A Story

On the way home from school, Miles said, "Mommy, I'm going to tell you a story... Once upon a time, there was a man with a hundred heads. He burped. Then he met another man. They went to the park. Alexander Park. The end."

Edamommy

Tonight I cooked a side of edamame beans to go with stir-fried noodles and Miles -- wait, I'll back up. This afternoon we had a conference call with Miles' pre-school teacher Rita. We had been concerned for a few weeks because even though when Jason drops Miles off at school he runs off happily without saying goodbye, when I pick him up he is often on the verge of tears when he sees me or is walking around aimlessly with his Doggie. Then in the car when I ask him how his day at school was, Miles answers, "Cry." He is just over two years old and has a large receptive vocabulary, to use the experts' terminology, but doesn't speak very clearly yet. He can put simple sentences together, most of which Jason and I can understand but others can't, and his ability to describe feelings or events is limited. So when he tells me, Cry, I have no idea whether that means he cried all day or because he can't yet say I went down the slide, played the drums in music class, made handprints in art class, he just resorts to the one-word summary.

Anyway, Jason called the school (he actually asked for Teacher Rita, out of habit from talking about her with Miles) and we had our first parent-teacher conference. She thought Miles was doing fine, he's participating in the activities more often (I hadn't been aware that he wasn't sitting down for Circle Time), he's learning to listen to directions, he enjoys playing with the other children, and he's very attached to Rita. He's young and it will take time for him to get completely comfortable with the routine, but we shouldn't worry about it. Once he starts talking more and can communicate with the teachers, it will be much easier. She suggested that we read to him a lot at home (we already do, several times a day) and that when we're reading a book, we not let him interrupt since during Circle Time he tends to jump up and point to a picture in the book she's reading to the entire class. This suggestion goes against all of the advice I've ever read, not to mention common sense. Why would you not make reading an interactive experience with your child? (Test your own knowledge by taking a quick quiz on the basics of reading to your child.) Miles fills in the blanks for almost every line of every book we read together; it's actually been a good way to get him to talk more. Nevertheless, the recognized need here is to encourage him to communicate verbally rather than through gestures and half-articulated syllables.

So tonight, we made a special effort at dinner to get Miles to talk more by asking him to repeat words back to us or prod him to speak rather than interpret his "unn-nnnn" sounds. Jason broke down the word "edamame" for him: "eda" "mommy" Can you say that? "Eda-mommy" repeated Miles. We looked at each other approvingly -- see, we just need to give him the opportunity and break down words into familiar sounds. Miles reached for another bean and said, "Eda-daddy!"

It's Going to Be a Long Night

It's not even 9:30 and both kids have required two interventions each tonight. Parker cried and woke up because she pooped, so I'm happy that she A) did this at 9pm instead of at 2am and B) knew enough to let us know that she pooped. And her poop finally looks normal again instead of runny, which along with a full-body, 24-hour rash, was her reaction to eating baby oatmeal cereal for the first time. I sat with her in the rocking chair for a few minutes after changing her diaper, knowing that I should probably just set her back in the crib to let her fall asleep on her own. But she was so content and so was I, so I waited a couple more minutes. One of the downsides to having sleep-trained kids is that you never get to hold them while they're sleeping unless you're on an airplane during nap time or they're sick. I was holding her and actually reminiscing about being on a nightmare evening flight from Minneapolis which was yes, horrifically long, but I got to hold my baby and feel her completely relax into my arms. Anyway, back to tonight, as I was rocking, I felt her do her full body flex and prepare to poop again. Which she did.

Since then, I've been listening to both her and Miles alternate on the monitors, crying. Miles was sick yesterday so we've already given him tylenol, water, changed his diaper, and covered him up with a blanket. Now we have to tough it out or we will all be miserable tomorrow.

Back At It

I'm back at work now after having baby #2, our delightfully round and happy little girl, Parker. She's 5 1/2 months old and Miles, 2 years old, has already forgotten that he was ever an only child. The latest addition to his going to bed routine is "Nite nite Parker! Nite nite Parker! NITE NITE PARKER!" Not that he doesn't have his moments of jealousy or impatience with the breastfeeding, pumping and burping. When he wants exclusive attention he says, "Parker nap!" because he knows that's when I'm free to play just with him.

It's only been two weeks, but I'm already finding that staying on top of my job on my days off, taking care of the kids and house, and exercising are proving to be pretty difficult, at least difficult to do everything well.

Wu Tang for Breakfast

This morning got off to a late start because Miles slept until 7:30, which is a problem on school days. Jason got him up and was trying to hustle him downstairs with the promise of music and cereal. Miles was already a little bit emotional - he can sense when we're trying to get him to move faster than he would prefer - so we asked what kind of music he wanted to listen to. "Hip hop," was the answer. Really? I asked, you sure? "Hip hop!" So I asked Jason to put on A Tribe Called Quest, which is at least on the mellow end of the rap spectrum. But when the first song started to play, Miles got upset and insisted on hip hop again, which confused us until Jason figured out he meant "Wu Orleans" which samples New Orleans Jazz mixed with Wu Tang. Not exactly easy listening, but once I go back to work I can listen to NPR in the morning so in the meantime Wu Tang it is.

Yellow Cars

About a month ago Miles said his first three-word phrase: "Bye, yellow car!" It was on his way to swim class with Jason and since then, every yellow car or truck that he sees on the street gets an exuberant greeting. He's now moved on to including cars and trucks of other colors, but nothing quite compares to yellow cars. Last night Miles woke up at 3am and I heard him on the monitor say: "Nite-nite yellow car."

Other verbal milestones and idiosyncrasies:
* We've been practicing "Miles likes _____." Usually these sentences end with a yellow or green or blue car. But once in a while, he'll say "Like Daddy" or Parker or Mama or cheese. Yes, Miles now likes cheese!
* He's starting to talk more now that he goes to preschool three mornings a week. It's easier for him to repeat a phrase with some clarity, whereas before if you asked him to say something, he'd mostly just give you something that resembled it only in the number of syllables. I don't think he's necessarily behind in verbal skills, but I know so many kids his age who are big talkers so it felt like he was not talking enough.
* Miles loves to say Bye and Nite-nite to anyone around. At school when I pick him up, he'll say Bye! Bye! Mama's car! to every single kid in his class and to the teacher. Still very affectionate, he'll give a hug to anyone who's at eye-level when he's saying his goodbyes. After we close the door to his room at night, he yells out Nite-nite! over and over.
* Other non-car favorite words: ice cream (requested at every meal including breakfast and snack. We tell him he can only eat ice cream after dinner, but by then he usually forgets to ask again, which means I think that he likes the word more than the food), khakis (he may grow up in his father's gap-manager footsteps), cup cake (another food treat that he actually does not like to eat which I discovered after making almond-poppyseed muffins for him - I suppose he might like a real cupcake that has sugar in it, so we'll test this out on his birthday), and vacuum (still likes to make a near-daily trip to visit the vacuum in the laundry room).

Park and Rec

At the park, Miles still plays by himself or says, "Mama, mama" to get me to follow him up the playstructure or down the slide. (He's climbing the ladders now to get up to the taller levels, almost on his own but you have to spot him.) We bring a big bag of sand toys and a dump truck to the park which he almost always ignores but all the other kids play with them so it's not a waste, plus it makes for good bartering on occasion. I wouldn't say he's shy - he always waves to another child or adult upon prompting and doesn't avoid them, and sometimes he'll play catch for a few minutes, but usually it takes either a toy or an older child to get his attention.

Yesterday there was a 2-year-old boy with a plush Mickey Mouse doll that Miles was very interested in. Inexorably drawn to, in fact. I was on the bench feeding Parker so I couldn't follow him around, but the boy's grandmother was with them so I figured I would watch and see what happened. Miles never grabbed the doll - he just wanted to look - but it made the boy really nervous. At first the boy and the doll would go down the kiddie slide, and Miles would stand at the bottom, smiling, as if to say, come on down Mickey, I'll catch you! Then the boy decided to just hang onto Mickey, and started walking away. Miles followed. The boy picked up his pace. Miles started jogging. The boy ran around the park and Miles ran too, blissfully unaware that the boy was getting anxious. I called out to the grandmother, who for some reason was unable to just tell her grandson to chill out and share, that Miles thought this was a game (Jason taught Miles to play Tag over the weekend) and just wanted to look. I've never seen him grab a toy from anyone except Parker. If anything, other kids usually grab toys from Miles and he doesn't mind. After a couple of laps around the park, Miles gave up and went to inspect some plants.

He had more fun at the swings. An older girl, maybe 6 years, was swinging on her stomach and kicking at the bark. Miles watched her for a minute and then did the same thing, which was fine by me since I had Parker in my arms and wasn't sure how I was going to lift him up onto the swing with one hand. He watched everything this girl did and would try to do it. She lifted the swing over her head and let it fall down, clanging side to side, and he did the same thing, really proud of himself. Miles starts pre-school in two weeks and will be one of the younger kids in the class, so I'm curious to see what he picks up on. Likely a mix of mad skillz and OMG-where-did-you-learn-that behavior.