You’re getting better and better at expressing yourself, little boy. You! Push button! Dis one! Dance! This is one of your favorite commandments – that we push the button on the boombox, make the music come out, and then come and dance. You are forever asking us to dance. We usually do, because you won’t be two forever, and because we enjoy you.
The tantrums are kind of a pain in the neck. They ramp up and down, depending on I-don’t-know-what, maybe some kind of leap in development? That’s what most of the moms online claim as the excuse for their children’s bad behavior. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it, but I’ll be looking out for it after this past week. I put you in timeout every five minutes it seems, and when I’m not putting you in timeout, you are putting your bear there. Speaking of ways you mimic us – you’ve also taken to saying “shit!” when you fall or something startles you. Uh. Er. Parenting FAIL.
You adore school, asking all morning if we are “ready sool? Ready sool? Go door! Car! Ready sool!” As my typing would indicate, you mostly speak in two word sentences, but you can sing lyrics to a lot of songs. Often, you catch only the last word of each rhyming line, singing the equivalent of rhubarb rhubarb watermelon tapioca for the rest of it, which is what most adults do anyway – especially for the Star Spangled Banner. My Puritan Rodeo album just came out, and you love to dance to it and sing along.
Christmas season is upon us, and I think you may kind of get a good deal of it this year. We’ve taught you to recognize Santa Claus, candy canes, elves, reindeer, and Christmas trees, so we’re halfway there. We’ll see how the presents’ arrival on Christmas morn rocks your world. you’ll be with Ella this year, so it’ll be interesting managing the two of you.
I continue to marvel at your excellent behavior with your brother. Occasionally you push the envelope by, for example, putting your foot on top of his face and then giving me the side-eye. As long as it doesn’t seem too evil or malicious, and Liam doesn’t cry or look scared, I pretty much leave it go, and he soldiers through a lot of your abuse. I really want you to have positive experiences with him, and me hollering at you every time you come within three inches of the kid isn’t going to foster that. SO far, though, you mostly enjoy him. For example, whenever we dance as ordered, you usually drag one of us to go “get baby! baby dance!” and then dance with him, too. We bathe you two together as well, and lots of times you like to dump water on his head and wash his feet. He takes it all in stride.
One of my favorite things to do is pile you both on the bed and do assembly line dressing and diaper changing. I don’t know this is so fun – I guess something about “pile of boys” says “abundance of joy” to me. Well, however you come, piled on the bed or in a tantrumy heap on the floor or dancing by the boombox or putting on your hat to go outside, you are indeed an abundance of joy, and always have been. Our relationship is developing a bit, and I see a glimmer of the future, when I am no longer your one and only (dad and I!). So it goes, and so I’ll go, but I want you to know I really enjoy this brief time of early childhood, when I am a superstar and you are my happy, jolly, delightful little man.