Today we got in a boys’ day running errands at the hardware store and rebuilding some garage shelves (I did the building while you did the napping). Typical father-son stuff. You rode in the hiking backpack at Home Depot and squealed every time you saw a dog in the store. It was always the same dog, but who’s counting?
You’re fighting sleep in the other room as I’m typing. You’ve had a tough time settling down these last few nights. You were in a good routine, downing a couple almond milk bottles and happily crashing. Some early evenings you would come to me or your Mom with Rocky in hand (your favorite stuffed animal, a raccoon a.k.a. trash panda) and say “Night night” or “Ba ba,” both indicating you were ready for the night routine. Maybe it’s the molars coming through or another phase because the days of your self-selection to sleep seem to be over.
You’ve become more opinionated, correlating with growing two-syllable vocabulary to make your points. For example, yesterday you asked for food and I offered you a banana. You usually love bananas and initially indicated you wanted one. When I handed it to over you immediately said “No no!,” chucked it across the room and gave me an angry face before stomping off mumbling some baby-talk complaint. You became all Gorden Ramsay in the kitchen. You gave me a 1-star Yelp review. I enjoyed the act and moved onto successfully offering you RItz crackers in my servitude.
I don’t know how else to describe it, but you turned a corner from taking anything given to you — food, clothes, even shoes to deciding whether or not you like it. You were very disappointed in my shoe selection the other day after making you wear real shoes instead of Crocs on a rainy day. Never mind that you were only wearing a diaper with those shoes because you wanted to wear nothing else. So you ran around the house in high-tops and a diaper for most of the morning.
It may sound like I’m complaining. I’m not. I’m truly enjoying it! Your mannerisms are becoming more pronounced and it’s all so entertaining. You’re also a really smiley kid and just like to laugh, so these examples are the exceptions of the day.
When Eliza gets frustrated with you and pushes you around, you think it’s all fun. You constantly want to name people in pictures, flip through books and play hide and seek. You haven’t figured out that the seeker needs to stay in place while the hider hides, so I just run really fast ahead of you to hide. That will work while I’m still faster on the move, but I don’t expect it will last long. You’re nearly able to run and have a little jog-strut thing going.
I think you’re finally asleep in your room and I’m ready to turn-in myself. I’ve had a bit of a cold this week and the drugs are kicking in.
I look forward to playing more tomorrow.
Love, Dad