Notes from a day with a toddler
Leon, at 17 months on Saturday, is definitely an actual toddler now, even if he still spends quite a lot of time with his hands up in the air, still busy keeping his balance. It's a bit weird -- where did my teeny tiny baby go? -- but also kind of awesome. Some things, today, in no particular order.
It is my bedtime, so I will stop there. Random notes from what was actually a very quiet day. (Which we badly needed after a very busy weekend visiting all his NI relatives.) My current conclusion is: toddlers are both awesome, and very hard work.
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- He can (and frequently did during the day) walk up to the other end of the room, pick a book, and bring it back to me to read to him.
- He can make a lot of different animal noises.
- I think he may have said "yellow" today (in correct context). (Words are still a bit off and on -- he'll say something and then not say it again.)
- He asked me to cook an egg for him (via pointing and enthusiastic noises), remained patient while I offered a couple of things in that general area of the kitchen before I got what he was after, and helped me break and whisk the egg. (He then ate two single-egg 'omelettes' in a row, which seems like quite a lot for a small Leon.)
- He spent some time taking little fuzzy pompoms out of one container and putting them into another, then tipping them out and doing it all over again. This seemed very important.
- He walked to the potty a couple of times when he needed a wee (sometimes), but did not yet actually sit himself down on it. (We are still doing EC, so that's more of a cue to me than it is 'potty learning', but, y'know, progress in a good direction.)
- This afternoon, he spent over twenty minutes picking up a couple of stones from a gravel path in the park, going up a shallow flight of stairs, putting the stones in the bin at the top of the steps, and coming back down again to repeat the exercise, while I just sat and watched (in mild bemusement).
- He was ABSOLUTELY INSISTENT on going up the slide and down the steps, despite the queue of children on said steps (my mistake; there was a stoppage in the queue and I foolishly thought he would go up the slide and then down the slide. Normally I wouldn't mind either way, but see above re queue. It is not possible to lift a determined Leon off the top of that particular slide, due to the size of the barred bit.)
- But when he tried to do it again, and I removed him from the slide, and he kicked off, once I'd told him the limits for today re slide usage, and he'd calmed down a bit, I said "OK, so, can you go up the steps and down the slide?" he nodded, and then slid out of my arms and did it, no more fuss. I was more than a bit surprised, to be honest. We did have to repeat the whole discussion again ten minutes later, of course.
- He did not want his bath tonight. "Bath?" I said, as he yelled MAMAMAMAMAMA and
doop handed him over. Big shake of head, still crying. "Right. No bath. Bleurgh. Nasty, horrible bath," I said, mostly for my own benefit, and, a bit unexpectedly, he started giggling. I ran with it, hammed up the terrible, no good, awfulness of the bath, and got him, still giggling, up the stairs and into the nasty, horrible, bath without any more fuss. I was proper gobsmacked. Neatest bit of parenting I've done possibly ever. Am sure it will never work again. But more interestingly, it wouldn't have worked at all a month or two back. Something has happened in his brain. - Less impressive, parenting-wise, was the screaming fit he threw after he indicated he wanted to go home from the playground and I tried to back-wrap him. (In retrospect, I think he just wanted to walk.) Carrying is a bit hit-and-miss at the moment, which is awkward as he's really not up to walking everywhere yet; not sure a pushchair would be any better, though.
- He randomly built a block tower, just the once, then when I tried to get involved in the building project, gleefully pushed all the blocks off the table. There is something funny going on with blocks and stacking. I am not quite sure what it is.
It is my bedtime, so I will stop there. Random notes from what was actually a very quiet day. (Which we badly needed after a very busy weekend visiting all his NI relatives.) My current conclusion is: toddlers are both awesome, and very hard work.
Originally posted on Dreamwidth (
comments). To comment over there, use OpenID.