Growing, growing, growing

That kid. Oh my goodness, he's learning at an astonishing rate.

Last week, for the first time, he started being territorial with the toys at the gym. He was going up the slide and another kid was going the opposite way. Mal held his hand out and said, "Na na na na na na na." That's me, I'm afraid. When he's doing something and I want him to stop, I notice that I repeat, "No no no no no!" really quickly, I guess to get his attention.

Also, in the past week, kids have twice pushed him off of things. He's looked at me both times like, "What just happened?" but moved on. As opposed to when a kid starts to use something he wasn't even interested in before but now wants, in which case he starts to throw a fit until I point him elsewhere.

Actually, a kid hauled off and hit Mal, too, but Mal didn't really notice. The kid's mom was mortified, and kind of chased us all around the gym, demanding that her son apologize, which he did not. It was... Well, I would have handled it differently. Anyway, no harm, no foul.

Mal doesn't always "obey." If he'd rather do something besides what I'm asking, he will often carry on. However, more and more, he *is* doing what I ask, even when he doesn't like it. He will typically respond now if I call out (in a pretty stern voice) in a parking lot. Actually, if we're walking in our complex and I say, "There's a car," he'll come stand next to me until it has passed.

A couple of times last week, he obeyed but wasn't happy about it, which was adorable. One time, we'd just gotten home from the store and he wanted to walk around the parking lot but I had an armful of bags. He was motioning that he wanted to go up to the office for a Jolly Rancher, and I said, "Mal, we can't go right now. I have to take this stuff upstairs. Please come this way." He started bawling and yelling, but came with me. I'l take it! It's progress.

I was thinking about it, about how now it's developmentally appropriate for him to start understanding and sometimes bending his will to mine and wondering: Would he have gotten it any sooner if I'd punctuated my requests with swats when he didn't comply, or some other form of "discipline" to get his attention? I don't think so. And I think our relationship is stronger for not having had to resort to those things.

Also, yes, I do expect him to run full out into traffic next time we leave the apartment, now that I've waxed philosophical about that.

In the past couple of days, he has cracked me up so much.

The day before yesterday, I had gotten an outfit to put on his baby doll. He didn't want her dressed, so he took it from me. I said, "Mal, she's half naked and the elastic is worn out of her drawers. She wants some clothes!" So I picked the outfit up again. He took it AND the baby that time. He then went on to play, and I was going to put the outfit back into the drawer. When he saw me pick it up, he shook his head, took it, walked across the room and put it down on his couch, where I couldn't reach it, and went back to what he had been doing.

Yesterday, we were getting ready to go to the gym. He hates wearing clothes right now. I don't blame him. It's already hit the 90/90 death zone at least once... 90 degrees, 90% humidity. Take me home, Jesus. Anyway, he had his shorts on but had decided to go play with his kitchen instead of putting on the shirt. I followed him over and put one arm into the sleeve of the button-up you see in the picture above. He pulled the shirt off and threw it down. I picked the shirt up and tried the opposite arm, then he took the shirt from me, shoved it up under his arm so he could keep track of it, and continued to play.

That kid cracks me up.

He will pretend to be asleep, too, when he's nursing and I mention either his changing his diaper or that I need to go to the restroom. Suddenly, he's in sleepland and I guess none of those awful things are going to happen. But if I say, "No no! Don't go to sleep!" he'll start grinning, which isn't a great thing to do when you're nursing, if you're at all interested in your mother's comfort. But it's on me for cracking HIM up, and it's so cute, I still do it.

He's fallen asleep twice this week shortly after nursing, but not with the milk dispenser in his mouth at the time.

He is increasingly interested in his dad, and spent a whole hour with him last night while I ran to the grocery store for snacks. He didn't even notice I was gone until I was on my way home. That is the first time I've left him on a weeknight like that, and the first time I've gone to the store alone since he was born, and the first time I've been out of the house at night alone in like two years. So it's a pretty big deal.

James has always wanted to practice his guitar "more," and one great thing about Mal being so into his daddy is that Mal asks to play with him a lot, and James has gotten back into it. Mal has a ukulele that he plays while his dad works on songs he used to know, and scales, and learning new stuff.

Mal loves to sing and play and wants music going pretty much all of the time. In the gym, between songs, he always looks at me and signs "more." It's like he forgets that they always follow one song with another song. But I'm glad he's into music. Maybe he'll like it enough to want to learn to play an instrument or two, unlike his mom and sister.

Because he'd had a very late three-hour nap yesterday, Mal didn't go to sleep until ten. Consequently, I didn't go to sleep until midnight, knowing I'd regret it today. Of course, Mal woke up earlier than usual, as he always does when he goes to sleep late. It's weird. His "normal" bed time is 8:30-9:15; in that case, he typically sleeps until 6:45-7:30. When he goes to sleep after 9:30, we can pretty much know we'll be up before 6:30. I guess he just misses one whole sleep cycle in that case.

Well, I was so sleepy this morning, so I got up and moving. Because Mal was in such a great mood, I was able to dust the house, do "deep" vacuuming (where you move everything but the biggest furniture), get a chicken ready for dinner, empty the dishwasher, get the recycling ready for pick-up (we had a couple of Amazon deliveries, so there were boxes to break down, etc.), do a load of laundry (that's still in the dryer because I'm on break, dang it), and clean up where my sweet boy soiled the carpet (but at least we saved a diaper, I suppose). That was in addition to watching some music videos together, playing in his room, reading some books, having breakfast, and wrestling on the bed while he wound down for nap. And I got twenty minutes of sleep at the top of his nap!

Now I need to go do some retirement stuff for my hard-working man...