Charles used to get these big “third-eye” bruises right in the middle of his forehead from flinging himself to the ground. He has since learned that slowing down his head before impact is a good idea.
Right now, however, he’s sporting quite a good one the bottom of his chin. I think he got that one from a sippy cup. Because of his milk habit Charles frequently has a sippy cup in hand. A combination of this and falling down a lot, the chance of him jamming the spout into himself hard enough to bruise is close to 1. I used to think that of course a parent would notice when his child got a bruise like that but the truth is I have no idea.
It’s very hard to tell from the immediate reaction because at two there’s only one reaction to a setback - massive screaming and crying. Generally the best judge is how long the child continues crying. But the presence or absence of a distraction (or an audience) makes that measurement unreliable as well. Without visible sign of injury one must just move on. A bruise can take a while to develop so Charles could have gotten his from any of several spills in the morning and it wouldn’t be noticed until he came home from daycare. All I can do now is try to resist the urge to go after it with a washcloth because at first glance it looks like a missed remnant of a meal.
I hear tales of married couples who have fights over one spouse eating in bed and the other suffering from the food remnants. I may finally be able to understand that.
Last night, after Mom and the Boys had fallen asleep, I went in to move them over to their own beds. I got Corwin moved over and then went back for Charles. I had loaned the boys some LED flashlights earlier which I decided to collect and verify that they were off before putting Charles away. I poked at Mom until she woke up enough to reach under herself and pull a flashlight out from where it had been abandoned by Corwin. I put it away and then moved Charles over to his bed. I then came back and asked where the flashlight Charles had was. Mom said that she’d given it to me, but I pointed out that it was Corwins. Mom then reaches under herself to pull out another flashlight. I put that away, do my nightly maintenance and come back to get in to bed. First I pick out all of the cars and trucks I can find and make a little pile off the side of the bed (I’m not being figurative here - there really were enough to make a small pile). I then climb in only to find other vehicles stuffed in various nooks and crannies of the covers. However, after a few minutes of picking out vehicles I’ve removed enough to try to get to sleep.
As part of the end of soccer season, Corwin got a small medallion to honor his participation. Corwin has become very fond of it. He carried it around with him all weekend. I suggested that maybe he should keep it in his room so he wouldn’t lose it but that was rejected out of hand. I also had to keep reminding him that it was not a chew toy. That’s probably a side effect of Mom never feeding him. Corwin did have a little sense about it, though. At one point while we were out and he had grown tired of the weight of it, he asked me to carry it for him instead of just leaving it on a random shelf in the store.
We spent a good part of yesterday preparing the house for Mom’s Halloween Party. We cleaned the TV room and nook and the entire basement. Corwin didn’t enjoy it very much, even though he was a little bit of help. We did find a number of things that we hadn’t realized we’d lost.
One of the recovered items was a red plastic snake about 1.5m long. Charles likes the snake a lot. His favorite use is to open the mouth with his hands and then chase Mom or Dad around with the snake. When Dad gets tired the snake just kind of gnaws on him while Charles giggles. The house is big enough that I can get ahead of Charles far enough to hide and then get him from behind. Charles response is to giggle and use the snake for protection.
I can see it all later - “Well, as a child, he didn’t like stuffed animals. He much preferred trucks and plastic snakes.”
We sent Corwin to the shower right after he got home from soccer, after which he tried to become one with the TV. Unfortunately, Charles was watching Maisy which isn’t quite acceptable fare for Corwin. He plaintively asked to change the channel but I told him that we were going to have some salmon lox to celebrate the end of the season. I phrased it as “we’re going to watch Mom eat some salmon”. Corwin responded with a complaint that that wasn’t the channel he wanted to watch.
Corwin ended up having only a little bit of the lox. Normally he’s a fanatic for it but maybe his tastes are changing. Charles refused to eat it on a cracker but he scarfed it down solo.
While I was enjoying a morning with Charles, Mom and Corwin were off to soccer. We thought that they’d probably cancel it as there was a major rainstorm last night, but apparently since it was the last game they pushed on through the mud (most of which we’ve cleaned up off the floor). The big news, which Corwin announced the moment he was home, was that the team actually won the game! 
YAY!
The final score was 5-0. Corwin played goalie for the first half, which turned out to be boring because his team manged to keep the ball on the other side of the field most of the time. Mom says that this the key to victory. Because the kids are young, if the ball is on one side most of the time the offensive team will get lucky and score goals. It’s frequently more a random gas molecule kind of thing than a planned offense. I’ve only seen one play where there was an actual play that scored a goal.
Mom says that the team is getting better in terms of ball handling and cooperation. They’re hoping keep most of the same team together next year. One of the reasons the team didn’t do so well was because they are mostly first graders in the first & second grade league. So next year they’ll be a gang of second graders who should hopefully do better.
Mom also informs me that Corwin has a nickname, “Metal-foot”. I told her that she needed to actually read this weblog so she could be better informed about her children.
Charles drinks a lot of milk. This was made clear to me this morning when Charles had a containment failure in our bed. He had fallen asleep there, so I took over to his bed. I noticed that he had a semi-full diaper so I put a new on him. He managed to overflow that one before he woke up (around 3:30 AM) and his diaper was full enough to change again when he woke up. I suppose it comes from having three full sippy cups of milk right before bed time.
Charles and I also had a fight this morning about pants. I had to wait him out until he got bored enough upstairs to want to put on pants so he could go downstairs. He eventually came over to me and said “pants!” to indicate that he was ready to get dressed. I took him over to his dresser to pick out some pants. He selected a red pair and then, as he has been tending to do, he made me chase him while he ran around giggling and waving the pants. But as soon as I started to put the pants on Charles freaked out. But Dad was in a mean mood so Charles was forced to wear the pants he had picked out despite his protests. I suspect that he’ll recover from the trauma in a few years.
Charles has been quacking more than ususal the last few days. Mom told me about this a while back but I’d never actually heard i from Charles. Well, now I have. Charles will sometimes just start going “qwack! qwack!” as he toddles across the room. Other times he will make “qwack!” as sound effects for his heavy machinery toys. It’s differerent to see Charles extending the scoop on his front loader truck while going “qwack!”.
I mentioned that Charles has been more verbal lately, but apparently only at home. One of the workers at day care told Mom that she enjoyed it when Mom came to pick up Charles because that was the only time she got to hear Charles speak.
I was reminded reading something else about how I used to bug Corwin while reading him a book. What I liked to do was to put Corwin in to the story, such as “In the early Middle Ages, Corwins would kick a pigs bladder in the street”. Corwin hated it. It was guaranteed to get a rise out of him every time. I had to read the book exactly as it was written. Corwin also disliked it when I would ask questions about the book or make editorial comments. “That’s not what it says!” Corwin would contend. I wonder how Charles will respond. We read him books now but he doesn’t follow it at all so I can read anything I want. Will he someday complain about fluid texts as well?
I was running a little late this evening so I decided to drop by and pick up some fast food to go. That went fine and I arrived home shortly thereafter to Charles heartily saying “HI!” as soon as I was in the door. Then he forgot about me while Corwin (who opened the door for me) went back to his TV induced stupor.
I popped the food bag on the table and started pulling out the food. That got the boys moving. Charles immediately came over and pulled up a chair next to me and said “e too!” which means “I want one too”. I had not gotten a big meal because, frankly, I’m fat, so I was forced to part with chunk of my meager fair for Charles. Of course, anyone with children has already read ahead and realized that this was the cue for Corwin, ravenously famished boy, to come over and demand his miserable portion of food. Dad had to actually defend his meal from the wolf boys.
I have got to convince Mom that she should feed them at least a couple of times a week in the evening.
As part of his increased verbosity, Charles has also been much more energetic about asking “what is this?” about random objects that are close at hand, which of course normally means cars and trucks. But he’ll frequently cycle through the set of cars he has, asking for each one in turn and sometimes (it’s so cute!) switching the order with an expectant grin, hoping to trip up Dad.
What I find interesting is that when I turn the tables on Charles and ask him what things are, he does well except when I ask what he is. This seems to fluster him, as if he can’t quite conceive of the idea that he needs a name. He’s him. The center. Frequently if I touch him and ask “what’s this?” he look at where I touched to see what’s there that I’m asking about. I tried reaching around him to be cleared and he tried to see what was on his back. But my efforts finally paid off. I’ve been bugging him with this for the last week or so and this morning he finally came up with an answer. He’s a “brother”, which is the same word he uses for Corwin.
Mom was pestering Corwin about taking piano lessons to which Corwin counter-proposed violin lessons. I’m not sure where he picked that up. I’d prefer piano lessons primarily because we’ve already got a piano. Mom is already talking about where we could rent a violin in case it doesn’t work out for him.
But I’m doing my part. I’ve been playing some Yes on the CD player in the car. I’ve been lucky the last couple of weeks because Mom misplaced her keys to the nice car so she’s been stuck driving the old van so I can finally listen to my CDs in the car. Anyway, during one of the songs while Rick Wakeman was doing some virtuouso work I said to Corwin “don’t you want to learn to play the keyboard like that?”. Corwin didn’t reply.
I mentioned this to Mom, later, at which point Corwin pipes up “I thought you meant a computer keyboard!”.
Charles is doing much better since he moved up. He doesn’t give his little cry of protest when I tell him that it’s time to visit his little friends. Last week he actually replied by asking if he was going to “have fun?” when he got there. Coincidentally I’ve also been taking him in later than normal because of morning meetings and whatnot.
He was a bit of a problem yesterday, though, as he managed to wet himself as we were going out to the car. He had a diaper on that wasn’t really wet yet still Charles managed to soak his pants. I’m not sure how he managed it. He’s a clever one, that boy.
Charles is babbling much more than he used to. Previously he would babble now and then but over the last few weeks he started babbling frequently. He tries to explain stuff to me but he doesn’t get many actual words in the stream. But he does seem to be trying to use words to describe the real world.
Charles is learning how to put clothes on. He’s good at taking them off but not so good at putting them on. He does put his arms up to go in to the sleaves for me now which is a step forward. He’s also good about picking his feet up for diapers and pants.
Not much progress on the potty front. I discuss this with Charles every time I change him, but he just smiles and says “no” and “potty? no”. He has been starting to request new diapers, sometimes when he has made just a single wet. I tell him that he can wait and if he doesn’t like it, he can use the potty. That tends to damp his complaints, although Mom just changes his diaper. She’s so weak.
Having your own kids certainly causes one to have very different reactions to events. Before, when I’d see some little kid break down or misbehave I’d feel some sympathy for the child or parent, depending on the situation. But now I primarily feel relief.
For example, at the den meeting last night the den mother’s child broke down crying because the other kids wouldn’t play the game he wanted to play. I felt a wave of relief as my first thought was “Corwin isn’t the only one!”. It’s of great comfort to realize that one is probably not the worst parent on the planet, that the things that plague you about your children are not unique defects created in their personalities by your deficient parenting.
Charles was playing with his trucks this morning again. He had the large tow truck up on the bed again. For the first time I saw him playing with the hook on the back. Charles had attached it to another truck and was towing the “broken” truck back to the shop. I asked Charles about this and he babbled on and on about what was happening, of which I could only pick up a few words, mostly “truck”, “broke” and “shop”. Sadly for the broken truck, everything got stuck when it hit the big cliff at the edge of the bed. Charles discussed the trucks being stuck for a while but then decided that the solution was more trucks! Surely more trucks would solve any problem and if not, well, he’d still have more trucks!
So we headed off to the basement to get more trucks, but once we were down there Charles decided that it would be even better if he moved all of the trucks down so he wouldn’t have any more problems with cliffs. He’s a clever one, that boy.
Because Corwin is in Cub Scouts now, we have the obligation to sell popcorn to raise funds for the organization. I’ve been putting it off but Mom finally put the hammer down and sent us out on the mission.
So Corwin and I set off, with Charles in tow, for the great wilds of the neighborhood, armed only with an order sheet, a pen and boxes of microwave popcorn for product demonstration. To carry out supplies we borrowed Mom’s garden cart. Corwin actually pulled the cart most of the time even though Charles was in it (he’s quite the chunk ‘o boy, well over 40 pounds).
I made Corwin go up to the houses and give the little spiel about selling popcorn. He was actually pretty good except for a very strong aversion to actually looking at the person he was talking to. But he did a good job of remembering what he was selling and showing the pictures to the marks I mean neighbors. We sold something to about a third of the houses we visited, which was a lot more than I thought. The most common reason for not buying was that they had kin who were also in Cub/Boy/Girl Scouts selling popcorn. So overall not a bad experience.
Despite Corwin’s soccer problems, apparently the coach thinks Corwin kicks well. Corwin claims that the team calls him “Metal-Foot” because he can kick so far. Corwin is very proud of this and has been insisting that I call him “Metal-Foot” when we’re practicing soccer. Of course, Dad can still kick the ball slightly farther than Corwin.
Another disappointing day at soccer for Corwin. He did well while playing but his team didn’t, losing 3-0. It doesn’t look like they’re going to win any games at all this year, although Corwin isn’t breaking down as much afterwards as he has in the past.
Watching the games it seems to me that at Corwin’s age there is enough difference in development that one or maybe two kids who are more developed or skilled at soccer can dominate the game. In this game and the last one I watched there was one kid on the other team who drove their offense. Corwin’s good but he’s not a game dominating player. Last time the key technique the good kid had was loft on his kicks. This alone makes a big difference because basically no one else gets the ball off the ground in a kick. If you can, then everyone is so short that such kicks go right past them. This time one kid on the other side was a very good ball handler. He either scored or set up every goal. On the last goal he drove the ball all by himself from his goal to right in front of our goal through our entire team, at which point a teammate scored from about 4 feet right out in front of the goal, where the good kid had placed the ball.
It looks like we just got unlucky and didn’t get one of the top players. Oh well. Things should even out as the years go by.
Corwin is in Boy Scouts now. He’s a “Tiger Cub” which is the entry level for the program. Last Tuesday I went to my first pack meeting with Corwin. It was kind of freaky because my own Boy Scout experience came back to haunt me. I recalled things I could never have remembered on purpose when they were done by other people there. Interesting the things that are stuck in your head that you have no concious memory of.
At one point there was a need for the parents and leaders to talk about boring parent and leader type things, so a couple of the den leaders went off to organize activities for the boys. One of them was forming a long line and then having the boys at the end of the line crawl under all of the other boys and stand up at the front of the line, forming a giant kind of slow moving worm. Corwin really got in to it. Instead of doing the hand and knees crawl like most of the others, Corwin immediately went for a belly crawl style that would have done a Marine proud. I just wonder where he picked that up.
Charles and I were the first ones down this morning, primarily because Charles was hungry. Immediately after he came down he sat at the table and said “eat!”. He started trying to open the cookies on the table (which Mom is taking to the church bake sale) but I denied this to Charles and instead took him over to the pantry so he could pick out some breakfast. He settled for Rice Krispies and I poured him a bowl. He eats dry cereal with milk in a sippy cup on the side. After consuming three or four bits and scattering most of the rest on the table, chair and floor, Charles announced that he was done. I told him it was OK and off he went while I typed up the previous post.
After I finished that up I started to get up to get some coffee but Charles was there. He stopped me, pointed at the scattered Rice Krispies and said “sweep!”. I asked “Do you want Daddy to clean up the cereal?” which got an enthusiastic “yeah!” in response. There was nothing for so I went and got a broom and dustpan.
While I was working on cleaning up after Charles, Mom finally came down. She tripped a bit on the last step and sat down heavily. Charles immediately came over and said “you ok?”. Mom assured him she was fine. Charles is quite sensitive to things like that, it’s kind of strange but sweet.
The other night Mom and the Boys were upstairs when I was summoned there. Charles wanted some milk (many of my evenings are spent trundling up and down the stairs performing various tasks like this). I decided to tease Charles a bit and told him that he should get milk for me. Charles said “OK!” and rushed off down the stairs. He toddled in to the kitchen and got a sippy cup (although no actual milk) and brought it back up for Dad. He’s such a nice boy, but he still insisted that Dad perform his milk fetching duties. Oh well.
A few days ago, on the weekend, Corwin asked for some lemon, which he likes to eat. Mom cut up a lemon in to eighths for him and he proceeded to start noshing on them. I went upstairs to take care of some things and came down a little while later and thought “gosh, a nice glass of water with some lemon would be good”. So I popped over to the table to grab one of the lemon pieces. They were all gone. I checked with Mom and, in fact, Corwin had eaten all of them. This is a kid for whom those sour candies (which are basically sugar and citric acid) will hold no terrors.
Yesterday I had to leave the boys with Mom in the morning because I had an early dentist appointment. I mentioned this to Corwin while he was getting ready to brush his teeth. Corwin then asked plaintively “when do I get to go to the dentist?”. Corwin’s been to the dentist in the past so it must not have been that traumatic for him.
It’s not all conflict with Corwin and Charles. A couple of days ago they were playing together by running around downstairs. Corwin would run away and duck behind something after which Charles would wander over giggling and saying “I see you!”. Corwin would run away and they’d repeat the whole process. Charles always enjoys any interaction with his big brother.
Charles really enjoyed it a while back when I got some inflatable bats and we all pounded each other with them for a while. Even though Charles got pounded the most he still had a great time, frequently falling down because he was giggling too hard.
While Charles is concerned about his calves, Corwin has become appalled by Charles’ eating habits. We actually had to send Corwin to his room one supper, where he waited until Charles was done. Corwin of course insists on sitting directly across from Charles because that’s the place physically furtherest from the Maw of Horror.
What’s kind of strange is that Charles is actually a reasonable neat eater for not being quite three yet. But pointing this out just brings the response that “Charles is chewing too loudly!” We’re not quite sure what to do about this. Charles seems to be a little hurt (although not too bad) because he likes his big brother so much but can tell that Corwin is unhappy with him and can’t understand why. But these things seem to pass fairly quickly so we can hope that a couple of months from now Corwin won’t even remember it.
Charles has become concerned with his pant legs recently. He now gets stressed out if they ride up on his legs. I first discovered this when I noticed him mewling while strapped in the car seat. Normally this means that he’s dropped a car somewhere. That turned out not to be the problem. It was that he couldn’t reach his pant leg to pull it down. I fixed that for him and everything was fine. I was even able to rescue Mom from a crying Charles by pointing this out, where upon Mom fixed the pants and Charles was once again right with the world.
Charles was moved up to the purple room today. He stayed home yesterday because Corwin didn’t have school. Since I had to hang out with Corwin all day anyway, I thought that it would wrong to send Charles in. But Corwin went off this morning to school and so Charles went off to daycare (although he got in very late because I had a phone meeting).
The purple room is for 3-5 year old boys. Charles had been visiting there during the last week and seemed to get along. We were concerned about the fact that he isn’t potty trained but the staff has been pushing to get him moved up (he was the oldest boy in the 2 year old room).
Charles certainly has been happier since he started visiting. The last couple of days he’s been just bursting with joy when he’s been home and hasn’t cried about going in since he started visiting. So it might be that this is in fact better for him. The staff seems to think that examples of other children using the potty might help him get started on that as well.
This year Corwin has decided that he wants to go as a vampire for Halloween. But not just any vampire, but one that is properly equipped.
The key sartorial option Corwin was interested in was the plastic fangs. These were absolutely key to the entire ensemble. You can just barely seem them in this picture but he’s wearing them.
Next up was the cape. While we were out shopping for some items for Dad’s costume (he’s indulged himself without restraint this year) Corwin saw the capes and immediately pointed out that vampires wear capes, ergo Corwin needed to have a cape. Despite having to take out the second mortgage, we provided Corwin with the necessary funds.
What I like best though is the bright orange swim trunks. These are the hot new look for modern vampires. I think the idea is to use the cape to conceal the trunks until the vampire is right on the target and then flash them with a mind numbing flash of orange, rendering the target insesenate.
The crowning touch to the ensemble is Corwin’s SpyGear which helps out the vampire when his supernatural senses are not quite enough.
Sorry about the outage. There was a problem with the web hosting company. The website was moved to another machine and they didn’t update the DNS records correctly so that the “order-horizon” URL pointed to a dead server. In addition the last week and a half of posts was put on the dead server instead of the new one so that data is now lost. If anyone has a printout or copy, it would be great if you could send it to me.
I can’t even remember most of the posts although I did want to mention that this weblog has now been operational for over a year (as of 2 Oct) with well over 400 posts. That’s more than 400 heart warming, meaningful and extremely well written snippets of life with the Boys. Truly a bargain even at twice the price!
It’s turned cold out here and so we need to start putting jackets on the boys. Corwin was fine with this, possibly because Mom bought him a new jacket. On the other hand, I sent him out one morning and he came back immediately saying that it was too cold.
Charles, on the other hand, really doesn’t like jackets. He gets upset sometimes about wearing clothes but he generally fine with getting dressed. Jackets, however, immediately sets him off. He will scream and struggle until he removes it. It’s not so bad when it’s just cool out because Charles runs hot anyway (this is a boy who will sweat like a stuck pig while napping in a 72° room). But when it gets down to near freezing then even Charles needs some additional warmth. It should be an interesting fall.
Charles was due to have pictures taken today so of course he wasn’t in a clothes wearing mood. I let him go as long as possible but I had to get him in early for the pictures so eventually I had to get forceful. Mom had laid out some nice clothes for him which he naturally hated even more than normal. I struggled with him a bit because he’s getting skilled at removing clothes. I had to resort to an evil trick - as soon as I had an arm through the sleeve I placed a sippy cup or a couple of large cars in the hand, which prevented Charles from taking off the sleeve. Ha ha, score one for Dad!