Mom and Charles left this morning to retrieve Corwin and rescue Grandma. Sadly, I have to work today so I can’t spend the day lounging in my underwear and playing Homeworld2. Oh well. At least Corwin has not, as far as we know at this time, wreaked legally actionable damage at Grandma’s house.
Charles has lots of Brio track and cars now, after receiving some additional supplies at Christmas. I built a good sized layout for him in the basement last week, which both Mom and I have extensively modified. Charles frequently insists on structural changes - “more track!”, not to mention the not infrequently industrial accident where the movement of cars on one part of the track causes some other section of the track to collapse.
Charles is getting noticeably better, though - he fixed a bridge over the weekend, which is a bit trickier than just putting track together. It was the type of bridge where normal track is supported underneath by blocks.
Charles has also taken to building towers. He had one in which he’d stacked up single blocks to almost as tall as he is. I wanted to get a picture but some crazy driver in a “big truck” smashed in to the base before I had the chance.
I had a talk with Charles today about his failure to use the potty instead of his diapers. At last, Charles clearly enunciated the nature of his objection. The conversation went like this:
Dad: Charles, you need a new diaper.
Charles: Stinky!
Dad: Yes. That’s because you won’t use the potty.
Charles: Oh.
Dad: Charles, why won’t you use the potty?
Charles: ‘Cause … Fire truck!
Dad: It’s because of fire truck?
Charles: Yesssss.
I’m not quite sure how to address this issue of his.
Grandma and Grandpa were down for a visit over Christmas (so they could take Corwin back). When they arrived, Charles was in the basement playing with his trains. Normally it’s hard to get him to come up on demand, but I told that “Grandma and Grandpa are here” and he came right up. I was surprised that he remembered them and moreover was willing to go up to see them instead of clutching at Mom or Dad in concern. Either he’s become less shy or he’s getting used to his grandparents.
I’m still working up to talking to Corwin about his grandfather passing away. I doubt that Charles would understand so I’m not too worried about his reaction.
My family is planning a wake down south in mid January. In a typical laugh between the tears kind of moment, Mom informed me earlier today that the date of the wake is neatly bracketed by a Friday and a Monday off from school for Corwin. Attending would mean leaving a pregnant wife who is just a couple of weeks before her due date (and tends to deliver early) with two rambunctious boys over a 4 day weekend. Meanwhile, of course, there is a re-organization at work that will set the course of our jobs for the next couple of years all happening that week and the week before.
Right now I’m planning to attend and will probably talk to Corwin when I head down, if I don’t end up taking him with me. We haven’t had to do this before as Corwin was too young to understand when Mom’s Grandmother (Corwin’s Great Grand Mother) died. I expect that it won’t make much of an impact on Corwin. I remember when both of my grandmothers died. I was quite young (under 10) and I have only a few hazy memories of those events. Corwin will probably recover quickly as well.
Corwin is off to Grandma’s for the weekend. He hasn’t been up there for a while and he was also eager for a weekend without his little brother. I’m not sure what Grandma is going to do with a near hyperactive inquisitive boy but she wasn’t under duress when she agreed to do it. I volunteered Corwin for any snow removal or yard work she’d let slide. Mom packed his violin, presumably in retaliation for some slight her mother had visited upon her. Corwin chose to take his new Transformer toy. I expect that Grandpa Virgil will be learning more about that than he was planning on knowing.
It’s a bit quiet without our Boy One. The rest of us are sitting on the couch, Mom and I typing away at our laptops (me on the kid weblog, Mom on the annual newsletter). Charles insisted on sitting between us, even though the TV wasn’t on. That was nice, except for his attempts to do back flips onto laps with laptops.
Charles is not a child who ever asks “are we there yet?”. Charles enjoys riding in the car. If we need to go somewhere and Charles isn’t cooperating with getting dressed or shod, I need merely mention “Does Charles want to go in the car?” for him to shape up.
Today we were out running some errands. Charles was happy to get in the car but we had a terrible time getting him out of it. He would cry and whine at the mere suggestion that he exit the car once we were parked. The first couple of errands were short enough that I just left him in the car with Mom, but finally we reached a place where both Mom and I had to go inside. Charles, blubbering for all he was worth, was ripped from the warm, safe car into a brutal midwestern winter’s day (well, not really brutal, it was about 30°F with light wind).
As I carried him to the store he was whimpering and calling over and over “big truck! big truck!”. I finally turned to him and said, very emphatically “big truck!”. Charles replied “yessss” and then snuggled happily at Dad. He was just looking for a little affirmation.
After Christmas dinner yesterday we went for a walk to the park. Corwin wasn’t particularly enthused but Mom “persuaded” him.
The path over was quite wet with some standing puddles that were frozen over. Corwin decided to ride his bike right over the sheet ice. He discovered that ice is just as slippery for bikes as it is for feet - he took a good tumble off his bike. He scraped up his hand and knee a bit but wasn’t harmed, although Mom and Dad had to walk his bike the rest of the way.
Charles decided that we needed a matching injured boy. Mom has been letting him ride in the stroller without straps because he’s older and the straps are getting hard to fasten. During the walk Charles discovered that he could make neat sounds by bumping his feet in to the leading wheel (which made it somewhat more difficult to push, but Dad needed the exercise). He started looking closer and closer until he tumbled head first right out of his seat. Since I’d seen him starting to tip I had stopped the stroller by the time Charles hit the ground. He ended up with a scrape / bruise on one cheek but otherwise OK. Charles did insist on being strapped in from then on, to protect him from himself.
You know that you have a bit of a problem when your child walks over, hands you back your watch and says “it really is waterproof!”. I know I should encourage creativity and learning but sometimes it’s really hard.
Corwin has been on a bit of a spree of testing the limits of Dad’s patience. The momento incident was just one in a series. Today Corwin wanted some help with his new Transformers toy. I was working on the previous post so I put down my notebook and started working on one of the tricky bits of the toy. Corwin responds by walking on the narrow, constricted side of the chair where I’d put the notebook (because the other side was open), narrowly missing stepping on it. When I expressed some concern about this, Corwin just says “sorry” in an off hand way and notes that he didn’t actually break the computer. I have yet to convince Corwin that the usual end of a series of “I didn’t break it” actions is actually breaking it. But I suppose that if I didn’t want that kind of thing I shouldn’t have agreed to have children.
It’s over. The presents are opened and most of the wrapping paper and discarded containers have been cleaned up. Charles was the most disappointed that there was a limited number of presents. Corwin, on the other hand, claimed that he must have been extra good because of the number of presents he got.
As we deal with the aftermath, I begin to understand why my Mom assigned all of the boys distinct colors (I was green, if you’re interested). I can see how it prevented quite a lot of contention among the brothers (except for me, of course, the very model of moderation and reason). If one buys the same toy for multiple children, they can’t be the same color or there will be endless arguments about which toy belongs to which child. On the other hand, different colors means that you will always pick the wrong colors and the children will argue about wanting different colors (but, using their instinctive flair for combinatorics, never in such a way as to allow solving the problem by re-assigning the toys). By pre-emptively assigning colors, this whole problem simply disappears. It’s probably too late for me - I’ve been far too indulgent with the boys, allowing them to pick their own colors. That’s the kind of lack of discpline that’s destroying our civilization.
Santa was just here, filling up the boy’s stockings and putting a last few presents under the tree. Hopefully Santa will be good to you as well. And if he leaves you some coal, well, do as I say, not as I do.
In this regard, I plan on sleeping late and annoying the boys. However, as we all know the best laid plans are frequently laid low by children who want presents NOW.
Mom really likes her Christmas Tree. She apparently monitors it like an obsessive gardener. A few days ago, while she was out, I wrapped up a couple of presents for her that I’d managed to get and put them under the tree, figuring that she wouldn’t notice a couple of small items and be surprised on Christmas that I’d actually remembered to buy something.
I didn’t count on her tree watch. That evening she mentioned that she knew I’d been shopping. I asked her how she knew and she said that she’d seen the presents for “Mom” under the tree. Next year I think I’ll label them with the name of a former girlfriend, just to throw Mom off the scent.
Jacob came over yesterday evening for a sleep over. This has been in the works for a while but scheduling prevented it until now.
It was the standard kind of sleepover. They threw bouncy balls around in the basement, screamed like tortured monkeys and played the Bionicle card game followed by watching a movie and eating two bags of popcorn. The only odd bit was that for some reason they watched the movie shirtless. I forbore to ask for an explanation. Eventually we sent them to bed (Jacob got Charles’ bottom bunk so Mom and I got stuck with the squirming bag of potential diaper overflow).
They got up at some un-parentally hour this morning and turned on the TV again, very loudly. Soon, though, Jacob’s dad will come and rescue us.
Charles is starting to enjoy music. He likes to bang on the piano or strum the guitar. He particularly likes to accompany someone else. Mom was playing the piano this morning and Charles came in to make noise on the guitar with her. Mom liked how Charles played the guitar like a bass, standing it up next to him and reaching down to the strings. After a while Charles got tired and put the guitar down. Corwin of course immediately swooped in and grabbed it, which reduced Charles to tears. I made Corwin give the guitar back and Charles then put it away in its case. Corwin reappeared and this time asked if he could play with the guitar. Charles said “yes” and Corwin was able to make off with his prize.
Putting things away has become a pastime of Charles (although, sadly, our experience with Corwin suggests that it’s just a phase). Last night Jacorobwin was throwing rubber balls around the basement. Charles was chasing the balls and putting them in a box, which created some conflicts. This morning Charles had the box again but he was putting household items (books, old socks, cars) in to it.
Charles is also big on using towels. Yesterday he was doing some painting in the basement when he spilled the water. Dad (cleverly!) had some paper towels nearby and started working on mopping up. Charles insisted on having a couple of paper towels himself to help. This morning he knocked over a glass of water and insisted on helping Dad mop it up (because, he said, “it made a mess”).
I should just enjoy this phase until he turns in to a boy who leaves old socks and various bits of clothing around the house. Sigh.
We had a full set of injured boys the other night.
Corwin went first, stepping on a car on the stairs and gashing his foot. He screamed better than I’ve heard him before, so I think that it actually hurt. It looked bad but I was able to check it and go get a dressing before it started noticeably bleeding. So it was painful but not serious. I wrapped his foot up and put him on the couch.
Meanwhile Charles was agitating for some cake. I sent him to sit at the table while I got it ready, which he did for a moment before he stood up in his chair and starting bouncing up and down chanting “cake! cake!’. I delivered his cake and then went back to work on Corwin for a minute. Next thing I know Charles is laying on the floor clutching his head. Presumably he fell off but I didn’t hear anything.
So I put Charles on the couch with the other wounded boy, for a full couch of moaning boys.
P.S. For those worried about the poopers, Charles was running around as soon as the TV show was over. Corwin was running around like a over stimulated monkey with Jacob by the next afternoon. He’d limp, though, when he thought Mom was watching.
It’s fascinating to me to watch Corwin grow up with little features of life I didn’t have when I was young. One of the little things that actually makes a lot of difference is our digital video recorder for the satellite receiver. One of the features of this is that it automatically caches video from whatever channel is on. Corwin is so used to this that he unconsciously reaches for the remote to back up if he turns on the TV after a show has started. He is almost always watching time delayed. He’s also started zapping through the commercials, unless he hasn’t seen it before. Oddly, he’ll watch the same episode of some cartoon two or three times in the same day but skips over commercials.
Corwin is also big on instant replays. I remember watching certain bits on TV and desperately hoping it would get an instant replay. Corwin has this at hand all the time and takes advantage of it regularly. It certainly makes for a different experience.
There are risks to having children. Corwin demonstrated this to me on Friday. While he was messing about in my cube at work he pulled out my inflatable alien figure. While doing this he knocked over and smashed a jar I had been keeping as a momento of Mom (it was from her earlier, wild days in college). I wasn’t quite sure what to say to Corwin, who at first claimed that the jar wasn’t too damaged and then that he’d just been trying to get the alien and therefore secondary effects didn’t count. I wasn’t very impressed by these arguments, however. But I didn’t want to yell at him too much because it wasn’t deliberate, but it was an artifact of his general obliviousness, something I’ve been trying to work on him about. I settled for letting him know that I was sad but no overt punisment.
I told Mom about this later and her reply was “you still had that?”
P.S. As I’m typing this, Charles is trying to get me to ride on a stick horse that he has, swinging it around and only by shear luck not smashing my screen. Sigh. Time to go ride.
When I get Charles dressed in the morning, I generally let him pick out his own clothes. Lately he’s been favoring black pants. He has about three pair and those are always the first worn after the laundry is done. He also has a not quite as strong tendency toward orange shirts (whether this is what he likes or in imitation of big brother isn’t clear). This means that Charles is not infrequently “Halloween Boy”, dressed in orange and black. I just hope this doesn’t presage some sort of “artsy” predilication on his part. Hopefully it’s just a phase he’ll grow out out…
I missed most of Charles’ birthday because of a bad stomach flu. Charles got a lot of cars, which he liked. One of them is so cool that it has replaced his normal pile of cars as his night cuddle toy.
Mom also got him a big rug with a city and roads printed on it. Charles immediately loaded it up with most of his new cars. He carefully parked the cars in the little parking spaces on the rug (yes, he can barely talk and isn’t potty trained but parking spaces - those he understands).
We didn’t have anyone over for the birthday party, which given the state of the household was for the best. Charles isn’t the most social child and so we thought that he probably wouldn’t appreciate guests too much. Maybe when he’s four. He did have a party at daycare on Friday,so he wasn’t totally cut off. Mom also got him a cake with a road-side scene frosting and a toy fire engine. It was all Mom could do to keep Charles from grabbing the fire engine before he blew out the candles. Charles quite liked the cake - as soon as he was downstairs this morning he started asking about it. Sadly, Dad doesn’t feed cake to little boys for breakfast so Charles had to eat normal breakfast food.
Charles has learned to enjoy being verbally contrary. He’ll frequently say “no” to whatever Dad suggests, just for the fun of it. I can get him to say “yes” by switching to “no”, like my own Looney Tunes cartoon. My major goal is to see how many times I can get him to switch. I suppose from his point of view it doesn’t matter since he doesn’t really get a choice about it, so he might as well have fun.
It’s Charles’ birthday today. He’s three years old now, which probably makes him not a baby anymore. He’s a big boy!
I was talking to Corwin this morning about Charles’ birthday. Corwin wasn’t sure how old Charles was - he guessed “two”. I kidded him about his age, asking him why he’d decided to have a birthday to become six. He told me that one didn’t get a choice about having birthdays (although a week or two ago Mom told him that I wasn’t going to get a birthday anymore, to which Corwin replied “you’ll be years old forever?”).
Charles doesn’t seem to get the whole “birthday” thing. We went out to see Santa at a charity event to get toys for the less fortunate, but Charles just wanted to sit on Mom. Afterwards we went walking out by the pond, which was frozen over but not thick enough to skate on. I broke up some ice by the edge (about 1” thick) and Corwin picked up a piece. He decided that he would keep the ice “forever”. Mom pointed out that it would melt, but Corwin said “We can put it in the fridge!”. Eventually the problem as resolved in a typical boy fashion - Corwin couldn’t resist throwing the ice out on to the pond. One piece made the oddest squeaking noise as it slid over the pond ice, though. Corwin said it sounded like a bird.
Now we’re back home and Charles is opening presents from Mimi while Mom and Dad defrost. Everyone’s got the stomach flue to various extents but otherwise we’re having a good day.
I was teasing Corwin the other day about not being Mom’s first boy. There was an episode of Rugrats on where Angelica tells Chuckie and Tommy that one of the other kids used to have an older sister but they gave away all of her toys and she disappeared. I said “that’s just like your older brother, Corwin!”. Corwin immediately replied “then why do you call me ‘Boy One’?” He’s getting sneaky, that one.
While I was trying to get a picture of Charles in his cute bunny hat, this was his initial response before he decided to flee around the house. I chased him for a while without much success.
Contrary to what Mom said when she walked up to look at this while I was working on it, that is not a pile of clothes. It is Charles protecting his intellectual property rights. Since I don’t pay him at all for any of his pictures that I use on this website, he’s apparently decided that there will be no more of them.
Charles likes his blanket. In the mornings, he comes down, demands milk and then wants to watch a Teletubbies or Wiggles video. Once Dad has satisfied those needs, Charles insists on having a blanket tucked in around him. He also likes Dad to sit next to him (and he’ll even share the blanket).
Eventually he gets bored and starts to wander about the house or want to go in to the basement but he needs his wake up time to get ready for the day.
Dad indulged himself last week and got a new computer. It’s a decked out chunk ‘o iron, let me tell you. I told Mom that I needed that kind of computation engine for doing some video editing (Mom, after all, had given me a video capture device last Christmas).
The real reason, of course, was so that I’d finally have a nicer computer than Corwin. Oh yeah, this thing is smoking. Haha, take that Corwin!
I have been capturing some video - the box can capture and conver to MPEG2 on the fly. It has 120G internal and another 120G external to store data I can capture a lot of video. I even forked out for some mid-range video editing software so that I could assemble DVDs (with menus, scenes and all that cool stuff). I’ve used it a bit but only managed a straight video. But now I can produce DVDs that work just like real ones. It’s so cool! I’m confident that it will be as exciting for Corwin’s friends and relatives as any vacation slide show!
Last Sunday we set up the Christmas tree. Mom and Corwin are very much in to Christmas trees. Mom put the lights on and then went off to the office for a while, leaving me with Corwin and Charles. She said “Corwin will just decorate for five minutes and then watch TV”.
Corwin was much more dedicate than Mom thought. He actually worked on the tree until Mom got back about 45 minutes later. Charles “helped” a little bit but most of the lower tree decorations were put on by Corwin. I was surprised that Corwin was able to focus for that long but he has been looking forward to decorating the tree for a while.
It ended up quite a nice looking tree. I may update this post later with a picture of it, if I get some time to edit it.
I was going to post some more but I wasted all of my time editing new side bar images. These are from the recent snowfall.
Charles has inexplicably become accepting of wearing extra garments when he goes outside. Previously it was a struggle to get him to even put on a jacket, much less a hat or mittens. Now, however, he’s actually cooperative. Perhaps he’s actually noticed that it’s cold outside and values warmth over obstinance (nah…must be something else).
One factor has probably been the Teletubbies in which Tinky-Winky and Po wear mittens. Charles has been watching that video once or twice a day for a while (he was broken hearted today because Corwin was sick and so Corwin had control of the programming). Charles frequently wants to wear his own mittens when Tinky-Winky and Po are wearing them.
The primary struggle with Charles and his mittens was getting his thumb in the right place. At first I had to reach in and move his thumb around, but after a few days he began to get the idea about how the thumb thing worked with the mittens.
Charles is also willing to wear a hat, something that Corwin wouldn’t do until he was 5 or so. Charles wears this cute little bunny hat. I tried to get a picture of it but Charles has turned from camera hog to camera shy. The picture here is one of a series of me chasing Charles around the house while trying to get a picture. Believe it or not, this is one of the better takes. You can see the little bunny ears. In the front it’s got little bunny eyes and a little bunny nose. Mom’s scared to let him wear it out of the house for fear that he’s so cute someone will just snatch him up on the spot.
There was enough snow today to accumulate about an inch of dry snow. This was enough for the boys to head out to play. Corwin was motivated primarily by the fact that because he got in trouble earlier in the day he wasn’t allowed any TV. Charles is generally OK with going outside anyway.
Initially the boys spent their time using brushes on the snow. I tried to get some pictures but Charles wasn’t cooperating. He normally likes to have his picture taken but he quite resistant to getting a good face shot.
Corwin tried throwing some snowballs but the snow wasn’t very good for that. Corwin had to use a shovel to scoop up enough to get enough to even try to make some snowballs. Charles was very helpful and used another shovel to add to Corwin’s snow reserve.
I worried a bit about Charles because he didn’t want to wear mittens. Now and then he’d have us put them on so he could throw some snow but as soon as he was done he would take them off. This meant that he was out sweeping and shoveling snow in his bare hands. It didn’t seem to bother him much.
Charles really enjoyed the snow. Corwin went in when it started to get dusk but I had to drag Charles in when it started to get dark and really cold. It was also time to decorate the tree, something Corwin has been looking forward to for a while.
Today was Corwin’s time to shine in church. The service was done by the children, with just a brief introduction by the pastor. Corwin and the rest of the first graders were cows. It’s just not a real manger scene without cows. The kindergarterners and below were lambs and another group were donkeys.
Corwin seemed to actually sing in some of the appropriate places, although he had a bad habit of laying down during the parts when he wasn’t actively involved. At one point while he was singing he started staring at the ceiling until his little cow head band fell off. He does have good reflexes and caught it behind his back before it hit the ground.
Overall it went quite well and even Corwin admitted that he enjoyed it.
Corwin had a very busy day yesterday. He had to miss the birthday party of Audrey, who lives next door, because he was already scheduled for most of the day. The day before (Friday) was busy as well with toy buying errands and tennis.
In the morning he had practice for the church Christmas show. Then around noon he had his violin lessons. We ran a couple of errands afterwards so we didn’t get back home until two. Corwin had to be back across town for Tiger Scout bowling which ran from three to five in the afternoon.
At bowling the kids bowled with bumpers, which I don’t remember from my youth. These are little barriers that go in front of the gutters so it’s impossible to not hit pins on the first ball. Corwin got over 100 his first game, with a strike and several spares. Mom tells me that he was using a 10 lb ball so he couldn’t actually use his fingers but instead had to heft the ball down the lane. This also involved a full body sprawl as well so it wasa very physical game.
It was “cosmic bowling” which involves turning off most of the normal lights, turning on a bunch of colored point lights sources and some black lights. Corwin thought it was pretty cool.
My father passed away at 1:13 this afternoon. He had been suffering from acute luekemia for several months. He had two rounds of chemotherapy but these were ineffective. I’m told that he wasn’t feeling well last night or this morning and so he was taken in to the hospital this morning. The staff was running some tests and in the meantime they put him on oxygen and kept him there for observation. While one of my brothers and my mother were waiting with him he passed away without warning. My oldest brother was on his way at the time and arrived just five minutes later.
It was with the knowledge of his ill health that I went down to visit him at Thanksgiving. I couldn’t take the poopers along because, due the after effects of the chemotherapy, children weren’t allowed in to his presence (because children tend to be walking collections of various infectious agents).
It was a good visit, although tinged with the fact that we both knew it was likely to be the last time I saw him alive. Due to Mom’s pregnancy my traveling was restricted but Mom suffered through a long weekend handling the kids by herself so that I could spend some time with my parents. I managed to bring down a DVD of video of the new house and the kids for him to watch and receive a “hello, Gramps!” from the boys so he got one last look at his grandchildren.
I understand a bit better now what people mean by “closure”. My father and I had some talks and assessed the time our lives were intertwined. I at least got to tell him how much I appreciated him as my father before I left so I have no real regrets about things left unsaid.
Still, I’ll miss him.
I’m sorry about the lack of updates, but the Christmas season is a bad time for keeping this weblog up to date (he says, during only the second Christmas with the weblog).
The boys and I went shopping today. I had to come home early because Corwin got out of school early. I decided that since I was home anyway, we’d get out and run some errands.
We accomplished our primary mission, was was to buy presents for the boys’ paternal cousins and for the kids in Jacob’s family. This was half of my present buying dilemma. One good result of visiting my parents over Thanksgiving was that I got a lot of gift activity out of the way. All I have left now is my maternal uncle and Mom.
After that we came home for a bit and then Charles and I took Corwin to play tennis. Charles only dropped his car over the edge of the second story balcony overlooking the courts once and didn’t fall at all himself.
I will also update the Christmas list after I finish this post.
Charles now knows all of his numbers up to 10. Last time we checked Charles knew about half of them. Now one of the books he wants read is a number book that has the numbers 1 through 10 with illustrations of various things in the corresponding quantity. Charles can identify all of the numbers by sight now and actually say them (Charles knows many words that he can’t pronounce). He does get 6 and 9 mixed up sometimes but most of the time he gets it right. He knows a little bit of counting (sometimes to 3, sometimes 4) so he at least has the basic concept down.
Mom was trying to get the boys in to bed last night when I came up to watch them while she did her evening toiletries. Corwin decided to hide under the bed covers, after which I told Charles “No more big brother. Big brother gone.” Charles replied “gone!” but he watched the covers like an eagle until Corwin peeped out. Charles let out a little scream, pointed and said “bih!” which I interpret as “big brother”. I thought it was nice that Charles was willing to play along with the “missing” brother even though he clearly knew Corwin was there.
The screaming Charles encouraged Corwin so we spent a little while of Corwin hiding under the covers with Charles digging after him. Corwin got pretty good at dodging Charles’ excavations but of course the bed’s not that big and Charles would eventually catch him at which point we would have screaming boys. Mom, for some reason, spent an abnormally long time in the bathroom.
Over the last week or so Charles has been becoming more concerned about having a wet diaper. It seems to have started while I was gone and he had some bad diarehea. Mom and I used to have to keep half an eye on his diaper state to make sure he didn’t overflow. Now, as soon as he’s soiled his diaper at all, he wants a new one.
Charles hit a new level this evening. He came over to me and announced “wet!”. I checked his diaper and he was just a little wet. Because we’re working on potty training I’ve been less responsive to diaper changes, explaining to Charles that he should use the potty, to which he just smiles and giggles because Dad has made a funny.
Instead of his normal response, Charles tried a different claim to see if that would work - “poop!”. Well, Charles’ waste products have a certain, distinctive aromatic quality so I didn’t even have to look to know that he wasn’t packing so I again denied his request for a fresh diaper.
Charles wasn’t stymied for more than a second before pointing at his butt and announcing “stinky!”. Again he was denied.
But Charles was demonstrating that boy quality that eventually helps them to mate and produce more little boys, not taking rejection very seriously. He immediately cycled back to “wet!” and we went through the cycle again, each time through Charles would emit a slightly louder laugh before making his announcement and hitting a purer and higher tone with each utterance, until if one hadn’t been around at the start would have sounded just like pure shrieking.
Despite how fun this was for Charles, Dad is at heart a terrible meany (just ask Corwin). I decided to use a Kung-Fu-Tickle attack on him, which he’s getter much better at defending against. This distracted him to the extent that it wasn’t until about a ½ hour later that he once again brought up the diaper issue. By that time it was way past his bed time (instead of somewhat past his bed time) and he’d actually made enough wet to justify a replacement. The moral of the story is all good things come to he who waits.
The comments on this other post about talking toddlers reminded me of one of Charles’ speech habits I’ve been meaning to post.
I had wondered about Charles’ babbling - how was it that he could make so much sound without forming actual words? It seems to be that he doesn’t much beyond starting consonants and a limited set of vowel sounds and lots of very poorly enunciated sounds. It’s sort of like “bee ba goo ti ka ee ahhh de ba shi ma”. I wonder if Japanese baby babbling sounds more like words, because Japanese is mostly syllables of that form (a vowel or a single consonant sound followed by a vowel) and it has a lot of homonyms.
This lead me to listening more closely to when Charles used actual sentences and I started to notice that his enunciation was not particularly good, I had just gotten used to it. I then discovered something I now wish I hadn’t.
Charles doesn’t do well with the ‘r’ sound or hard consonants. The former tends to get dropped (“wwwed” for “red”) and the latter rendered as “f”. This is particularly interesting when Charles uses one of his favorite phrases, “fire truck” in which he pronounces the “tr” as “f”. It says something interesting that I didn’t notice this at all until I started listening for sounds instead of words. I don’t react at all, I just repeat back “fire truck” to him, at which point he smiles and nods, pleased that Dad is getting the fact that either a fire truck is nearby, Charles sees a fire truck or Charles wants a fire truck. Between that, “milk” and “read a book” you can pretty much keep up with Charles.
Even though I was still on death’s door, recovering from an illness, Mom decreed that we needed to go out and get a Christmas tree late this afternoon. I changed Charle’s third or fourth poopy diaper of the day and got his pants and shoes back on.
I also harangued Corwin until he had his shoes on. He only found one after “looking” so I took a quick look under the couch in front of the TV and there it was. I stuffed it under my vest, snuck up Corwin and “found” his shoe in his ear. Corwin, sadly, doesn’t fall for that anymore although he isn’t sure how I manage it yet.
We looked at a number of trees. Corwin wanted the tallest one, althoug it was lacking on the lower branches. As we were looking Corwin volunteered the information that “Christmas isn’t just about gifts”, something I suspect he’s picked up from the television. Corwin’s twist is that the best part of Christmas is decorating the tree. For that reason Mom picked out a shorter but fuller tree so that it would have more room for decorations. Mom’s always been heavy on the ornaments and with Corwin helping we need a tree with strong branches.
Charles is getting better at fine motor control, although he doesn’t seem to realize it. One of the things we do in the basement is Charles will come to me with a piece of a puzzle or a Lincoln log and tell me that it’s broken or needs fixed, pleading in his eyes. In turn, I look into his wide, trusting baby blue orbs and say “You can fix it, Charles!”. Charles, his face lighting with joy as he is enlightened by Dad’s wisdom, then hustles off to fix it. Ah, the joys of providing clear guidance to one’s children!
Not much of a Christmas list, but it’s non-empty. And before you ask, no, I have no idea what to get for Mom.
| For | Gift |
| Charles | Lincoln Logs |
| Charles | Paste board books about trucks, trains or cars |
| Charles | Educational Software for 3-5 year olds |
| Charles | Toy Vending Machine |
| Corwin | Legos |
| Corwin | Back scratcher |
| Corwin | Art Kit |
| Corwin | Marble Kit |
| Dad | GPS |
| Dad | Light up USB cables |
| Dad | Rechargable batteries, 9v, AA and AAA |
| Dad | Shirts (L) |
Charles was atomic energy boy last night. I stayed up somewhat late myself but Charles outlasted me. I had to drag him upstairs to get him in to bed. But that wasn’t enough. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning (I didn’t attain a sufficient level of consciousness to ascertain the time) Mom hopped out of bed because she heard the thumping of little boy feet. She went downstairs to discover that Charles was in my office, gaming away on the computer. Normally when Charles wakes up in the night he heads in to our room to sleep in our bed. I have very mixed feelings about him heading off to game instead. It’s a sign of growing up and it’s nice to not have a kicking machine in bed while one is trying to sleep, but on the other hand … well, I’m sure there’s something wrong with Charles spending all night gaming.
P.S. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but Charles has been much better about sleeping in his bed the last few weeks. He is much more accepting of sleeping by himself in his bed than he used to be. Previously I would have to be very careful to keep him asleep when I put him in his bed, but lately he’s OK with it even if he wakes up a bit.
In addition to his new piano book, Corwin has also acquired a taste for my leather hat, which you can see in the current banner picture. He had a lot of fun with it when we were taking the picture.
This evening I came home in time to see the boys before they went to bed. Corwin unlocked the door for me. I thought he was happy to see me but instead he wanted my hat (which I was wearing because it was raining). Corwin demanded the hat and off he went.
Charles was a bit more friendly - he came over and whacked me in the thigh with his helicopter to show that he cared. He was carrying around a book with a hook on the helicopter. I had to help him a bit with keeping the book attached to the hook.
The book became a point of contention later, of course. Charles put it down to play with just the helicopter and make Mom and Dad read him some books (he can now say “read the book!”). Corwin then picked it up to do some of the activities in it, at which point Charles became upset that he couldn’t use the book anymore. Mom spent the rest of the evening before bed fending off Charles who was trying to reacquire the book. His preferred technique was to crawl on Mom like a little leech (I tried to help remove him but he was actually latched on quite well). While this was going on Mom and Corwin attempted to play Hang Man in the activity book. Corwin stumped Mom with the word “TV”, although Mom declared acronyms off limits afterwards. She’s quite the stickler.
The present I brought back for Corwin from my trip was a book with a little music keyboard on the side. Corwin was quite taken with it (Mom was not quite as enthused as she, being an only child, is more sensitive to noise). I’m hoping that it will improve his sense of rythm, which is the greatest impediment to his violin skills.
The book has eight songs and can play them player piano style, lighting up the keys as it goes. Afterwards it will light up the next key in sequence as the song is played. Each key is a different color and the notes in the music are both standard notation and color coded to the keys. Corwin knows most of the songs so I’m hoping that by trying to play and remembering what it is supposed to sound like he’ll get a better feel for note lengths.
The only downside is that Charles quite likes the book as well. We’re struggling with Charles understanding that Big Brother can have things that Charles can’t play with and more importantly, even if Charles may play with a toy he can’t when Corwin is playing with it. This is a difficult concept for Charles, although he seems to have particular difficulty with Corwin because Corwin defines “cool” for Charles and therefore whatever Corwin is playing with is exactly what Charles wants to play with as well.
I made it back from my trip. I went down to Texas to visit my family over Thanksgiving and didn’t get back until yesterday. I thought that Mom had the kids but since there’s no post I can only assume that she put them in the refrigerator while she partied (I can just see her, 7 months pregnant, laying down the moves at the local disco …).
Anyway, I spent some time with Corwin and Charle’s uncles and his cousins. At one point the cousins, their mother and I were at Chuck E. Cheese. We had planned to do a bit of a hike but it had been raining on and off during the day so it was off to the corporate entertainment center.
One of the rides was a little car ride that had a camera attached to take a picture of the child while he was riding. Dawson, the youngest (4 years) cousin took a ride. His mother and I weren’t aware of the camera until after the ride was over. She picked it up and showed it to Dawson. She asked him “who’s that guy in the background?”. I commented “oh, just some weirdo” at which point Dawson, the light dawning in his eyes, turns, looks right at me and says “It’s yooooouuuu!”.
I talked to Corwin a couple of times while I was gone. He claimed that he didn’t miss me at all, not even after I brought home a present for him. Charles at least seemed happy to see me. To make a long day of travel even more enjoyable, every one was sick when I got back. Charles had a severe case of diareaha, Mom had a stomach flu and Corwin did some heavy barfing in the middle of the night. But everyone was basically recovered this morning, so it was just their way of welcoming me back.
