coworker Susan II taught me, T piped up from his crib:
T::  I sweeping.  My diaper come off.  I’ dwy.
M:: (looking in crib to see that his diaper appears to be on)  I doubt you’re dry after sleeping all night.
T:: go’way mommy.  I sweeping.  Goway door.
M:: You want some privacy?  Are you going to sleep or are you having a poop?
T:: poop.  Goway door mommy.

I left for a bit and when I came back T wanted to play with his animals.  After adding a few of his stuffed animals to his crib he eventually asked for all of them and rolled around on them.  This included a naked Baby Tender Love (whom he requested by disrobed, including her ‘unerwear’).
T:: I stepping on baby tener love.  She cwying.  She mad.
M:: I’ll bet she’s mad.  People don’t like to be stepped on.  You need to take care of your baby.
T:: ok.  She sweeping.

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For the second time in almost as many days, T rolled around on the floor when he didn’t want to go and brush his teeth.  “No brush teeth, no, no, no.”  and he did a really good log roll across the floor.  Happily this time he wasn’t crying and tantrumming while he did it as he was the other day when he fell limp on the floor and cried.  No amount of warning (‘in five minutes…’) and stickers (‘if you do a good job, tonight you get a dinosaur!’) seem to be helping.

Welcome to the terrible twos?

T was a quite a little character this morning.  He woke too early, but in a great mood.

He woke us up last night, I don’t remember quite when, but perhaps around 2am.  “Daddy,” he called.  Not upset, but definitely calling.  B went in and in a bit, just after I had drifted back to sleep, “Mommy rock you.  I want mommy rock you,” broke through the fog.  I think we rocked for an hour, but who knows, I didn’t check the clock.  I changed his diaper, and after some chatter and flip-flopping I told him he could play in his crib if that is what he wanted, but if he wanted me to rock him, he needed to close his eyes and quite down.  He did immediately, and about eight to ten position shifts later, he was asleep.

Since I was taking T to school today, I got ready while B and T had fun.  First they read books, including the fun to read Talk to Me About the Alphabet, some block tower building, lots of giggling over breakfast of blueberry mini waffles and banana strawberry mango smoothie (with added vitamin drops and brewers yeast,) Wild Thing rumpus dancing, and general procrastinating of getting out the door.

When I brought my makeup out to the dining room to put on, T and B were giggling.  They were playing hide and seek with the giraffe and dinosaur toys - hiding them under a paper towel- and having them sneeze into the towel. Shortly T finished his breakfast and got up.  He went toward the living room and gestured widely with his arm, “What’s that mommy?  What’s dat ovr thayer?”

“What’s what, T,” I asked.

“What’s dat,” he replied and gestured to the corner, as he turned a half circle.

B piped up, “We built a tower, look there,” and he pointed toward the Mega Blocks fire truck that sits in the corner between the living room and dining room. (Mega Blocks are similar to Legos Duplos and are interlocking blocks with pegs where a one-block is a square one peg, with bigger sizes coming in two, three, and four peg rectangles, or four peg squares, and other sizes.)

“Wow T!  That’s incredible,” I said to T.  He and B had built a large one-block wide tower off one side of the fire truck, and a multi-block wide tower on the other side.  The one-block-wide tower was as tall as T.  T grinned from ear to ear.

“T did it almost all by himself,” B said.
 
T grinned more and pointed to the tower, “Don’t bake it mommy,” and he pushed lightly on the tower.  Crash, it fell over… a wail and some building and it was recreated, destroyed, recreated…

I tried to hurry T up to get out the door.  He and B went to the bedroom to change diaper and get dressed, while I busied myself in the kitchen picking up for Grandma P's visit that afternoon.  I heard giggling and uhmpa noises in B’s office.  I went to investigate.

B was on the futon looking at T dancing in the center of the room.  “Look at T’s rumpus dance.”  T looked up at me smiling happily and turned a little turn, knees raising and lowering, arms going up and down, hands in fists.  He bent forward then jumped and stood straight.

“I…I a ‘ild thaing! Umpha umpha umpha.”  He walked to the side of the room, “be stihl ‘aid Max,” and he leaned on the futon.

B looked at me grinning, “That’s right, be still said Max to the Wild Things.”  If you aren’t recognizing what is going on, T was acting out part of the story Where the Wild Things Are.  Max has become King of the Wild Things and they are having a “wild rumpus” until Max tells them to be still and go to bed.

“T we have to leave and go to school.  Why don’t we do a rumpus dance into your room?”  I looked at T and he smiled and came towards me.  With me in the lead, and B bringing up the tail, we rumpused across the dining and living rooms.  T and I at any rate, were marching and bending and raising and moving our arms, “umpha, umpha…” 

T enjoyed it so much he had to be fetched two more times from the den.

When we finally got to school, T was still in a good mood and my leaving was a breeze.  Miss K was there to watch him (he was the first of his classmates to arrive although it was already a bit past eight.)  He chatted to her while I checked his diaper and we washed hands.  When I left he was being silly with a construction hat.  He was calling it a fireman’s hat (we were passed by a fire truck with sirens blaring) and putting it on his face so he could look through the holes in the top.

“That looks like a construction hat,” I said, then noticed it said engineer.  “It says engineer. You are an engineer.”

“I a conductor,” he said.  I’m not sure what train books we have that talk about conductors, but T is enamored with cabooses and conductors. 

With that I said goodbye and T and Miss K played.

Breakfast on Tuesday

For the last few weeks, T has been eating most of his meals at his little table while sitting in the chair he got from Grandpa G.  I think this makes him feel like a big boy and more closely mimics school than sitting in a high chair does.  He didn’t complain about the highchair, but when we set up the “widdle” table this seemed like an obvious next step.  In the event we eat dinner together, he is back in his high chair but pulled up to the dining table and not using the tray.  It isn’t a perfect fit, but has worked the couple times we have done it.

The downside of T at his table, he can get up any time he likes, and wiggles around – pushing on the other chairs with his feet, pushing back from the table, etc.  I guess we need to spend more time working on his table manners now.  Which, speaking of, I have started talking to him about chewing with his mouth closed.  That, the amount that goes in his mouth, and thoroughly chewing, are our points of concentration.

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It is still early, but I am thinking T is getting his two-year molars.  Last night while going to sleep, he kept putting his fingers deep in his mouth.  He woke in the middle of the night and when he fell asleep in my arms he was grinding his teeth in a way that reminded me of when he was getting his first top teeth and he dug them out with his one lower tooth.  I gave him Motrin (and changed his diaper) and he slept through the rest of the night.

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Last Thursday T was really tired after school.  He said something a couple of times that made me sad, and something he repeated a couple of times since – “I can’t do it, I’m not good.”  He first said it in terms of drawing with chalk on the driveway and drawing an elephant, and has since said it with other things that he is having trouble with, but that I don’t want him to feel defeated about already.  T doesn’t show a lot of gumption in trying something until he gets it, and this is one more manifestation of that I am afraid.

"I have a baby in my belly," T told me again this evening.  He was on the changing table and we were discussing his poop.  A small step towards the end of diapers, he told B that he wanted a diaper change when they were at the playground.  When he saw me at home, he told me too, and we marched in to his room where he pulled a diaper out of the basket and handed it to me.  "Diaper change mommy," he said.  "Need dwy diaper.  Have poop.  See poop?"  When I showed him, he said, "From T, is from T."

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While in the bath T asked, "Where's my brother?  Diana has a brother, his name is Willamena."  I then explained that Willamena was Diana's sister; girls are sisters, while boys are brothers, and he would be a brother if he had a sibling.  Thankfully he didn't ask agian about where his sibling is.  I couldn't help wondering if maybe this could be a good sign - that somehow his asking where would make me get pregnant.  ;-)

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I got to see tiny little three-day old Jordan this evening.  "How's he look?" B asked.  "Like a baby," was my reply.  Perfect, timy, two closed eyes, little tiny nose, chubby chesks, and all curled in a ball in Dan's arm's.

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Drop off was rather sad today.  T is going through a period of Mommy-love.  Not too much to the exclusion of Daddy, or not that I am noticing at any rate, which is nice.  Today when I left him at school, he did a real cry of distress at my leaving (as opposed to yesterday when it was a fake cry that I called him on and he stopped immediately.)  I went to the observation room to see how long it lasted and unfortunately, it went longer than I had time to stay.  Often he will stop crying with-in a minute or two, but not today.

Because I had left the classroom door open (as I had found it), the teacher, Miss Rhonda (a fill-in from his last class, but not his favorite teacher,) had to hold on to him to keep him from running out.  He kept saying to her, “Follow mommy, I want mommy.”  She must have said something along the lines of, “you have to stay at school and mommy went to work,” (and I heard another parent tell him, “she’ll be back, you’ll see her later,”) because T then said, “Go to Ruth’s room, I want go Ruth’s room.”  Ruth is the lead teacher for the infant room that used to be next to his most recent room.  When no-one was in the Toddler One room and I needed to leave, I would leave him there.  Miss Rhonda must have then said something along the lines of, “that room is for babies and you are a big boy, not a baby,” cause T then switched to, “Go old room! I want to go old room!”

The poor little guy needed some assurances and hugs, and the new room, while exciting, must not feel quite right yet.

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To be quite honest, the two-year old room is not feeling quite right to me yet either.  I think everyone will hit his or her stride, but it is not all together yet.  This is the second time a Toddler One teacher has had to come help in the morning (I have no idea if this has happened consistently before, it may have without my being aware.)  Vacation plans were made before the big migration of kids moving up was decided on, so that one (out of three) of the teachers in the room is on vacation this week and next.  Another issue, the lead teacher did something stupid while mowing his lawn last weekend and he has a big contusion on his ankle and has been on crutches!  Crutches and watching two-year olds do not mix that well.

I described a little (I think) here about T’s move to the two-year old room.  He is reunited with classmates he had last year (Aug/Sept/Oct – May). Rather than being nine kids in two connecting rooms that only mix a little and have five teachers and several student teachers (5), they are now eighteen kids in one big room with three teachers and some student teachers.  So far I have only seen the lead teacher and yesterday he shared that his hours are currently set-up that if I bring T in early, as in close to when the center opens, I may not see him and may need to take T back to his old room.

The room feels more cluttered and worn, less colorful, and I don’t like the light.  The room has north facing windows that look out on the street and back of the building across, so chances are I will never like the light, or feel of the room.  I will adjust to the stations and gray castle as opposed to brown and red barn, but I hope that once all the teachers are back, and Mr. Nat is back on both ankles, that things will feel more organized.

Yesterday T did tell me rather excitedly (with some prompting) about the “spiny” cactus and the class turtle (named Tabu, a name B has an issue with.) From the looks of his shirt, he had fun coloring.  The parents whose kids moved up in May have said their kids are happy in the room, one quoting her son as saying more than once that he “had a great day!”

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Visiting Station No. 12

Our across right-kitty-corner neighbors are expecting a baby girl any time now.  Kate’s due date was last Friday.  Our across the street neighbors have a 7-month old named Autumn, or baby-Autumn as we call her (unfortunately I have only seen the top of her head once and T hasn’t even seen that although he is very interested in seeing her.)  

B has joked about being on Kate-watch, and comments when he sees her walking, or sees either cars, or lack of her car, about what might be happening.  We were joking Monday about his Kate-watch and I said to T that Miss Kate had a baby in her belly and that baby was going to join us soon.  That evening when getting ready for sleep, we had the following conversation:

T:: {lifts PJ top to expose his tummy} I haf baby in my belly
M::  You do? {smiling}
T:: Yeah, is name is Autumn.

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One of T’s little “jokes” is about what he did at school that day.
M:: What did you do at school today? / What games did you play at school today?
T:: Hit Maya.

This started awhile ago, and you might remember reading about it.  At the time that he started saying this, it is quite possible he was actually hitting Maya, either before or after she bit him.  They went for a couple of weeks where the teachers had to watch the two of them.  I think I have made too much of deal over this telling him he doesn’t want to hit his friends and how hitting is not nice etc., as saying he hit Maya is usually his first response, with or without a smile.

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I sent a while talking with Miss A this morning when I dropped T off at school.  I like Miss A and we have chatted easily many a morning over the last several months.  She is a regular opener for the classroom and T is one of the kids who are dropped off early (there have been 0 – 3 other kids consistently when we go in.  “Howie,” “Diana,” and “Kenton” are other early birds.)

We think T and Miss A have bonded well and that she likes his spunk and character.  Miss A is a B-side teacher (explanation here.)  She has been a Godsend in her combination of upbeat firmness and willingness to hug him and distract him when I drop T off.  I can't tell you the number of times she has whisked T off to find the turtle, or see the fish in the Toddler II and Pre-K rooms to distract him from my leaving.  This morning he cuddled in her arms.

A couple of things she told me:

• She said T is "very, very smart".  She felt he should have been moved up to the Toddler II room back in June.  She felt he was ready except for his size.  Miss A said he talks as well as any of the children who moved up already, and better than the kids he is with now.  Actually, she compared him to Howie who is a month younger and “still talking baby gibberish.”  Howie is hard to understand, but Diana, another early bird about a month older than T, speaks pretty well when I have heard her.  Miss A said that all the teachers can understand T.
  
• Miss A said T tells the other kids what to do and gets mad when they don’t do it.  She said that especially when it is clean-up time, if the other kids aren't putting stuff away, he will take it from them and put it up.  The other day I had to tell him twice not to tell a new older boy friend what to do (they were teeter tottering and T wanted to do something else, so he said, "get off boy," in a commanding tone  I've joked how T is destined for management, and this is one more example in my mind.
  
• "Tell him what to do once, and he will do it," she said about his ability to follow direction.