Friday, February 27, 2009

Night Night, Froggies, and Other Tales

Do I really have time to chronicle each letter of the alphabet, and each attending word that Reed dreams up? Not really. Since I had that epiphany, his vocabulary has exponentially grown in such a way that recording hundreds of words is impossible as a) I'm too disorganized to make notes about each of them and b) can't remember many of them because I'm too disorganized to write them down. But. Today, I did! (Write down some things.) In the spirit of recording (mostly for Reed, and my three blog readers, I suppose) the "best of", I think I'll let myself off the hook and occasionally post about words and phrases when the spirit moves me. I had grandiose plans for a pregnancy journal, too, and that went right out the window. I don't think I wrote a single thing, not even a vignette, while I was pregnant. I realize now I didn't need to as I can just do it here:

Pregnancy is long and uncomfortable. It pretty much sucks given the bad parts -- diabetes, swelling, restricted diet, inability to bend over, get out of a chair, use toilet paper properly -- and rocks for all the good parts -- like . . . the baby kicking. And, uh, not having to suck my stomach in 24 hours a day. Great reason to avoid having to help anyone move, though I'll always come up with a good reason for that. Hard to look hip, and certainly hard to wear shoes ( I wore flip flops every single day, rain or shine, winter or summer.) Delivery's a real treat, too, and I hope to do this again sometime without the attending three day delivery nightmare and without needing an infection-section. Regardless, the end result is amazing. Hope I someday have enough spare cash for a tummy tuck. The end.

And now, to my proudly compiled list. Let's see . . . Reed and I have quite the conversations as I put him to bed every night (or five to six out of every seven). We call this our "special time" (gag. I know.) I used to try to get him to just go to sleep, but I realized that was a) not going to happen on this planet and b) that I was missing out on his glorious musings about his day. This week, the frogs showed up during s. time as we went outside at twilight to listen to the frogs.

"Mama! Frogs talkin'! Frogs TALKIN'!"

"What do they talk about, Reed?"

"Ribbit. Ribbit. Frogs go night-night."

And so. Now we open the window every night so he can go to sleep listening to the frogs and reminding me that they do, indeed, talk, and that they, too, are going to bed.

Having now watched "Milo and Otis" a few thousand times, he quotes some of the dialogue and is big on narration -- "Milo goin' DOWN the river!" "Otis bark!" etc. Currently, we're studying the sea turtle that gives a stranded Otis a ride. I'm sure we'll do it again tomorrow. And probably the next day. Does he watch anything else? Not really. A bit of Sesame Street here and there. I don't really want him to watch much TV, but for the love of all that is holy . . . TV makes the BEST babysitter. I'm not afraid to say it. If I really need to, say, make the "e-baba" without the accompanying tizzy fit, he's Milo and Otis bound. Besides, he's now acquainted with baby animals in their natural environments. So.

Reedisms of the week/month: "Watch out!" (usually bellowed when he runs into you, not the other way around.) "Turka-burger" (stock answer whenever he's asked what he ate for lunch or dinner). "Read books" (stock answer whenever he's asked what he did during the day). "Roll with it!" Adopted while Mama and Dada listened to Steve Winwood on the way to Henry's today. Now, if I could just get him to tack on the "baby", all would be well in the world.

Shapes: Want to know the names of obscure shapes you don't really remember because you haven't taken geometry in 20 years? Ask Reed. "Trapezoid", "oval", "rectangle", and "octagon" are current faves.

Letters: He's been interested for some time but is now deeply so. Current favorites? Q. Z. B. C. F. D. H. Ws rule.

Numbers: he mastered a few concepts awhile ago, as in five comes after four and the first three are, well, 1,2, and 3, but he's more into counting actual objects than reciting memorized lists. Imagine that. In our house? There's one baby, two towels (in Reed's world, and on the hook in his room), and three dogs (those would be in a book). And five fingers on his "right" hand. Hasn't figured out how many are on the "left" yet, but he does love to show us which is which. As it turns out, he's right-handed though I assumed, early on, that he'd be a lefty. No such luck.

Trucks and Assorted Other Vehicles: If a 17-month-old can have have an obsession, this would be it! Having discovered this early on, we caved and bought a number of truck and "things that go" books (indeed, B&N has a section titled "things that go", and it's clear we need only ever purchase books from this particular corner of the store. That is, when we buy brand-new books, as they seem like a waste of money, often times. These? Worth every penny. Reed, this section's especially for you. Do you want to know now (whenever that will be) what you knew then (now)?
Dump truck. Excavator. Front-end loader. Mini-loader. Mobile crane. Backhoe. Freight truck. Tanker. Logging truck. Tractor-trailer. Snowplow. Street sweeper. Grader, scraper, roller, forklift. Airport fire truck, uh, regular fire truck, "small" fire truck, and pumper truck. Monster truck, racing truck, pick-up truck, van, mail truck, amublance, car transporter, ATV, bulldozer . . . I can't remember any more. But YOU can. The video in the previous post shows you reading one of those books to us, pointing many of these out. Hearing you rattle off this names is both precious and astonishing, and I'll have you know that we go through these books (ALL of us) countless times per day. Guess it's paid off. But can you come up with a new obsession soon? Say, 19th century British literature?

And, finally. Assorted words of wisdom, courtesy of Reed:

"Weirdo!" "Goofball!" "Psycho!" "Dingbat!" (I'd be the one responsible for psycho, my mom for dingbat. Oh well). "Call grandpa!" "Hold on!" "Momma's here!" (this is new, a lovely, bellowing screech offered when I get home from work. I love it.) Finally, something normal on the phone as in, "Hi, Dalyn", offered up yesterday. As Reed would say, "There you go!" And there you do. Hope you've enjoyed the tour de Reed's broad and rather unique worldview. An accompanying video to further demonstrate

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Of Red Balloons and Childish Delight

The balloon is, I'm fairly sure, made its way to the trash, its poor, limp, slightly wrinkled and very much deflated exterior belying its fleeting glory. Forgotten, it will find its way to some dump, in which it will likely decompose ever so slowly. I'll probably remember its heyday as long as it takes that balloon to finally disappear into the great abyss (or wherever such stuff goes) even though Reed very likely won't. And that's okay, because that's the very reason for this blog.

After a brief foray into that bastion of superstores, Babies R Us, Shelly, Jackson (Reed's new BFF) and I emerged, desperate to get out of there and trolling for some food. (For the record, I needed butt paste that's not sold anywhere else that I know of, and socks. Triple Paste -- it does a booty good, and at 30 bucks a container, it's a good thing it does). Reed had recently begun to sound his warning, his "Done!" translating roughly to I'm going to absolutely flip, or tiz out (as we call it round these parts) if you don't take me out of this shopping cart and let me run around and wreak havoc right. this. very. instance.

The alternative? Leaving quickly, and so we did. We headed to Ritchie's Diner a 50s joint that I'd briefly worked at when I was 19 (I was let go for rather vague reasons, one of which was that I hadn't "toned down" my makeup as the proprietor had wished me to do, and the harlot red lipstick of which I'm still terribly fond but usually without wasn't going to go anywhere). Still, they've got good, greasy eats, and a giant candy store in the front. I figured Reed and Jackson could amuse themselves with the old-fashioned candy sticks at some point, and that they'd be safe enough as neither of them have any idea what candy is. Or, as evidenced later, that it's for eating rather than whacking others with it. This is a good thing.

Having gotten settled, which is a slightly more daunting task, I've realized, with two babies, we set about figuring out what we wanted, which, it turned out, was everything fried and nothing healthy. Being that paragon of virtue I am, I order Reed some zucchini and plain chicken. Many of the servers came by to coo over the cuteness, and a busser came bustling out with several ballons for the boys, one of which promptly escaped its string as Jackson went to town. Fetched him another one, and watched as Jackson went for Reed's coveted model -- red, white hearts, which anybody knows is better than clear/multi-colored hearts. Guess the Valentine's theme was going strong. These balloons came at exactly the right time, interrupting Reed's approaching meltdown over not being able to eat Jackson's crackers, verboten delights containing wheat and gluten. Nothing else could compete for Reed's attention at the moment he zeroed in on his treasure, and if you know Reed, you know that nothing, but nothing distracts this one from food. Until now. Until a red balloon came his way, and he batted his new treasure, the "red bawoon," ignoring us as we split a shake and fried stuff, placidly, occasionally, eating his rather boring dinner as he considered his prize.

We finished, and as expected, the boys found the candy sticks and proceeded to fence, we paid, and mama bought a few (uh, for her unhealthy self, not the baby) and headed to the cars. We got home a bit late (meaning it was after 6, Reed's close to bedtime), and I rather naively assumed my peaceful, quite son, so content on the way home, red bawoon now tied to his sweatshirt zipper, would stay that way, and I would take his dreamy self to the rocker. He'd pass out in a few short minutes. Not so. The lion awoke with a roar as we pulled into the garage.

"Dada! Bawoon! Dada, dada! Red bawoooon!".

"You want to show dada your balloon ... ahem, before you go to BED?"

"Show dada bawoooon! Show dada socks!"

And so it was. After dada was "shown" the bawoon and socks (particularly the red ones) 30,000 times, I finally got him down. And though he didn't go to bed easily or quickly, the sight of him twirling around and around ("doing circle!" "do again!" "do over!") the living room, overtired and bursting with radiance, eyes upturned and balloon in hand, has etched itself in my memory in a way no tantrum or missed nap or late bedtime ever could.

I lied

Well, I'm trying. As you four or five blog readers know, I've got precious little free time. Perhaps someday that will change (one can only hope!) and I'll actually get some scrapbooking as well as blogging in. Thanks to those of you who are keeping Reed in your thoughts and prayers; his surgery is Friday, consult tomorrow. I'm terrified but hoping it comes quickly to get it over with.