A matter of taste

Scene: Tonight, inside Wild Thing's bedroom, after bedtime, before WT is actually asleep.

Audible pounding is heard. It appears to emanate from the wooden gate across the door frame, which WT is pounding on.

Lull in the pounding. WT speaks:

"I don't like the gate."

Resumes pounding.

Kids and gender

Wild Thing sometimes seems very stereotypically "boyish" to me. He's loud, stubborn, runs around a lot, etc. But then again, he is also very snuggly, loves nothing more than pretending to tuck his mom and me into bed, likes to chance his baby doll's diapers, etc. Sometime I want to write more about this, but in the interim, this post does a very nice job of explaining why the idea of innately boyish and girlish behaviors is rather dubious.

Out and about

Now that George Mason has ruined my NCAA bracket, I can turn my attention to more important matters.

Wild Thing got to visit a nice big park in Vancouver this weekend. When we got back and he woke up from his car nap, he exclaimed "I want to go to Canada again!"

I myself will be back in Canada for a conference later this week, so there won't be much commentary on Wild Thing and his ferocity. I may have some comments on the trip, time and computer access permitting.

Nicknames

Wild Thing has a nickname at his child care center: Snuggles. However, we are not allowed to call him by this monicker. In fact, only one of his teachers is allowed to use this name; anyone else attempting to use it is told "I'm not Snuggles! I'm [Wild Thing]!"

This made one of his rivals somewhat jealous, so she began insisting that she be called "Snuggles," too. Fortunately, after some negotiation, she was willing to settle for her second choice, "Bubbles," which is actually more fitting in her case.

Wild Thing Generalizes

Wild Thing has his letters down pretty well now, including both upper-case and lower-case letters.

Yesterday, he was looking at a toy with two fish floating inside it, one large, one smaller.

WT: "That's a big fish!" (pointing to the larger fish)

Me: "Yes, Wild Thing, that fish is bigger than the other one."

WT: "That's a tiny fish!" (pointing to the tiny fish)

Me: "Yes, Wild Thing, that fish is smaller."

WT (pointing to the bigger fish again): "That's an upper-case fish!"

I explained that "upper-case" is a category that only applies to letters. Later, looking at his magnetic letters in the kitchen, he could be heard mumbling "upper case just for letters" to no one in particular.

Warning

Blogging sharply limited during early games of NCAA Men's Tournament! Sorry!

The good news, scatology edition

So, Wild Thing has been a fiesty little fellow lately. I leave him at his little table at breakfast to go make coffee, and hear him yelling behind me, "Daddy, 's this OK?" I return to see him sitting mostly upside down in his chair, feet up on the back. I encourage him to return to a more appropriate posture. I'm grinding the coffee; I hear "Daddy, 's this OK?" You get the idea.

The good news is that while enjoying diaper-free time this evening, Wild Thing started micturating on the floor. OK, that's not the good news. The good news is that after I scooped him up and placed him on his Sponge Bob potty seat, he actually took a dump in the toilet. I've never been so happy to see someone's feces in my entire life. This could be the start of a good thing.

Odds and ends

No easily transcribed bits of Wild Cuteness this weekend, so I'm offering a digest version of some recent items of (perhaps minimal) interest. Though readership here is increasing(hi Ancrene!)--and could soon hit double-digits (!)--I did start this mostly to keep track of WT's development. You've been warned.

WT loves to type at the computer keyboard. ("I want to type some letters and some NUM-bers.") He's particularly interested in typing his own name, as well as "daddy," "mommy," "Granny," and "Ernie." (Well, at least it isn't Elmo.) When he started, he only knew that his name started with, um, its first letter, and ended in, well, the last letter. Now, though, he only needs prompting on the next-to-last letter. Go, WT, go! He also knows that "mommy," "daddy," and "granny" end in 'y'.

His sense of humor is entering an experimental phase in which he tries to insert words into inappropriate contexts to get a laugh. He'll be looking at his grapes, and say something like "Oh! It's not grapes! It's a crocodile!" Or I'll tell him the window is made of glass, and he'll say, "It's not glass! It's noo-noo-nah-noo!"

This last construction is a recent development. He's always arranging letters on the fridge, standing back, and saying "That spells 'noo-noo-nah-noo!'" We have no idea where this comes from, but it certainly amuses him.

I think he was having too much fun this weekend to say anything really priceless, though. Hiking, throwing rocks in the bay, two different playgrounds, and a klezmer band--not bad for a two-year-old ...

Popularity

Noted without comment:

Dick Cheney is now less popular than Stalin.

Fixing the blame

OK, I know that descriptions of other people's dreams are tedious. But I really have to share this one, even if only in abbreviated form.

My sometime colleague RD and I are trying to hitch a ride with some guys in a pickup truck. I notice that they seem to be in a hurry and are all carrying handguns. I suggest to RD that maybe we ought to find someone else to give us a ride, but he seems untroubled. That is, until one of the guys shoots me in the shin, breaking my leg.

Flash forward. (There's some other odd material in the dream, about finding an apartment and arguing with a secretary named Bobbie from this place I worked about eight years ago, but let that pass.) My leg having been treated, I receive a visit from President George W. Bush. He insists that I must pin the blame on an undercover police officer, against whom he has a vendetta for some reason. He hints that if I value the safety of my family, I'd best do what he says ...

Cheney also makes a brief appearance, looking somewhat glum. Perhaps he shot someone else in the face.

Ask a stupid question ...

This morning, in the car:

Wild Thing (hugging me): My daddy!

Me (stupidly): Oh, am I your daddy?

WT: No! You're my grandmother! (cackle)

That's a concept

Tonight at dinner, we're discussing Wild Thing's efforts to grasp the concept of "nothing." Often he'll type some letters on the keyboard, then say: "What does that spell? It spells NOTHING!" Letters, of course, are also something he's been working on.

Tonight, looking out the window, he said, "I see NOTHING!"

Overworked Spouse: "I've noticed he's working on the concept of nothing."

WT: "Letters is a concept."

Indeed it is.

From the sublime to the vulgar

Tonight, in the car, Wild Thing is tellling a longish and barely coherent story about a bear.

WT: I see a bear! In the sky! With Tigger! And Roo!

Overworked Spouse: Really?

WT: Yeah! Oh! It's falling! It's falling down! On me!

OS, to me: Well, you can't say he doesn't have an active imagination.

WT: I'm going to pick my nose.

The Gay Penguin Agenda

Noted without comment.

Birding

Also worth noting in passing: While Wild Thing was obsessing about fecal matter, I glanced up at what at I imagined was a particularly large crow flying overhead. It took a second to realize that it was, in fact, a bald eagle. We've seen quite a few of these in the surrounding countryside, but this is only the second one I've seen up close in the city limits, and the only one I've seen near our house, which isn't close to much that would normally appeal to an eagle. I imagine it was hunting for cats or something ...

Morning thrills

In the morning, Wild Thing and I sometimes wait outside with the Overworked Spouse (OS) for her carpool. Said carpool sometimes runs pretty late, as it did this morning, giving us a lot of time to explore things on and around our cul-de-sac.

This morning, the most interesting thing Wild Thing found in our neighborhood was some unclaimed dog poop on the sidewalk. It actually wasn't that new--we'd seen it a day or so ago, too--but the fact that it was still there seemed to make a real impression on him. It also seems to be setting in that dog poop is, in many respects, comparable to his own. "I cannot touch it!" he exclaimed, staring at it. "It's brown!"

We tried to encourage WT to return to our driveway, so that OS wouldn't confuse the carpool. WT was resistant. "I want to look at dog poop one more minute!" I guess everyone needs a hobby.