Freddy Finklestein.

Kiddle recently realized that his fingers get all wrinkly when he's been in the bath a long time ... or sucking on his fingers while on the computer.

"Look, Mommy," he said one day with concern. "Look at my fingers."
"It's ok, sweetie. They're just wrinkled because you had them in your mouth. They'll be ok again after they dry out."

He tried rubbing them on his pants a bit, but eventually gave up and moved on. Until the next afternoon when, once again, he had taken over my computer. A while later he dashed into the living room to find me:

"Mommy, Mommy! Look! I have FINKLES!"

Don't you just love summer?

Soccer For Tots

Or, as it should be called, Soccer For Parents and (Sort Of) Their Tots.

Kiddle went to his first soccer session today with his buds LK and Jack. His class is all three-year-olds and, as I'm sure you can imagine, it was totally chaotic and adorable. Their "field" was an entangled mass of kids and parents: "Hey, let's go listen to Coach Matt." "No, no, stay in the grid, please." "You've already got a ball; you don't need Emmett's too." As expected, super natural athlete Jack rocked it and LK was one of the best at actually listening to Coach Matt and following directions. As for Kiddle ...

He hasn't quite figured out you DON'T use your hands:



Or that you DO use your feet:



But when you get to BUILD A ROCKET SHIP and kick the ball? Suddenly, he's focused and into it:

Blast Off!

Such a silly little thing to write about, but I want to make sure I remember it. And what's a blog for, if not to wax (un)poetically about any silly ol' thing you want, right?

Kiddle's imagination hasn't really kicked in too much yet. He'll play with his animals, but mostly in a putting-them-in-and-out-of-the-barn approach, or he might go as far as re-enacting a bit from the Backyardigans or Sesame Street. I see glimmers of true imagination now and then, but I was particularly struck by something he did tonight while we were getting him ready for bed.

He already had a sippy cup of water in hand, when he discovered a slinky on a bedside table in our room. He first tried to fit the cup through the slinky, telling me it was TOO BIG. But next he stuck the slinky on the bottom of the cup, while letting it dangle toward the ground, and told me it was a ROCK-ET SHIP.

Why, yes, little one, that absolutely looks like a rocket ship! Brilliant!

Well, maybe not brilliant, but I was sure impressed since that's not the sort of thing he usually does. He then spent a while counting down a blast off from the ground and flying his rocket ship around the room. That part was brilliant because he totally distracted me from the fact that he was supposed to be going to bed.

Happy Easter!

Kiddle still has no concept of the Easter Bunny ... but he loves what the Easter Bunny brings him! We had an unfortunately-indoors-due-to-the-pouring-rain egg hunt for him and his two best buds yesterday. They were hysterical racing around to gather their eggs (so glad Kiddle and I practiced ahead of time!) and they loved opening each one to find a little treasure. He definitely gets the concept of "treats." For dinner last night, I finally put his blueberries in an egg, just so he'd stop asking for a treat. And, fortunately, it did the trick.

We spent the day today in Queens, having Easter dinner with Mr. P's family. And the birthday presents kept coming ... a new backpack, a new puzzle and some sticker books. More cake and — the best part — another round of "Happy Birthday" and candles.

Two-Year-Olds Are Bizarre

Kiddle was asleep in the bed with me a few mornings ago. He started rustling around, waking up for the day, and suddenly said, full voice, "One, two, three, four, five, six, AAA, BEE, CEE, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, YYY, ZEEEEE!" Well, good morning to you too, little one. (And I won't even try to phonetically type his number pronunciation. Let's just say you can tell he's counting.)

***

He hasn't been a great eater for the last year, and has recently added the quirk of not wanting you to eat his food, even if he's absolutely not going to eat it.

Me: "Hmm, Kiddle, those carrots look yummy. I'm going to have a bite since you're not eating them."
Kiddle, trying to open my mouth: "MAH CARROT!! SPIH IH OW! SPIH IH OW!"
Me, showing him my empty mouth: "Sorry. All gone. Why don't you have a bite?"
Kiddle: "NOOOO! NO BIE!"

***

On Sunday, we were sitting at the table, eating dinner. Earlier in the day he had found Mr. P's bizarre dinosaur puppet. It's huge, scary looking, and something only a little boy (or a little boy in a man's body) would love. He thought it was fantastic and carried it around most of the day, even feeding it bites of his quesadilla at dinner. Mr. P and I were chatting, when I realized Kiddle was having a conversation with the dinosaur. Not unusual for most kids, but it's rare to hear him directly talking to his toys and understand what he's saying:

"OKAY DIE-SO, HODE MAH HAN." (Ok dinosaur, hold my hand.)

"HODE MAH HAN, WE GO KOSS DE STEE." (While we go across the street.)

Awww! Too cute! And it's even cuter to realize he does listen to me. Even when he's actively ignoring what I say.

It's sing-along time!

We FINALLY got some video of Kiddle singing. If you want to call it singing, that is. Mangling might be a more apt description. He's expanded his repertoire a bit to include Itsy Bitsy Spider and possibly a couple of Jewish songs from preschool. I just don't have the ear to recognize those.

Here's his version of the ABCs:

And one verse of Old McDonald:

KiddleTV

Yes, he's eating blueberries while watching himself eat blueberries.

He loves to watch video of himself. (Future reality star perhaps?) WASH KIDDLE? WASH KIDDLE? as he's tapping on the screen. CAM-RA? And if that doesn't work, WASH DA-YEE?

During the latest episode of KiddleTV, he ran to the fridge and got out the carton of blueberries when he saw himself eating berries on-screen. Art imitating life? Life imitating art? Who knows.

My Little Helper

Three of my favourite of-the-moment Kiddle obsessions:

1) He is my printer assistant. No matter where he is or what he's doing, he must -- MUST -- drop everything as soon as he hears my printer start up just so he can hand me the pages as they come out. I've had to reprint things simply to avoid the meltdown.

2) He is my bathroom attendant. Flushing is his job and his job alone. Heaven forbid I pee and flush the toilet myself. But his belated dash into the bathroom combined with a look of indignant reproach is worth it. At least until I have to bodily remove him from the bathroom and lock the door from the outside.

3) He is my elevator operator. The only reason trips to the grocery store are somewhat reasonable is that we park in the garage under the store and take the elevator up. But never forget -- Kiddle must be the one to push the buttons. To the point that he refused to get on the elevator recently because Mr. P pushed the Up button. The nerve of that guy.

He won't talk, but he can spell.

Perhaps Kiddle misses his Ahdah (my dad)?

"Oh no. The bridge is out. I fix it!"

Yes, two complete, understandable (at least by me) sentences in a row. Yee haw! So it seems we're making a bit of progress on the language front. Finally. I swear this kid is never going to talk (... although if I hear "Mama, Mama, sit sit sit!" one more time ... argh!). I know, I know, he'll definitely talk one day and I'll wish for his silent days.

***

I did have a good touch-base convo with his speech therapist this week though. One thing we've never done -- because no one thinks it's truly a concern -- is have his hearing checked. I mean, I know he can hear just fine, but he still has such a mush mouth, it's gotten me thinking that maybe he's not hearing the same things we are. And his therapist said, yes, go ahead and get it checked, but she doesn't see any indications that we'll find anything wrong there. She still thinks he is just simply delayed in his speech. So that's a bit of good news, I suppose.

However ... at this point I don't really see the therapy really doing much good. And that's simply because Mr. Independent has yet to see the point of doing what his therapist wants to do. He'd rather just play with the toys and chat a bit. Great. Glad he's happy to be there. But it's a really expensive hour of playtime. Ronnie said that's fairly typical of his age -- after all, he's only two -- and hopefully one day soon he'll grasp what we're trying to accomplish there.

Aside from the fact that he does not have a people-pleaser bone in his body, I think a big part of his slow progress is that he's not that frustrated yet. He gets along just fine in the world and there have only been a few times he's gotten really mad at me for not understanding what he wants. (The full day of "I-AN, I-AN, I-AN!!" comes to mind. Several hours later ... Me: "Oh, you want to watch the Mystery Island episode of Word World?" Kiddle, with a big grin of relief: "I-AN!")

***

Another adorable interaction we often have:

Kiddle, on all fours, crawling about the room: "Moo. Moo. Moo!"
Me: "Oh, you must be a cow today."
Kiddle: "No, Mama. I a Kiddle!"

Hee hee.

This is either ...

A. a brilliant way for Kiddle to burn off some stuck-in-the-house-because-it's-20-degrees-outside energy

B. I'm treating my kid like a hamster.

You decide.

Okay!

It seems like I've mostly been noting the anomalies about Kiddle lately, so I wanted to make sure I recognize some of our favourite things that happen on a daily basis. Most of them revolve around funny conversations we have -- his speech has improved, but is still not very understandable.

He used to tug on my hand and say a mangled combination of "go" and "come." And I'd always say "Go where?" So now he tugs on me and says, "Go where, Mama."

He loves to bump into me on purpose and say, "Sorry!"

When you ask him to do something, he says, "Okay, I try it!"

And our favourite ... Kiddle: "Cookie." Me: "You want a cookie?" (trying to clarify what he just said.) Kiddle: "Okay!"

What a great manipulator.

Well, goodnight then.

Tonight Kiddle PUT HIMSELF TO BED.

Well, not really. I'm sure he thinks he's just taking a nap. But little does he know ... he's in for the night. He's developed a habit of going upstairs to hang out in his room with his pacifier whenever he needs a little break. So tonight around 6:00, instead of eating dinner, I heard him head up the stairs. Fine with me. Chill out all you need, kid.

But about 15 minutes later I realized it was eerily quiet up there. I went up to check on him and found him passed out on his bed -- lights on, pants off. I gave him a dose of Zyrtec, put some pants on him, added a blanket and turned out the light.

So it's 6:30 and my kid's asleep. Woo hoo! Although I know I'll be paying for it when he wakes up after his "nap" in two hours or, alternatively, at 4:00 in the morning. Either way, I'll take it.

A bad influence already

Cooper introduces Kiddle to the comedic stylings of Tom & Jerry:

Ahoy Matey!

Well, this afternoon was much better than the morning. Here's Kiddle and Little K dressed up as a pirate and Super Bunny. Guess who's the pirate?

Neat and Messy

Two cute things from today:

While I was cleaning up after breakfast I saw Kiddle come into the kitchen and put something in the trash can. Curious, I lifted the lid to see what he had dropped in there, but all I could see was some plastic wrap. I looked around the corner into the living room and was surprised to see that he was working at getting the cellophane wrap off an unopened puzzle. I couldn't believe my eyes. The Master of Disaster cleaning up after himself?! Not possible. But sure enough as I watched, he got another piece off and headed for the kitchen. It was like someone had switched him with my super-neat nephew. But then he finished up by throwing the puzzle pieces all over the floor and walking away. That's my boy!

Later in the day he was sitting on the couch when I asked him if he had a poop in his pants. He responded by leaning to one side, reaching around to touch his bottom and said, "POO." Well, ok then. I guess the answer is yes. That's the first time I've heard him say "poop" and most definitely the first time I've seen him associate the word with the action. Again, oh, the things we celebrate as parents.

Night Night!

This completely melted my heart last night. I was getting Kiddle's room set for him to go to bed and said, "Why don't you help your animals get ready to go night night in their barn?" When I turned around this is what I found:


Apparently cars and trucks sleep on their sides as well. Who knew?