Public Pool

Matthew was gone all week to a conference in California and I was getting rather worn out.  I decided we needed to do something extra fun so I took Linus to the Congress Park pool.  (The city has made all Rec Center facilities free for kids this summer.)  When we got there the life guards had just started their break and Linus was impatient to get into the water.  Unlike last year, he was very comfortable playing in the water and played with some kids we met in the baby pool.  The baby pool has one side with a one-foot depth and on the other side of the fence it is two feet deep. Linus had fun on both sides.  He liked to go after the ball, had fun throwing it up in the air so it would splash and make a sound as it landed in the water, and especially enjoyed tossing the ball directly into one of the jets of water and then watching it float back toward him.  

When Linus was only a few months old, one of Matthew's co-workers didn't understand why we didn't let Linus watch television. I quoted the recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatricians.  She was incredulous and said her nephew would never have gotten to know about trains if he hadn't watched Thomas on tv.  I said that Linus could see trains quite easily in Green Bay since the National Railroad Museum is there and trains go through the downtown every day.  This is a long introduction to my sharing an example of how a child can become excited about something they've only seen in a book.  On our walk yesterday we encountered a yard that had tall, overgrown grass and weeds.  Linus joyfully jumped into it and pranced around saying, "Mama, its a meadow!  Come walk in meadow!"  So there!

New Best Friend

When I was washing our lettuce from the CSA farm I discovered a little green caterpillar.  My guess is that it will turn into a cabbage moth, but we shall see.  I hammered some holes in a jar lid and Linus moved it into the jar with so much excitement.  He exclaimed, "I love it!  Its cute.  I love it! I love it! I love it!"  As he carried it into the living room he was gushing over it, referring to it as Linus' friend and Linus' caterpillar.  He took it to the couch and read stories to it.  Later he put it on a shelf in his room next to a rose in a small glass.  When he brought it out again he said, "I hug it.  I keep it company."  Today we cleaned out the jar and gave it fresh lettuce and a stick.  He told it, "I love you, caterpillar."  That's more than I've ever gotten!  He is already talking about it turning into a butterfly and we looked at butterfly books to day dream about what it will become.  Now if only we can keep it alive and happy long enough to go through metamorphosis, which will be a great new word in his vocabulary.

Between the caterpillar and the fresh peas, I can already proclaim our CSA experience as a hit and well worth every penny.  And to think some people complain about bugs on their produce.

(In the second picture he is wearing the two parts to my embroidery hoop on his head. He told me he was being a king.  He wore them while brushing his teeth and then brought the caterpillar with him for bedtime stories.)

More New Powers

Linus has been developing in leaps and bounds the last week or so.  Since last Monday he has only worn diapers at night.  When I took him to the library yesterday for story time we made it through the excursion with no accidents and I help him use a toilet for the first time.  I thought for sure he'd have an accident during our grocery shopping trip today, but he did great.

Yesterday he started using figurative language.  I'm so excited about this!  We were looking at a book together and he said, "Flower like mama."  He pointed to my red shirt and said, "It matches."  When we were out for a walk, he pointed to a yellow car and said, "Car like a flower."  I asked, "Because it is yellow?"  He said yes.  

He has become even more involved in imaginative play.  He creates detailed scenarios for his cars, little people, stuffed animals, plastic animals, etc.  I love eavesdropping as he plays.  I overheard him have the little person driving the digger say to the cement truck, "Excuse me, cement truck."  Another time he had a car say, "Excuse me construction persons."  Even his toys are polite!

Other fun things he has said:

- "Nice to see you, Matthew."  He said this when Matthew returned from work.

- He asked for an Easter egg. I told him we didn't have any more.  He said we needed to get some at the Easter store.

-He pointed to a picture I'd recently hung and said, "Good!"

-He tells himself, "Good job, Linus."  He also tells his animals they do a good job.

-He pointed to the clock and said it was "early o'clock."  

-He peeked his head up from under the table and told me, "Linus pretending be a billy goat."  He saw his first puppet show at the library and it was about the Three Billy Goats Gruff.  He also told me he wanted to play puppets.  I'm going to make him some.

-He adds ded to a number of verbs.  He tells us that he "run-ded."  

-He told his stuffed animal, "New day, bunny! Time get dressed."

SunSchool

Anna Louiza spearheaded the formation of SunSchool, a cooperative pre-preschool group.  We have four mamas and their two- or three- year olds are now meeting each Friday.  Linus was already friends with Anna and Lucero, and now has a new friend named Max.  Max is the three-year old.  Although he is older and taller, his verbal skills are behind those of Linus and Lucero; so he doesn't seem like such a big kid.

Each Friday a mom is responsible for the lesson plan and instruction.  We all decided we would sing a welcome song together at the beginning, read at least one book on the chosen topic to the kids, have a bit of exercise or movement time, then do a craft.  We are aiming for 20-30 minutes of instruction and then snacks and playing together. Each family brings a snack to share.

I lead today's topic.  I decided to talk about frogs to follow up on Anna Louiza teaching about snakes last week.  I showed the kids photos of frog eggs, tadpoles, and frogs swimming and catching flies with their tongues.  Linus hadn't seen the non-fiction frog books yet because I wanted them to be new for him, too.  Well Mr. Smarty Pants answered every question I posed to the group.  When I showed them the picture of frog eggs and asked what they were, Linus called out, "Eggs!"  After talking about the eggs a bit I pointed to the tadpole and said, "What did the eggs turn into?"  Linus called out, "Tadpoles!"  He did this for everything we talked about during the lesson.  This exercise once again showed me that he doesn't just memorize everything and repeat it back when we look at the same books over and over again.  He latches onto the information and/or grasps the concepts and applies it in other settings.  Of course he was the most comfortable student since I was teaching and we were in our own back yard.

Here is a picture from last week's session.  The kids were coloring and attempting to cut out snakes.  Linus is in the lower right corner.

A couple of side notes:  I brought Linus' potty chair outside during class and he used it twice. Lucero was starting to use her potty a few months ago, but ever since she found out her mama is going to have another baby, she says she is a baby and won't use the potty.  Even so, she came over and watched Linus pee and we talked about him having a penis.  These potty lessons are kind of funny because as a grown up I never really had any reason to discuss this topic so much, if ever.  Another interesting element of our group is that all three of the other moms are pregnant, so there is quite a bit of pregnancy talk while the kids play together after the lesson.

Gardening in the Buff

Yes, another nakey-baby photo.  On this day after playing in his little pool and sand box he took off his swimsuit and started doing yard work. He pulled a few weeds and put them in the compost bin.  Together we cleaned out and refilled the bird bath (the little tray shown here perched on a log), and then he decided he wanted to see worms. I told him that they were staying underground and he asked me for a trowel and started digging.  He didn't find any and asked me for help.  I suppose I could have gotten out a full-size shovel to dig farther down to find the worms, but he had already moved on to just enjoying the digging.  

He hasn't worn any clothes today and hasn't had any accidents.  Even when he is engrossed in play he stops what he is doing and says, "Mama, run!"  and off we go to the bathroom.  Based on my reading on the topic, one recommendation that sounds like a good idea is to eliminate all diapers, cold turkey.  I decided to compromise a bit and when he went down for his nap I had him step into a pair of training pants that have a waterproof outer layer.  He said they were cute.

He looked especially cute today playing tea party with me with no clothes on.  Baby and toddler nudity is cute.  Their bodies are absolutely perfect and delicious. Me, I won't even wear something as revealing as a tank top.

First Lesson in Sewing

Monday afternoon Linus started pulling my cross stitch project out and said he wanted to do "stitchering."  I paused for only a second and told him to wait a minute, I'd get him his own project.  I laid my hands on some plastic canvas, pulled out a large needle, and chose a pretty green-blue embroidery floss.  I ran up the stairs and commenced with his first sewing lesson.  I threaded the needle with three strands of floss knotted at the eye of the needle and at the end.  I don't have any blunt needles in the house, but I wasn't too worried about him using a real needle because he plays with my pincushions and never gets poked. I had him poke the needle through wherever he wanted and then showed him out to pull it out from the bottom. He took to it like a pro.

He is nakey-baby in this picture because we were potty training that afternoon and he somehow ended up spending most of the afternoon wearing nothing but his socks.  He had one accident in his undies and then made it to the potty six times.  I never knew he peed that often!  Potty training is still on his timetable.  When he tells me he wants to use the potty or wear undies, then we go for it. I got such a kick out of photographing him "stitchering" while potty training, both being big kid activities, all while sucking on bink, a throwback to infancy.

Current Interests

Some of Linus' favorite activities are watering the plants in the yard, writing with sidewalk chalk, and reading books.  He draws bold lines on the front walk with a fair amount of strength.  He really liked the turtle I drew, over and above the heart, star, and moon I sketched.  He also likes to point out that things are funny.  While putting on his shoes and socks today I quizzed him about how many feet he has, mama has, fish have, etc.  When he told me fish have two feet I told him it was a trick question, that fish don't have feet.  He giggled and said, "That's funny."  I enjoy it in part because I tend to think much of the world is quite funny.

Interestingly, he likes to dip pieces of veggie burger in barbecue sauce.  He loves, loves, loves ice cream over any dessert.  Lately he has been asking to go to coffee shops at least once each day.  (If we were still living in Green Bay, Linda and Alex would have Linus running around with their girls at Kavarna every day.) I would love to go out for coffee every day, but since money doesn't grow in our back yard, that is out of the question.  He was pretty whiney about it at lunch today, until I pulled out the can of mandarin oranges.  He really likes them and polishes off all of them in one sitting. He calls them "man oranges."  

A Little Kid's Dream

I took Linus on a fun outing to see a digger, tractor, street sweeper, and big truck.  A library in a neighboring county had the county highway department set up in their parking lot as an event for their summer reading program.  (Notice a theme here? Our social lives revolve around the library.)  On the way there, I told Linus we were looking for Holly Street.  He said, "No. No Holly.  No Holly."  I asked him, "Then what street are we looking for?"  He said, "Digger Street."

We had a difficult time finding parking and when we got to where they were set up, the place was buzzing with the excitement of many young children.  They were all so excited to get to sit in a digger. We went to the table set up and the highway guys were handing out packaged up yellow safety vests like road construction people wear.  This added to the energy in the parking lot.  While waiting in long lines for turns to sit in each piece of equipment, kids ran around swimming in their large vests.  My favorite image that sticks with me from the event is the sight of a girl about 3 or 4 years old running around in a pink tutu with her construction vest.  Very cool.

About thirty seconds into Linus' turn in the digger, he started pointing at things and saying, "What this called?"  I could explain the gas and brake pedals, but not what all of the levers were for.  He accepted my general answer of levers to control the bucket.  

He only got to sit in the digger and tractor because it took well over an hour of standing in lines to get to do those two things.  We weren't dressed warm enough and it sprinkled a bit on us, but Linus was determined to "drive" the tractor and digger.  He talked about the experience several times today and when I was kissing him goodnight and told him I'd had a fun day with him, he mentioned the digger again.  The highway department made a lot of kids happy today.

Please, Please Sleep

Two days in a row now Linus has refused to take a nap at the appointed time and instead passes out on the floor later in the afternoon.  Which messes up his sleep schedule more and then he won't settle down to sleep at the end of the day.  Grrrr.  Hopefully this passes soon.  I shouldn't really complain because he has always been a good sleeper.

His growth must be slowing down because he isn't eating as much as he used to.  He still gets in all of the food groups, but he is really hooked on grapes right now.  My friends regularly tell me that I'm lucky Linus isn't a picky eater. Some of them can only get their kids to eat yogurt and bananas. 

He is definitely shaping up to be a bookworm.   He brings books in to me in the morning and I read a few to him in our bed.  Lately he prefers to stay in the house looking at books over playing outside.  Can you imagine?  I've got him signed up for the library's summer reading program.  It isn't competitive, but if it were, I'm willing to bet he'd leave the other two-year olds in the dust.  

Walking Wounded

Tonight after dinner I told Linus with an exasperated tone, "Please, can you not get hurt anymore?!  My goal is to get you through this week alive."  My words didn't faze him, but I realized that his numerous falls, scrapes, bruises, etc. are making me rather nervous and overprotective.  Sunday on our walk home from the concert at the park, he fell on a path covered with tiny, sharp little rocks.  Both knees were bleeding.  As shown above, Linus was very excited about getting bandages.  Yesterday he fell on the sidewalk out front and added a new wound to one knee, lightly scraped palms, and a scraped nose.  The worst came first thing this morning. Matthew and I were slowly coming to and bolted up when we heard a thump immediately followed by Linus crying very hard.  He was at the foot of our bed.  Matthew pulled him up onto the bed and we realized Linus had dropped a can of apricots on his big toe.  We held him between us and when I looked down I saw that his toe was bleeding.  Matthew, still not quite awake, asked, "Where?"  I said, "His toe!"  Matthew ran to get a bandage while I valiantly tried to keep blood off of the bedding. No such luck. It was on the quilt, sheet, and Matthew's pajamas.  So after Matthew bandaged Linus' toe, with Linus crying very hard the whole time and trying to yank his foot away, Matthew went to shower and Linus and I rested on the bed.  I finally got him relaxed and he dozed off in my arms and I actually got to listen to Morning Edition on NPR.  This never happens!  Yes, it was a silver lining.  

Linus limped around for the first half of the day.  He wouldn't let us put ice on the toe or elevate it.  So much for first aid tips!  I need to write a first aid book for toddlers.  Or maybe one already exists and I just need to lay hands on it.  He decided he wanted to go to the park, even though he was walking around with the one big toe up in the air.  We went and he did okay getting around, but then face-planted when gently swinging on his tummy on the swing.  He wasn't hurt, but I was starting to feel the accumulation of stress from him falling so much.  Then later in the day he tripped on the edge of a throw rug, but managed to catch himself before landing on the floor.  Then he was trotting from one room to another and fell down. After dinner he was playing peekaboo under the table and raised up and bonked his head twice.  Twice!  He has never done this.  Even as a wee tot, he was always conscious of what was above his head and never stood up and bonked himself.   So the head-bonking was the final straw and I became exasperated.  Meanwhile, Linus was playing with a rubber band and I heard Matthew warn him to not hurt his eyes.  I decided it was best for me to tend to the laundry. (Don't worry; OxyClean got the blood out of everything.)

Fast forward to bedtime.  I helped him get onto the couch for me to read him stories.  I swear he was firmly seated and in place next to me.  Apparently the Earth shifted in orbit or something because he managed to fall straight down on his head.  Crazy I tell you.  

He isn't a dare devil and each time he gets hurt he isn't doing something he shouldn't, so what is up?! 

Linus Counting

Here is Linus counting while leaving the jazz concert at the park on Sunday evening.

Summer Time

Summer is definitely here!  It seems that the minute Denver Public Schools got done with the school year, the temperature shot up to the mid- and upper 80's.  Friday I got out Linus' little wading pool and he played in the water for hours.  His favorite activity was filling up his watering can in the pool and watering plants.  He also liked moving toys back and forth between the pool and his sand/water table.  When he napped, I made up some yogurt popsicles and surprised him with them the next day.  They were a great treat for all of us.

Funny things Linus has said:

He choked a bit on some water and then he told me it "went down the wrong throat."  

I was making his remote control train go and he asked me to shut it off in a hurry.  He also has some issues with the toy car from Billy that zooms when one shakes it.  I asked him if he doesn't like moving things.  He answered, "I like moving boxes."   That one made me chuckle.

The room darkened a bit and I explained to Linus that the clouds covered up the sun.  He said, "Sun went night-night."  

He found a  dark feather in the park, which is almost guaranteed to be from a goose.  I asked him what kind of bird it was from.  He looked at it and said, "Black bird."  I didn't correct him because of course a black feather would be from a black bird!

Counting update:  Linus for a while only counted to two. Then he moved on to 1, 2, 3, 6, 9.  Now he is at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10.  So we are working at squeezing nine in there.