This afternoon Corwin had a dinosaur open house at school. He was supposed to act as a tour guide for Mom and Dad as we looked at the various dinosaur exhibits that the children had spent the last couple weeks working on. Corwin had a couple of favorite ones that we saw repeatedly. His most favorite was a demonstration of how big the mouth of a T. Rex was. He was stunned that Dad would have been two bites for a T. Rex.
As far as I could tell there were only two spillage incidents, both of them involving Corwin. One of them was at the sand table and Corwin, to his parents utter shock and disbelief, went over to the cabinet, got out a dustpan and brush and cleaned up the spilled sand. It was surreal.
After the exhibits it was time for the class to sing some dinosaur songs. All of them except Corwin were intent on the songs. Various groups of children had on head pieces representing various types of dinosaurs. Then the teacher asked for volunteers to replace a child who had gone home early Corwin jumped out and traded his headgear for the new one although as far as I could tell they were identical. Each section of the song was about a specific type of dinosaur and the corresponding children would stand up. When it was time for Corwin’s group, Corwin sang somewhat and wandered about looking at various classroom objects next to the singing area. But at least he’s got a singing voice every bit as good as his Dad’s!
Corwin actually got up and ready early this morning. He was down having breakfast by 7:30. After that, though, he got very worried because Jacob hadn’t shown up yet. Corwin was inistent that I can over to their house to see what was wrong. In Corwin’s view, since he had finished breakfast and gotten his shoes on, it was time for Jacob to show up because normally Jacob shows up in the middle of breakfast at 7:55. Clock time is not something that intrudes much into Corwin’s world.
Charles thinks that I spend too much time working on computers. If I’m out in the main room and he sees me with Alita he’ll reach over and close the cover on me. He doesn’t seem to want me to come over and play, just to stop messing with the computer. Yesterday I was in the office playing working on the computer and Charles came in. He made me get up and go out into the hall and then he carefully shut the door, which is what I do to him when he’s spent too much time driving. At least now I have an excuse for not posting as much!
Charles has taken to helping out with getting him milk. After he helpfully gets a sippy cup out of the drawer he insists on working the refrigerator door while I get out the milk container, fill up the sippy cup and then put the milk back. He frequently makes helpful comments like “Fzzbt!” or “Gah!” when I go off track. He hasn’t yet taken off one of my fingers grabbing the newly filled sippy cup but that just proves that Dad still “has it”.
It was another rush this morning to get Corwin ready and out the door for the bus so he had Pop Tarts™ for breakfast. I was running around trying to get his other accoutrements into shape for departure and keeping track of Charles so I didn’t keep a close eye on him eating. It must have been something – Corwin left pieces of two viciously disembowled Pop Tarts scattered across the kitchen table and the floor. It looked like a Maiasaur after a T. Rex had had its way. I just hope that at least some of the victim was consumed.
We went to a fast food restaurant for lunch today and the kids got toys with their kid’s meals. The toys were little toy cameras that had the equivalent of viewmaster slide show inside. I played with one and Charles started posing for the camera (it’s too bad I didn’t have a real camera because Charles was being extra cute). I handed it over to Charles so that he could play with it. He figured out the shutter button but the view finder was mysterious to him. Instead he looked for the LCD monitor to show him what pictures it would take. Why not, since every camera he’s ever seen has an LCD monitor just for that. Isn’t that how cameras work?
We went out to the store today to pick up some house supplies. Corwin went along because he had accumulated quite a bit of allowance and he was looking to get some toys. His math skills for numbers much over 15 is still a bit weak, but he was doing a reasonable job of keeping track of how much things cost vs. how much money he had. Corwin ended up getting two toys. We went to check out and I made Corwin handle the transaction (the cashier was very nice about it). Corwin was trying to figure out the exact total but I told him that the cashier was quite skilled at that and would tell him the total cost, which turned out to be $7.43. I told Corwin to give her $8 which he did by pulling out a $5 and then three $1s. It’s good for him to know this kind of survival skill.
Charles is getting a little better at language. He has for the first time been able to idetify three different body parts. He can touch his nose, tummy and ears when asked. Charles seems to understand other words much better as well, like breakfast or new diaper. As far as I can tell, though, he hasn’t increased his speaking vocabulary at all since he said ‘fast.
Charles does seem to be a clever boy, however. It was warm out today but we had dressed Charles in long pants and sleeves and his shirt was of a heavy fabric. After going outside for a bit, I took Charles up to change his diaper during which he insisted on taking off his clothes. I thought he was going naturist again but he cooed with joy when Mom brought in shorts and a short sleeve t-shirt. Charles was cooperative as we put those on him. Charles frequently surpises me with his grasp of cause and effect for a two year old. Logic, cause and effect, no language skills – that’s my little engineer!
Today was cleaning day so last night Corwin and I spent some time tidying up the house. I made Corwin work on the upstairs toy room while I picked up in the living room and media room. Corwin actually did a half-way decent job. He got most of the big chunks off the floor and most things put away in the right place and he did it unsupervised. I think that this is the first time Corwin has been a net positive in helping with household chores. I’m sure that if Mom is reading this, she’s thinking “if only Dad would make that break through”.
Charles was much better about getting dressed this morning. He actually insisted on picking out all of his clothes himself. In the closet in the boy’s room is a small coat stand. Charles got that and dragged it over next to his dresser so that he could stand on the bottom to gain a little height and look in to the drawers. Corwin used to do the same thing, so I’m not sure if Charles worked this out on his own or saw Corwin do it a while back (Corwin is now tall enough that he doesn’t really need it).
Charles indicated that he wanted pants first so I opened that drawer and Charles considered the selection for a bit before picking out a nice set of blue pants. I think he said “booooo” which may have been an attempt at “blue”. Next he picked his favorite sweatshirt, which is also dark blue with pictures of airplanes on it. After that he was quite docile as I put the garments upon him. I wonder if what he really resents is not picking out the clothes rather than putting them on. Corwin was (and is) that way. It’s been a long time since I picked an outfit for Corwin.
Charles had been upset the other day because he tried to play with Corwin’s Super Tret RC car but the batteries were dead. So on Sunday I remembered that I had put the batteries in the charger so I got them out and Charles and I went out to cruise.
Charles has understood the basic RC concept from early on, although he’s still unclear on the steering idea. His basic technique is to put the car on the sidewalk as straight as possible and then hit the forward control until the car careens off into the grass. Charles then runs over to the car, picks it up and repeats. We went down about 8 or 9 houses this way until Charles got tired and made me carry the car back to the house.
Mom needed some time without a full load of boy last night, so I attempted to take Corwin out for bowling. Corwin insisted on having Jacob come along as well. So I bundled them up and off we went. Unfortunately it was Saturday night and that’s the favorite night for bowling leagues. The first place we went, just up the road, was packed. So we went all the way across town to where Corwin had been to a birthday party. It was full up on leagues as well, till 8:30 PM. So Jacorobwin played in the arcade for a while and then some pinball. Corwin did reasonably well, scoring 1,865,210 on one game. That’s about as well as I do (although I did get 2.6M so he’s not better than me yet). After that we went to a bookstore and Jacorobwin each got a Captain Underpants activity book.
Of course, I had to promise that I would take Jacorobwin out at some not too distant point in time for actual bowling. Jacob’s Dad wussed out of going on this little expedition just like last time but I don’t think he will evade me this next time.
Charles’ resistance to clothing has blossomed over the last few days to where it is now a struggle to get him clothed. I had been so happy that, contra Corwin, Charles hadn’t turned morning dressing into a wrestling match. Ah, how the joys of young children pass away…
Charles was particularly conflicted this morning. Charles had woken up around 5 AM and Mom had moved him in to our bed. When he woke up again, he took me from there into the boy’s room, opened the closet and took me over to his dresser. I picked out some pants which he touched and said “dis!”. I went over and sat on Corwin’s bed and called Charles over. He happily came over and sat on my lap. His joy turned to horror, though, once I started to put his legs into the pants. The trauma was complete when I put shirt on him. He pulled at the pants and shirt while crying. I eventually had to just leave him on the floor, mewling, while I did my morning toiletries. Charles was unhappy for about 20 minutes, refusing to be picked up. He was acting, though, because when I came out after my toiletries he wasn’t crying until he saw that I was watching, at which point he cranked up the noise. He didn’t stop until Mom came upstairs and he ran to her for protection (even though Mom had picked out the shirt which was oppressing him).
Last Thursday Corwin had his first school singing event. The kindergarten and first grade put on a choral presentation in the gymnasium. We were able to see Corwin but he couldn’t see us because we ended up right behind a stage light from his point of view. Corwin did actually sing along in parts. For some of the early songs he didn’t participate in the body motions for the song (e.g., for a song about getting ready in the morning he wouldn’t do the teeth brushing motion although he did the sound effects). Corwin did however do the Chicken Dance motions.
Corwin built a collection of Lego™ constructions this morning in preparation for an expedition to Pluto. He built a large space ship along with two ground stations, on with a radio tower. The buildings had rockets on the bottom so that they could fly around the planet or take off with the spaceship.
I have phone meetings at 8 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This makes it interesting because Corwin has to catch his bus at about 8:05 AM. I sent them out right at 8:00 and then called in. I waited in the office which has a large window that looks out on the bus stop. The bus came after a while and Jacob got on. Corwin, however, had wandered off down the street. I was worried that he was going to miss the bus so I ran to the door and shouted out “CORWIN!” right in to the headset mike for the conference call. He did make the bus, though.
Corwin had a hard day today. Mom had them out playing soccer in the yard where she made them run around while she sat on the bench as goalie. Then Corwin went swimming so he was tuckered out by the end of the evening. He watched a bit of TV after we got home but was comatose by 8:30. Charles, on the other hand, was bouncy boy.
I had a bit of a scare with him. He went in to watch TV after Corwin crashed. I checked on the show and it was When in Rome, an Olsen twin’s movie. Of course, I immediately searched the channels for something more intellectually stimulating and found Pokémon. Charles was not happy about the change and was mollified only when I switched back to the Olsen twins. The horror, the horror…
But there’s hope – Charles got tired of it once it went to a smoochie scene (not too explicit, it was the Olsen twins). So I provided Charles with a selection of DVDs and he picked out Dance with the Teletubbies.
Charles watched that for a bit while I washed some of his sippy cups. But I wanted to get Corwin up before he wet the couch so I sent him up to bed with some serious prodding (“No, Corwin, that’s not the clothes hamper, it’s a garbage can”). Then I hauled Charles up. At first he was happy — he got into Mom’s bed and curled up on her backrest pillow and then insisted on having the covers pulled up around him while I turned off stuff downstairs. When I came back up Charles was sufficiently rested and was ready to go back for some more Teletubbies. I told him that we were done for the evening and he just collapsed, crying, at the top of the stairs. I tried to put him in bed but he’d just crawl out, heaving himself to the floor. After a bit he would hold out his little hands piteously to me so I had to pick him up. Then I had to put him down as he spasmed with the realization that Dad wasn’t going to take him back down stairs. Eventually he wore out and went to sleep. Still, he does take a very cute picture. 
I took Corwin swimming this evening at the YMCA where he has his swimming lessons. As we pulled in the parking lot Corwin started singing “YMCA”. I grilled him later and he said that he had heard it during P.E. Later he told me that he knew how to spell “YMCA” – ‘Y’ ‘M’ ‘C’ ‘A’. I told Corwin that he was very clever. I tried to convince that it meant “Yes, My Corwins Attack” but he didn’t believe me.
I took a book with me to read. Not while Corwin was swimming, which I watched, but to have something to do while he got dressed afterwards. Corwin is not the very fastest dresser. Just like in the morning, I had to prod him now and then to prevent a complete freeze up. For instance, after I made him take off his trunks he just stood there, naked and shivering a bit. I asked him if he ok with going back to the car naky which jarred him in to drying off. A few more prods and he started putting clothes on. The book was handy. It gave me something to do and after every 4 pages or so I’d prod Corwin again to keep him active.
I’m sure that you are all looking forward to reading several years from now “Charles learned his 4,722nd word today – consanguinity!”.
But even so, I feel compelled to say that Charles did use a new word (for him) this morning. He was hungry this morning (for once!) and walked me over to the table, pointed at a cereal container and said “ ‘fast ”. So I gave him a bath.
I took Charles to the doctor this morning for a check up. It turns out that Charles is healthy, weighs 29 pounds and is 37 inches long. Charles was ok during the visit except for being a little clutchy. He didn’t make a sound the entire time but he did keep a close eye on everyone. However, no visit to the doctor is complete without a little trauma. Charles’ trauma was caused by a little red truck with the nurse gave to him to distract while he was weighed. Regular readers will already know how this ends – Charles had to give the truck back when we left and that made him very sad. He cried all the way back. The nurse gave him a truck sticker but he threw that into the car in a fury. I gave him two other cars that were in his seat but he threw those away as well and just mewled piteously. I suspect that in the coming years Charles will look back on this and say “Dad, I’ve learned how to pick locks – it’s time to get that truck!”
Corwin built a very large Lego™ structure today (yes, real Lego™ for you purists out there). It must have been about 2 feet talk with side units sticking out. As far as I could tell it was a giant space battle ship. Corwin told me that he was never going to take it apart, that he was going to keep it forever. I pointed out that this would mean he couldn’t play with the Lego™ in the ship ever again, but he was undeterred. I don’t think it lasted more than 10 minutes after Jacob’s arrival.
After some hard driving Charles decided to call it a night. He came out and demanded milk before he went upstairs. I tried to give him the milk he had during dinner but Charles wouldn’t take it. He stuck out his little finger, touched the sippy cup and said “old!”. Then he opened the drawer where we keep the clean sippy cups to indicate that Dad should stop being to lazy and pour him another shot of milk.
Charles’ computer skills continue to grow. One of his habits while playing his driving games is to require Dad to keep his hand on the mouse. I’m not sure why but it’s important to Charles. This can get a little straining when Charles just sits and stares at the car preview which preceeds the actual driving.
After more go arounds than I care to remember I finally began to figure out that Charles really wanted me reset his car when he got it stuck. In his desperation to keep driving even when Dad didn’t respond immediately Charles started trying to work the controls himself. He had already figured out the ESCAPE key to bring up the menu, but this time he was able to use the mouse to click on menu items. It was very cute — first he just moved the mouse around randomly until he saw the cursor on the screen (which in this game is a very large arrow). At that point he connected the mouse movement to the cursor movement and moved the cursor over the “go” button. Presumably he knew where because he had seen Dad click the button before. 26 months old and he’s already grasped the use of a computer pointing device! Now that’s my boy!
Corwin was planning on going over to Jacob’s house this evening but Jacob’s Dad called in sick (yeah … I understand). So instead Jacob came over here so that he could play driving games on the computer. He’s spent most of the time playing Jacob is over tonight playing Re-volt. At one point Jacob claimed that he had finished in a time that Corwin couldn’t beat. Corwin’s reply was “Someday you may be better than me”.
Corwin went to his school mate Joey’s birthday party this afternoon. It was at GT’s Western Bowl which is just south of I-74 near Prospect. We dropped him off at 4 and went back to pick him up at 5:45. The kids did some bowling then had a party down in the basement with presents and cake. Corwin told us that he won the bowling and that he had a score of 84, which would make it not surprising that he won. It’s also more than Mom frequently scores. We were a bit sceptical but Corwin is good with numbers so I think that he would get that right.
But Corwin, having surpassed Mom, aimed for Dad. After the party the kids went up to the arcade to play a few games (Mom and Dad arrived just as party was finishing). Corwin played one of the throw the basketball in the hoop games. Sadly, Corwin got 4 in and Dad got none (although I was giving most of the balls to Corwin since he was supposed to be the one playing. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Besides, I got more in on the football one than Corwin).
Corwin also bowled electronically. This game had a trackball which was spun to fling the ball down the alley. The first game Corwin scored 121, which I thought was a good score. Corwin insisted on playing again and that time he got 180. Of course, I could have beaten that but I figured, hey, it’s Corwin’s time to shine, he deserves his moment of triumph so why show him up? Which I could have done. If I wanted.
Corwin has been having a bad week for personal injury. On Wednesday after swimming Corwin had his toe in the way of a door being opened from the other side and the toe was hit hard enough to bleed a bit. Mom had to put a bandaid on it and for the next couple of days Corwin would hobble out to the bus stop instead of running as he normally does. It may be that he took longer to put on his shoes but he normally takes so long that it’s hard to tell. Friday morning he managed to bang the toe in to something again, mainly because he had flitted off to do something else instead of putting on his shoes as Dad had asked him to do.
On Friday Corwin took a hit during a basketball game at school and got a bloody lip. The teacher called us about it, saying that she’d managed to get Corwin calmed down. By the time Corwin got home the incident was almost forgotten and I had to look closely to detect the injury at all. Corwin persuaded me that he would not have to be traded in for a non-broken Corwin so we’ll be keeping him despite the little dings and scrapes.
When I came home from work last night, Charles came over to greet me as he normally does but this time he said “Daaaaaaaa” when he saw me. I chose to believe that Charles intended to say ‘Dad’ and no disparaging looks from Mom can convince me otherwise.
Charles has been a bit of a whiny-bot lately because of his frustration at not driving 24×7. Even when I let him drive he is now in the same state Corwin as when Corwin started driving. This consists of driving for about 20 seconds and then getting very unhappy about something (I have never determined what the problem is but apparently it’s common to 2 year old children driving computer simulated cars. Why has no research been done on this important topic?). My solution is to give him a different car, which mollifies him for another 20 seconds. To do this, one presses the ESCAPE key to bring up the menu to select another car. At first Charles would indicate his desire by crying and then grabbing my hand and placing it near the keyboard. Now, after only a day or so of this, Charles presses the ESCAPE key by himself to bring up the menu. He actually watches and if he bounces the key (which removes the menu) he’ll try again until the menu is up. Then, of course, he puts my hand on the mouse so that I can do the rest of the task. What’s impressive is that Charles doesn’t just bang on the keyboard, he presses the specific key required to get the menu. Perhaps I’ll have to accept only talking to Charles via an text messaging system. I could get a vocoder and use it to simulate Charles talking…
Charles normally likes baths except for when Dad rinses his head after washing his hair because some of the water runs down over his face. However, during his bath last night Charles had a different view. Because of the trauma of having a bath instead of driving all night I needed a special bath toy. I gave Charles a red glow cup which cheered him up immediately. He played with filling it up under the running water for a while and splashing water everywhere. He even liked it when I turned out the light. The cup is actually quite bright so that Charles was lit up nicely.
After Dad washed Charles hair and he got upset about the water in his face, for some reason he decided to try it himself with the cup. He would fill it up and then pour it out on his forehead and he and Dad would laugh and laugh because it was, you know, funny. Oh well, I guess you had to be there.
Charles seems to be having a break through in his language processing. Last night in the bath tub Charles decided that having Dad name things when he held them up was very funny. This is the first time Charles has shown the he understands the concept of naming things. On the other hand, part of this consisted of Charles putting the wash cloth on the plastic duck spout cover, pounding on it with his fists and then triumphantly whipping the wash cloth off the duck to show that yes, the duck was still there.Dad would then say “duck!” and Charles would be consumed with laughter. After this we went through the entire contents of the toy basket in the tub.
While in the tub Charles for the first time was able to distinguish two different body parts by name, his nose and his tummy. Before this any question of the form “Charles, where is your X” caused him to touch his nose regardless of what “X” was. This time, however, he would touch his nose for “nose” and his tummy for “tummy”. He then proceeded to whap his tummy with his hands to get Dad to say “tummy!” over and over.
Of course, after all this it would be cruel to mention that Charles needed a bath because he had rubbed pancake batter in his hair, so I won’t.
Corwin has been expanding on his building skills. He had done a good job with his Lego kit so when he asked to buy this Megablocks kit Mom gave in (I was not there at the time so all you Lego purists, don’t send me hate mail. Mom claims that she tried to steer to him the Bionicles but that Corwin insisted on the Megablocks).
What you see on the right there is the finished product, which for some reason doesn’t have the flame shown in the standard product picture. The kit came with a large instruction fold out with roughly 100 steps. Corwin did about two thirds of them and Dad did the rest, some of which were a bit tricky (the product is labeled for 7+ years). I thought that Corwin did well on the construction over all. For instance, Corwin did both legs on his own without any help at all, just following the instructions.
There are a few key moments in the life of a child as he grows up. Last night Charles had one of those moments. I had been negligent in letting Charles drive on the computer so last night I decided to rectify that. What I discovered was astounding — Charles was now big enough that he could drive on the computer all by himself! This picture is not posed, Charles is really driving for the first time.
Of course, Charles became addicted within a few minutes. He was very upset when it was time for supper. On top of that, Corwin is upset as well because for the first time he has to share “his” computer with his little brother. In Corwin’s view, if Charles is playing on the computer then there is nothing for Corwin to do (except play on Dad’s computer). It did cause Charles to start using his fifth word — “mine”. When Corwin tried to sit on the chair in front of the computer this morning, Charles pushed him off saying “mine! mine!”.
I don’t think that Charles really has the forward and reverse concepts down yet, because he’s never had to deal with those before. He has a bad habit of keeping one foot on both pedals and then it doesn’t work as well. I’m trying to convince him that he should use both feet on the same pedal but it’s slow going. I swear, it’s just like teaching a two year old!
Mom and I went out to a party celebrating the release of our product last night. We dithered about whether to bring the boys along but eventually decided to get a baby sitter. Mom was going to arrange that on Thursday but on Friday morning we were sitter-less. I was designated to grovel, so I sent a e-mail to Erica. Apparently my message was rather terse and Erica interpreted it not as a request for services but as a reminder of services already agreed upon. I thought to myself “wow, that’s a great technique!”. Unfortunately Erica’s mom was at the party as well and she declared her intention to rat me out. These womenfolk, always banding together against us poor Dads!
Mom now claims that Charles’ ‘eah’ sounds count as the word “yes”. This morning, Charles was able to use the word “socks” in a meaningful way giving him a total vocabulary of four words, two of which are footwear related. “No” and “Yes” seem like standard kind of early words, but I’m not so sure about “shoes” and “socks” as second and fourth words. Charles does have an affinity for footwear, although it’s not as strong as his love of cars. Perhaps Charles has no need of the word “car” because he is never without one at hand…