Limping through Spanish acquisition

This morning, I was thinking about how I can't ever tell how old people are in person, but I REALLY can't tell when I just hear a voice, like on the radio.

I had the thought, "When I'm talking to you on the phone, I have no idea how old you are." As per usual, I wondered if I could say that in Spanish. So I thought, "Cuando estoy hablando contigo por teléfono, no tengo ni idea cuantos años tienes." 

When I put that into Google translate, it gave me in English exactly what I was trying to say! Yay!

But then I reversed them, because I do like to see what it recommends, this always makes me see that I have a way to go. 

What Google translate recommended was, "Cuando hablo contigo por teléfono, no tengo ni idea de qué edad tienes."

It's just a little different, but probably more polished. Still, it makes me hopeful that when we travel to Mexico in spring, I'll be able to make my way a bit better than if I were going in unprepared at all. 

Do I know Spanish?

In August, I'll have been using Duolingo for 3 years.

James will hit 4 years at the end of this month. He started studying Spanish in June 2021. I decided to go with French at first, just because that's what I studied in high school and college and I figured having some momentum from the get-go would keep me motivated.

We planned a trip to Montreal, which we took in spring 2023, and after we got home from that, I switched over to Spanish, too.

Living in Texas (and, really, anywhere in the US), this is a much more practical language. I wish I'd studied it in high school rather than French, but I think French seemed so much more romantic.

In terms of practicality, ASL would have been the most useful to me, but I shudder to think how it would have been taught, especially given how I was taught French in high school. I had to take remedial French for a semester in college, because I was functionally starting fresh. Sigh.

Now that I've been studying Spanish in Duolingo for a couple of years, I've attained a score that indicates I should be able to have basic conversations in Spanish.. but I don't feel like that's the case at all.

We're planning to visit Mexico next year, and I've started listening to an immersion Spanish podcast to see if I can gain some confidence in this regard.

What I think is happening is this: I am really good at taking tests. I can usually do pretty well in challenges and stuff, but that doesn't always translate to learning with me. I have surpassed James's "XP" within the game, and I'm further along than he is. But I'm 100% sure that he's better at actually speaking Spanish than I am.

This is a part of my personality that I wish I could turn off. I'm trying to stay focused and learn to learn, but sometimes the "gamification" here is counterproductive to why I'm actually on the app: to learn a language.

Flags of the World! (a thing about unschooling... but maybe not what you're thinking)

I posted several weeks ago about Mal's obsession with flags.

Since then, he's stayed pretty consistently interested. He's constantly saying things like, "Did you know that Chad and Romania have the EXACT SAME FLAG?" And the answer is always that no, I did not know that. 

I've actually learned a lot from Mal's interest in flags, as well. I've always loved maps and globes, and since he's into that now. In fact, after having bought Mal a beach ball globe a couple of years ago because we didn't want to shell out $50+ on a passing interest, I did buckle down and buy him one that will arrive tomorrow.

But I digress... One thing I've learned is that South Africa has three capitols because its executive, legislative, and judicial branches are in separate cities. That's pretty cool.

One thing we did get him recently was a foam map puzzle with a bunch of flags. He knew a lot of the flags, anyway, but since having put it together a couple of times, he knows all of them flawlessly. It's kind of a bummer because they didn't include any of the Central American or Caribbean countries (save Cuba), so we'll have to pick those up somewhere else. I did show him the Haiti flag immediately upon seeing it was snubbed.

Anyhoo, all of this exciting stuff to get around to my main point here.

One of my friends mentioned recently that unschooling never worked with her kids because they didn't take to "academic" stuff like what Mal is doing right now.

Now that I think about that statement, I see how a big idea in body liberation melds perfectly with the unschooling philosophy vis-à-vis the moral neutrality of most stuff in life. I believe it is Ragen Chastain who says something to the extent of "Running a marathon and having a Netflix marathon on your couch are moral equivalents." The world at large might celebrate running a marathon as the summit to a virtuous endeavor, but why? Vegging out, being lazy, and listening to your body when it says that you need a break is awesome. Running, if you like it, is awesome. Choosing to do one of those things over the other doesn't make you a better/worse person. It's just different people doing different things.

Getting back to unschooling and Mal: He has always taken a deep dive in the things he's interested in. His earliest obsession was probably the Disney Cars franchise. After we'd watched the movies once or twice, he could listen to the score and tell you what scene a piece of music was played. He knew the names of ALL of the characters, even background ones that might be shows once for three seconds in one of the three films. He collected hundreds of cars, he played with them almost every day, talked about it all of the time, found Cars shorts on the Disney Channel app on his own, noticed that some music was featured both in the movies and in the cartoons. It was two years of that.

He's also fixated on Unspeakable (which he still watches but not like when he was 5 or 6), Henry Stickman, NumberBlocks, Super Mario... and last year, Encanto. We actually have the play sets out on the kitchen table right now. He does bring them out to play and make scenes with occasionally. When the movie came out, though, he literally studied the songs until he knew all of the lyrics. In fact, his friend filmed him for almost half an hour once (she's a better audience than I am!)

When Mal finds something he likes, he has the space to take the time he wants to pursue it. With NumberBlocks, he learned a lot about how numbers work together. Since he got over that obsession, he's lost some of the multiplication tables, but I know that since he learned those things at 5 and 6 years old, he can remember and/or relearn them again in the future. He's learning a lot of geography and kind of civics with flags. Many times he'll act out a superficial version of relations between, say, Russia and Ukraine or North and South Korea using their flags as almost action figures. He'll probably forget a lot of this when he moves on to his next big interest.

The question is: Are those subjects superior to the strong relationships he formed with Cars and Encanto or a YouTube channel or a video game? Or all they all valuable pursuits for the pursuits' sake? Is the only reason I or others see unschooling as justified because Mal is learning something that some educational decision-makers out there who have never met him have decided is "important"?

I would argue that this cycle of finding something enjoyable and then wanting to know more and delve into it more is worthy in and of itself. It's what makes life worth living. My sister likes plants. My dad likes trains. My mom likes to read. Some day James and I will have time to figure out what we like again, I'm sure of it.

But my point is that, as adults, we get the option of pursuing interests without the baggage of "but what use is it in life?" My dad can watch Virtual RailFan and plan vacations around trains without people accusing him of "playing" and suggesting that he reads more books, like my mom does. We get to like what we like.

I'm enjoying this geographical path we're on right now, but I loved Cars and Encanto, too (he was on his own with Unspeakable). Mal is who he is and he's becoming the person he will be. Without anyone telling him what is really important and what he SHOULD be spending all of his time on. I love that for him.

Summer School

Mal will be nine years old soon, and would be going into third grade if he were in school (his birthday is late in September, so he'd be one of the oldest amongst his grade cohorts). He loves homeschooling and unschooling specifically, and has so far resisted any suggestion I've made about taking ANY kind of class, even something fun like dance or martial arts. In his brain, "classes" equals "school" and he wouldn't then be a homeschooler. He has little idea that his homeschool friends have at-home curricula and structured enrichment programs.

I am fully confident that he knows that he needs to know at his age, and he's obviously happy and opinionated about his educational path. But recently D has expressed quite a bit of resentment about how they feel I just threw my hands up and "Jesus, take the wheel"ed their later school years (which isn't how it went on my end, but I know that intent isn't the same as impact, and I am very sorry and regretful that I didn't, I guess, push more forcefully... which was my bent as a mostly "authoritarian" parent at the time, and which seemed to be making our relationship worse... but I digress. I should also add that I'm fully confident that D can succeed in anything they want to do; but they are on very insecure footing because of how I conducted things). 

Also, I've been thinking a lot about how Mal is just quickly dismissive of trying things that he thinks sound "too involved" or of sticking with certain things. So James and I decided it would be a good idea for him to take something, anything, just A class next fall. Once a week is fine. And he freaked out when we told him. I brought up dance again, and he said, "I know how to dance!" I told him, "Sure, but there's something neat about learning specific steps, practicing them with friends, and then getting to perform a whole dance together." He was unconvinced. 

He's since told me that he'd cry every single day of his life once he was enrolled in a class, which sounds exhausting. He's said that he doesn't want to take any classes until driving school (which is ironic since D just practiced with James and me and otherwise was self-taught). He has asked me why I want to ruin his life.

However, recently he's taken an interest in, of all things, flags of the world.

I think it all started when he'd seen a YouTuber "rating" various countries' Emergency Management System alarms. That got him to look up the countries and see their respective flags. Now he has so many countries' flags memorized.

When we were Montreal, we saw flag shops everywhere.

We dropped into a little pizza shop on the McGill University campus, and it had a bunch of international flags hanging from the ceiling. Mal was able to name just about 70-75% of them. Then yesterday, we went to visit Nana and Pappy; they pulled up a video on YouTube where you try to guess what country a flag is from, and he was able to peg 37 of the 50!

So he has said that if I can find him a geography class, he's interested in that. He's very into continents, where countries are in relationship to each other and their continents, which countries are allies and which are enemies, and other things like that. Please keep your fingers crossed that we can find a robust elementary-aged geography class in the fall!

Also, just because I was curious, I bought a Brain Quest 2nd/3rd grade summer bridge activity book. D used to love Brain Quest books, and we did a lot of them (pretty much every one through 6th grade). Mal's completed the first section so far and he's actually enjoying it. I just call it his "activity book," and he has some of the same hang-ups D did ("Why can't I do it this way instead?" Doodling all over the place so it's hard to see what he actually did. Kid stuff), but he's able to do everything easily. Even things like commas and apostrophes, which, again, we've NEVER "studied" because we don't, he understands how to use them. We'll finish the book because he's having fun, and so am I. I did get to spend quite a bit more hands-on time with D as a kid because of our "doing school" a couple of hours a day.

All of that to say: The kid is all right. It's fine. I actually got him to go to an "open gym" by basically making him (I've asked all semester and he always said no, so I just did it), which he liked a lot. This week is the last session until fall, but that's another thing he can look forward to. 

Our summer is getting busy, already. Lots of activities, movies coming out, musicals, fun stuff. Hopefully it all involved a lot of a/c or a lot of water to get into, though!

Unschooling on the High Seas

Our last day on the cruise was an "at sea" day. I took a ship's tour (James was supposed to have gone, too, but then Mal didn't like the kids' club, so we had to choose a designated parent, and he volunteered to let me go; I accepted), and we did all of the "must-dos" that we wanted to hit. We didn't go to the pool at all, which is a little surprising, but it helped us not be sunburn-tired and our suits were drier when I packed.

What I wanted to note, however, was about how much my son brings up as games "drills" that many educators use in "teaching" kids in school.

When I came back from the ship tour, Mal and James were playing "rhymes." Mal picks a word and then, naturally, everyone takes turns thinking of words that rhyme with it. It's fun because Mal "gets" rhyming, but also then sometimes thinks that the same vowel sound in the middle of a short word means it rhymes, and we get to gently say, "That's close, but the end is different" so he can tweak it. And we only play as long as he wants to... which is generally longer than it's fun for us, as is with most things.

Another thing he likes to do is ask, "What words start with 'c'?" And he'll start with one: cookie, cat, cake, etc. Then, again, we just go around doing that until he is ready to move on.

Something he started after a few days of using the elevators was that we'd get on and he'd say, "Mom, there were three people on here, and now two guys got on. How many is that?" Usually, I'd guess wrong so he'd have to correct me. He'd finish up the lesson by saying, "It's five! Because three plus two equals five!" This activity was hampered a couple of times by his forgetting to count himself, which was also interesting.

The whole thing was fascinating to me because we've never introduced these things; it has been his idea. He is just curious about the world, and how things work, and how they fit. This learning and building has sprung from his natural curiosity... and I think we all know that is the BEST way (and most fun way) to learn things.

On the other hand, he has no idea how to shape most letters or numbers (he can do "1" and "l" and "0" and "o"). Before we left, he was taking a bath and we sprayed some shaving cream on the bathtub wall. He'd smooth it out and draw shapes on it. At first, he was asking, "What does this look like?" after he'd make a doodle. He liked the more ridiculous guesses best. I'd say, "It looks like someone was skiing down a mountain and fell and flipped three times." He'd laugh at that. But if I said, "It looks like a snake," he'd say, "No. Pick something else." But then he'd tell me what HE thought it looked like and it would be more literal: "It looks like Sonic's arm and he's making a fist."

Then he asked me to write his name. I said, "You know how to spell it. You write it." So he started to write the "M" by drawing two straight lines. And he knew they were supposed to meet in the middle somehow, but he wasn't sure how to do it. He made a little jut out of the first line, horizontally, toward the middle; then the same on the other side. It looked about like an "H" that had been cut in half and separated a bit. I finally showed him how to do the middle part.

He's working on figuring this stuff out. Just at a slower pace than my first child, and than other kids his age. I'm glad he doesn't have to compete with anyone in this regard. We don't have the arbitrary "one more year" deadline for kindergarten. Maybe he'll have gotten it by next fall; maybe he won't. I'm sticking with the self-directed program.

I do ask sometimes if he wants to get out this reusable marker book to practice letters, and he's never said yes. I'm not pushing it.

Something that keeps reinforcing this commitment, even when I waver, is Mal himself.

For instance, on our cruise, our assistant server was kind enough to bring Mal his own soda every night, even though we didn't pay for that (I had the unlimited soda package). The drink was served in stemware, and almost every time Mal reached for it, I felt a blanche of anxiety. "He's going to spill it!" my spine warned me.

Mal is pretty clunky with things sometimes. He CAN feed himself things like cereal and yogurt, but he has to REALLY be paying attention lest he ends up virtually swimming in it. He hates drinking straight from cups, preferring straws, even though I've seen that he CAN drink out of cups and bottles.

Still, those things seem like challenges to him, to the point that I often help him... which I am aware is aiding in any arrested development, if it exists, but also sometimes I'm just not in the mood to stop what I'm doing for a major cleanup on aisle everywhere.

Anyway, I wondered aloud to James if occupational therapy might help him. He doesn't draw or color, he paints only occasionally, never uses the chalkboard or easel, and I'm pretty sure that if he tried to brush his own teeth, he'd likely miss his mouth on the first approach. It seems like these are things that he should be doing at this age.

However... one of the dinner surprises Mal got on the cruise was a mini Etch-a-Sketch. He used that thing the whole meal, and the one the next night. He loved spinning those tiny knobs and showing us, "I made a 'P'!"

Then, yesterday, he did something he's NEVER done before.

Inspired by a video of a lady making-over LOL Dolls into characters from Teen Titans Go!, he wanted to make paper dolls. I was busy doing something else, so he decided instead just to cut paper. He made a MESSSSssssss but on and off yesterday, cut shapes and corners and just played around with scissor grasp and moving paper (because I told him to stop trying to cut the paper on top of our tablecloth, which he sliced... but which is vinyl because I know what I'm dealing with here).

He's never been interested in cutting things before. So that's one step toward developing more elegant fine-motor skills.

I guess I'll just be patient, because I think he's doing pretty well. And he's having a great time doing it.

I really am curious to see how my kids' ideas about learning and education look like when they're adults. I was just telling someone yesterday that I'm 100% sure I'll never do an organized educational program again, because after school and college, I was so burnt out, I was just done. I did real estate because I had to for a job, and then I studied the insurance stuff on my own... but both were basically mandatory and except for passing the tests, there was little joy in the process. It will be interesting to see if my kids pursue more organized educational opportunities, not having been exhausted by them in their early childhood.

Adventures in Unschooling

When you unschool, even if you believe in it, you almost constantly have to readjust the "school mentality" those of us who grew up in "the system" have.

Mal will be 4 in three months (!!!) and many of my friends, the ones whose kids aren't in preschools, are starting to do "schooly" things with their kids: pre-writing, lessons, that sort of thing. I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong; in fact, when D was this age, we were already a year into gymnastics, tae kwon do, and had daily "desk time" where we did sort of semi-formal stuff from a fun workbook I'd found at Sam's or something like that. Of course, we'd bag all of the homeschool stuff to go have fun, but I do get it.

As we've moved fully into unschooling, though, I've seen how my older kid thrives and how my younger kid has all of the curiosity and enthusiasm typical to children.

With Toys R Us closing, we've gotten Mal a few things we wouldn't have bought otherwise (a Jet robot suit, a Vampirina house, a LandSpeeder he doesn't have yet so shhhh), including a big Cars Florida 500 racetrack.

He's played with it for hours already, and I just got it put together at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. A "schoolish" mindset would say, "That's great. It's important for kids to play. But academics are also important." To which I would say: This is literally a crash course in physics.

My son has done a ton of experiments in the past half day: How far will the car go if I push it? Can the car rest on the sideways part of the track without falling off? Does it make a difference if I direct the cars to the outer or inner lanes? When using the motor launcher, what difference does my pushing the car into the feeder make versus just letting it roll in without the added boost? How is all of this varied with a lower, slimmer car? With a big, boxy van? Heavier? Lighter? If they're backwards? Upside down? Plastic vs. metal? Why do cars keep rolling out of the stands and how can I make that stop? How is the set behaving differently now that the batteries are dying (they're old, but the only D batteries we had in the house when I put this together)? Why won't this cat get the heck out of the way?

Neither Mal nor I could articulate the physical laws behind any of these observations, but the fact is that Mal is learning things. He's observing information that he will be able to implement to interactions in the future. That is precisely the point of learning.

And even the most confident of us unschoolers sometimes need the reminder.

Adventures With Tentacles

The other night, my day job sponsored an "end of fiscal year" celebration at Dave and Buster's.

I was one of the few who invited my wife. I'm pretty sure I was the only one who dragged along a small child.

It was fun. And Laura got lucky enough a couple of times that we were able to pick up enough points to walk away with some good swag (including a couple of spiffy novelty glasses).

We also got a little glow-in-the-dark rubber tentacle finger puppet thing. Every time Mal breaks it out, I act completely grossed out and terrified of it. He assures me that it's nice, and it's okay again until the next time.

This evening, I woke up from my knee-heating nap to hear her on the phone, engaged in some sort of serious conversation, and Mal demanding that she count for him.

So I shouted out that I'd do the counting and dived in to try to give her a breather.

We spent a while playing "scare and seek." Which is basically hide and seek, except that suppose the hider is supposed to leap out and scare whoever's "it." Something along those lines.

I'm not very good at it. I just hid until Mal tracked down Laura to ask for help finding me. The first time, she might have helped a little. Or maybe just encouraged him enough to convince him to put some effort into looking). The second...he wound up sitting outside with her for long enough that I just gave up on it and move to the recliner in the living room and broke out my phone to check the news.

He decided he was ready to move on to running races. Which basically amounts to lining up in a single file (we take turns in the poll position) and chasing each other in circles around the house. Eventually, we wind up in his room, with Mal proclaiming the he won.

I spent about 45 minutes doing this Friday or Saturday night, while Laura got some alone time. It was long enough that my ankles are still sore, but it was great exercise that the rest of my body desperately needs.

Tonight, I'm sore enough that I couldn't.

So Mal decided to just join me in the recliner.

He played a "game" that starts with cleaning Pepa Pig's teeth using a variety of dentist implements. He's already fixed hers, so he's unlocked Rebecca Rabbit's, which are much nastier. He always gives up as he's getting close to the end of hers, so he hasn't unlocked Emily Elephant yet.

Today, I messed with his ear with that tentacle thing from D&B while he told me that he couldn't and needed help.

I finally told him that he totally could, but didn't have to. It's a game, so he should stop playing if it isn't fun. He jumped right over to "What's a tentacle?"

I tried to explain it, then came up with the brilliant idea of showing him videos. So I googled for "tentacle."

For the sake of your sanity and whatever innocence you may have left, never make that mistake. Luckily for the sake of my illiterate child, the results didn't come back with pictures.


Searching for "octopus tentacle" returned results that were safe enough that I felt comfortable switching over to focus on videos.

We watched a couple of those. I don't think he was impressed enough by the ability to squeeze your entire body through a hole the size of your beak.

Fun fact: the real plural for octopus is "octopuses." A bunch of academic snobs managed to foist "octopi" on us a couple of hundred (or so) years ago. But that's Latin. Since the roots are Greek, the "proper" plural would be octopodes.

I don't think Mal appreciated the subtleties of these distinctions.

He got bored with the octopus video (it was too long, and the predation didn't have enough cheesy dialog), so we moved on to one about the skin of squids. I thought it looked fascinating, but he wasn't interested.

So we watched one about jellyfish for a bit. He proclaimed that they're "bad." I tried to explain that we should stay far away, but they aren't really "bad." That's another distinction that's lost on him. I probably should have just agreed, but I don't want to be one of those parents who tells their kids something's bad just because it can hurt you a bit.

Somehow, that led to a video about "the glass couldn't contain it."

It was a long video, but it was Mal's speed. Because it was basically a sequence of 3 second clips of predators in zoos trying to what they do. Except for the glass.

I think the scariest one was a polar bear in a swimming pool. There was a kid about Mal's age crouched down just below the water line. The kid stood up, popping his head above water, and the bear struck. You could see its jaws clamping down.

Mal thought the entire thing was hysterically funny.

He got bored when the pace slowed down and they switched to discussions about this time a bear (grizzly? it looks to big to be anything else) managed to splinter the glass, but it looks like it didn't actually break through. One of the witnesses commented about how the bear was a clown that had been playing with the rock for a long time.

He made me go back to the beginning so we could watch the first 12 minutes (or so) again.

The second time through, he allowed us to keep going. They showed a segment of a gorilla charging the glass and managing to make it spider web. They showed that segment over and over.

I'm not sure where they were going (the volume was way down). We moved on to playing Mal's "I don't know" game.

Laura wrapped up her conversation by describing that, then rejoined us before I could show him what that gorilla had really done to that plate glass. I think her conversation up to that point revolved around dysfunctional relationships and the difficulty of finding a good man.

I'm pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with the tentacle videos.

Honest, sweetheart. That's why that's why such an awful thing is in my search history.

When Your Kid Makes You Grow Up

Friday, I was in the car on the way home from a movie with both kids. A song came on the radio to which Mal reacted positively.

D asked, "Can I change this?"

I said, "No, Mal and I like it."

D waited a moment, and said, "The reason I want to is that they use a slur at the beginning of the song."

"What did they say?"

"'Gypsies.'"

I thought about it for a moment, about how "gypped" is definitely a racially-insensitive word, but, in this case, "She says 'travel like gypsies.' I think that nomadic aspect is literally the definition of a gypsy."

D visibly hardened and requested, "Can you not argue with me about slurs? Neither of us gets the last word about that, anyway."

It stuck with me, so later in the day, I asked James about it as I hadn't had the chance to research yet. And then I had time to I look it up. We both found article after story after encyclopedia entry that confirm D's assertion. The first one James found is here.

Well, dang.

The next time I saw D (who's nocturnal, so it's not always a given), I apologized. I said, "You were right and I was wrong. You were being thoughtful, and I'm sorry I shut you down instead of listening."

I could see a loosening this time. "I understand; it's easy to get defensive about that kind of thing. Thank you."

This kid. There are so many things I might never think about if not called out by my older child. It's often uncomfortable, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to examine what I think and why, and how frequently this results in a change.

I hope, and am pretty confident, that D will carry into the world this obstinate refusal to quarter nonsense or to allow people to speak in a way that hurts others. Pretty proud.

Days of Wonder and Magic

This is such a fun time to be a parent, I think. Almost every day, we get to see Mal putting something new together. His way of processing it is so sweet and funny; we laugh a lot, and James and I have a lot to share as we experience him so differently on our own.

For instance, the other day, Mal was playing with this cash register he's had forever. It has a little calculator display screen, and he was putting in a number, then he'd open the register, and take money out. It took a couple of times for me to realize what he was doing, including my just typing in a 7 and his telling me that wasn't how to do it.

That was when I put it together: He'd press the "1," which would show up on the screen, then he'd clear it out, open the till, and pull out a one dollar bill. Next, he typed in "5," saw it on the screen, cleared it out, opened the till, and pulled out a five dollar bill. That was when I tried the 7, but he wasn't having it.

He cleared that out, looked at the pad, and asked me, "How do you do ten?" I said, "Press the 1." He did. "Now press the zero." He did, and looked at the result, then beamed that it had worked! Then he opened the drawer and took out a ten dollar bill.

After that, he'd type in numbers to see if I could do what he was putting in. Nothing crazy, just $90 or $40. At one point, he put in 0.0, so I told him to add a 1, and I pulled out a penny, explaining that's how you write it.

He stayed interested for a long time. Finally, after James got home and we were chatting, Mal played with it by himself long enough to bring up the "E" (for error), and asked how to make it do an "a." We had to explain that "e" is the only letter it has, and he worked for a while to try to get it to come back up.

That's Flo. We got her last weekend, after James had finished a couple of weeks of his new job. Mal asked for so many things when James was unemployed, and we said no so much more often than usual. Mal is thrilled to have a few more Cars cars. He plays with them every day.

In fact, he has a whole laundry list of toys he trots out every day, some times a couple of times a day: The Cars 2 set, plus any extras he's acquired (but we've lost Carla Veloso and Holly Shiftwell, sadly); his Star Wars Micro Machines sets; PJ Masks; the Star Wars Hot Wheels Death Star set; and some type of "egg challenge." Mal watches those toy videos on YouTube, so he likes for us to hide the toys he already has either in plastic eggs, or in play dough.

He's still pretty bossy about the scripting of the scenes, but is getting better at improvising, too. His imagination is incredible, and as a result, he's starting to have vivid "stories," or dreams.

The other night, he woke up terrified, saying, "I don't like the jungle! I don't want to go there!" I told him we wouldn't. He said, "The koala was trying to eat my foot!" I assured him a koala wouldn't try to eat his foot. He said, "And an alligator." Me: ...

We had a long, busy day today, as we ran a bunch of places and then James took part in a 2-hour focus group after work. We were in Mal's room playing this evening when he had all of his PJ Masks out on his table, along with his sack of Hot Wheels cars. He asked me to pull out several specific cars he likes to use with his characters, and I told him he could do it himself.

Mal said, "I can't! I have to finish some work first!"

Then he put his hands up on the table and mimed typing, vocalizing, "Beep, beep, blooop, beep, blorp..." for a few moments, before announcing, "I'm finished! Now I can play!"

I got the cars out for him.

On a likely-related note, yesterday at different times, I was trying to finish and file our taxes, and fill out paperwork to transfer the title to our new car, and a couple of other administrative things. Mal was still wanting to talk to me (I incorrectly wrote a number I know by heart) and bounce around on the chair I was sitting in. I kept asking him to PLEASE step away and that I'd play with him as soon as I was finished with what I was doing.

There's so much more, but I promised I wouldn't stay up until 1 AM again tonight. Looks like I'm a liar.

That's another thing: Mal has taken to going to bed around 11 PM and waking up at 9:30ish (with the normal nighttime rousings). Today I got my chores done before he was out of bed, and the other day I showered, which is nice. But I'm more of an early-to-bed/early-to-rise kind of gal, and it seems like a lot of things we want to do are earlier. Like a free breakfast from Chick-fil-A.

Maybe it's a season. He used to go by daylight, so at the beginning of winter, he was going to bed super early. Now that he's used to staying awake 4-5 hours after the sun goes down, I'm a bit concerned about this summer!

Things People Say: "Don't Pick Your Nose"

Warning: This post might prove too much to the squeamish. Feel free to move on if that's you.

For the first time that I know of, today when I wasn't around, someone told Mal not to pick his nose.

I do not understand why adults tell kids not to pick their noses.

No, really. Hear me out...

Why *do* adults tell children not to pick their noses? My guess is because it's kind of gross. You know what else is gross? Poop. In fact, I'll go out on a limb to say that feces is even more offensive than the non-Newtonian gel that people have in their nasal passages.

However, we seem to have more patience with developmental stages when it comes to poop than when it comes to boogers.

When a kid is small, they poop indiscriminately wherever they are. No one tells a kid, or any human, really, "Don't poop! It's disgusting!" So we understand that this is a natural, biological activity, and rather than try foolishly to stop it, we help our kids learn the appropriate manner of dealing with their bowel movements.

Why can't we be bothered to do this with nose-picking?

My child, at 3, does not understand the physics of nose-blowing. Until recently, if you gave him a tissue and asked him to blow, he'd hold the tissue up to his nose and make a protracted "ffff" sound with his mouth. Now, he gets that it's pushing air out his nose, but he doesn't have the force or even understand the intention, no matter how I might explain it to him. He'll get there. It's a process.

So if someone sees a kid picking their nose, and it offends the adult's sensibilities: First, if it's not your kid or a kid for whom you are responsible, I'd say just look away and think about something else. If it's a child in your charge, you can do a couple of useful things: 1) Offer a tissue for wiping rather than risk the extricated object ending up in some random place to be discovered later. 2) Provide a wet wipe or take the kid to wash his hands when he's done.

It makes no sense to insist someone stop something that is natural and that relieves discomfort; instead, let's help teach them a more discreet and hygienic way of handling the situation. Also, regardless of how old we are, there are times when stuff is just jammed up there and has to be managed digitally rather than with the force of expelled air. So telling a kid not to pick their nose is incredibly hypocritical.

I don't want people to be ashamed of any of their bodily functions. We've been so for many years, and it's ridiculous. People fart. Women bleed. And sometimes, we need to get some crud out of our noses so we can breathe better.

Be helpful, not unreasonably demanding, 'kay?

One of these things is not like the other

Sunday morning, I had Mal in the cry room at church, and he did something for the first time... He went over to the big wooden rocker and pointed to it. I said, "Chair," and did the sign. Then he pointed at the 70's wrap-around mint green cushioned rocker. "Chair," and the sign. Then he walked over to the chair that's part of a set you link together to form rows. "Chair," sign. He pointed to the leather office chair I was sitting in. "Chair," sign. Then he went to the little plastic kid's chair. "Chair," sign." Then he came back to where I was sitting, pointed to the table between my chair and the row chair, and shook his head, "No." I said, "You're right! That is NOT a chair!"

Since then, he's done it with several things. He will point to James' chin and James will say, "Beard." Then he'll point to his own chin and shake his head, "No." Same with me (for now, anyway; menopause is calling).

When we went to the airport to pick up his Grandma yesterday, Mal pointed to her black shoes and made the sign for "shoes" himself. Then he pointed to my shoes and did the same thing. Then his own. THEN he got to the stuffed dinosaur Grandma had brought. He pointed to the dino's feet and shook his head. "Right, the dinosaur does not have shoes."

He's also taken to hugging randos. Fortunately, they've all been kids, but we're trying to figure out a good way to teach him boundaries. Today at the gym, he put his arm around a little girl in a kind of side hug that would have been cute if they'd been facing the same direction. As it was, she was facing opposite him, and it kind of looked like he was trying to choke her. After the "hug," he leaned in for her to kiss his head. She had no idea what to do with that.

I was going to write more, but Mal's nap lasted about 20.5 seconds today.

Oh! Speaking of which... I didn't want to say anything earlier, but it might be a thing now. Mal's been sleeping 4-6 hours at night before his first wake-up! He's been sleeping until just after 2 or just before 4 the past 4 nights. This gives me hope that I might be able to have more time to chat with D at night, not having to listen for Mal to wake up so I can put him back to sleep.

I really thought that when he slept more, I'd sleep more and be more well-rested. What's happened instead is that he has A LOT MORE ENERGY. This is not fair. A trade-off, I guess.

Another Quick Story

Okay, this one blew us away.

Tonight, Mal had brought me his animal board book to "read" for about the eighth time today. Instead, I reached up high for another animal book that we don't typically read because it's regular paper. But I needed a break from repeating the same six books over and over.

We'd gotten to one page when Mal stood up and walked to the bookshelf for another book. Oh well. It was his book of colors this time, and he brought it to me, opened it, and started going, "ooooh oooh." That's his ape sound and the only thing it could be was the orangutan on the "brown" page.

Once I'd turned it there, Mal put the book down beside the book we'd just been looking at... Dang it if that same orangutan picture isn't in both books, just flipped. An orangutan eating an apple. Mal recognized it and showed us.

Smart cookie (in a box).

The Things They Know

Just a quick story I have to tell you about this kid...

Today, James and I were in Mal's room with him when Mal noticed that a page had fallen out of his Jesus Storybook Bible. It bothered him, and he showed me. So I said, "Go get the tape for Momma and I'll fix it." He looked at me like he knew I'd told him to do something, so he kind of walked toward his door and stopped.

I repeated, "Go get Momma the tape, so I can fix your book." He stood there for a minute, so I gave him some time to process, and then said, "Go get the tape and bring it to me, please" two more times. I told James I had no idea if he knew what I meant, but thought it was an interesting experiment.

A moment later, he went into the living room and seemed to have opened the correct drawer. We have 2 low-lying drawers that have various office supplies in them; pencils, envelopes, paper, markers, tape, staples, printer ink, two different cameras, etc. I couldn't see Mal, but I heard one of those drawers open, and that he was shuffling stuff around.

In case he'd forgotten, I said, "Get the tape and bring it to Momma."

He ran back into his room... with the clear packing tape! James and I laughed and congratulated him; I almost cried. Of course, I wasn't using packing tape to fix the book, but, oh my gosh, he went and got tape in a totally different room and brought it back to me. That's a lot of processing going on at once! So fun to watch this little guy grow. Such a blessing.

(And, yes, I immediately got the... whatever you call off-brand "Scotch" tape and fixed his book.)

He's Getting It!

A few cute things have happened recently, things that let me know Mal is catching on to more and more by way of language.

To start, I've learned not to promise him something he wants until I'm ready to give it to him. In other words, I can't say, "We'll go outside after we eat," because all he hears is "outside" and he's ready to go!

Speaking of which, the other day, I said it was time for us to go, and he brought me his shoes! He hates wearing shoes, and if we're just going somewhere in the car, then getting out at a house or place where he can sit in a cart (in this case, we were going to my sister's), I don't make him wear shoes. But I let him, because... he volunteered! He's also brought me my shoes when I've said it was time to get in the car, and even though they weren't the shoes I'd planned to wear, nor did they match what I was wearing, I did use those shoes, of course.

Yesterday he made me laugh. We'd been playing in his room, and I said (not expecting a response; I talk to him a lot, because, you know, I'm around him most of the time, and because you're supposed to do that), "I want to make some cookies. Do you want me to wear you while I do that?" Dang it if he didn't walk over to his door, go around back, and take the harness off of his doorknob, and hand it to me. I seriously had no idea he understood "wearing" and did not expect him to do much of anything but reach for me if I stood up.

We've had a couple of times where he's "obeyed" (read; he felt like doing something I asked him to do) by handing me my phone when he'd started chewing on it, or sitting down on the diaper changer because he was dirty. I try to make a REALLY big deal out of that, because I would like for him to repeat it often. :)

He has two new things: "Mmmm," and "blahhh."

I guess I taught him "blahh" but I didn't mean to. I must say it a lot, like: "Don't reach into the litter box! That's cat poop and it's dirty. Blahhh." The other day, we were outside and he was trying to eat one of the wild, very seeded, already mostly eaten by a bird grapes that was on our patio. I said, "Mal, I'll go get you people grapes; those are bird grapes. Don't eat them." He said, "Blahhh." It cracked me up! Since then, any time I say something is dirty or shake my head like something's disgusting, he says, "Blahh."

Then if he's eating something he likes (or drinking water), he'll say, "Mmmm!" When we were at the tax office waiting for our number to be called, he found four-day-old French fries in a plastic baggy in my purse. He wanted to eat them, and was walking around the waiting area holding up one sad old fry at a time, going, "Mmmm!" to everyone.

Yesterday, I'd made chocolate chip cookies, and he wanted to try one. I was holding him and broke off a piece for him. As he ate it, I said, "Blahh! Chocolate chip cookies! Blahhh!" but he said, "Mmmm!" So I know he's not just copying me.

He is also getting how to put lids back onto things, which is new. He is experimenting with things like putting my shoe in his favorite saucepan or putting a small stuffed animal in our clothes hamper. It's definitely an improvement over dropping things into the cats' litter boxes.

Oh! I don't use spray-in conditioner or dry shampoo very often, but I must use them enough that it means something to Mal. He'll pull canisters out from under our bathroom sink, hand them to me, and say, "Ssss, sss, ssss," mimicking the spray sound. He's started doing that with the glass cleaner, too. (I let him play with it; it's nontoxic, but I do close it before handing it over.)

It's fun to see him latching onto things and interacting more "conversationally" in the world now. As we close out this first year, I have to say: I'm glad it's almost over. It might not be too popular a sentiment, but this is my least favorite year of parenting. I'm ready to get to know my child better! He's pretty amazing.

Shower Time Isn't Always Mommy Time

Tonight after dinner, James was playing with Mal, so I decided it'd be the perfect time to get a shower. Mal knew where I was going, though, and followed me in there very joyfully. I was telling him, "You've already cleaned up today. Mommy's going to take a shower by herself."

But he didn't listen. He just kept getting happier and happier. I physically handed him to James, and he started crying. I said, "Mal, I'm sorry. Mommy needs a shower by herself."

Then, I swear to you, Mal yelled, "Mom! Bath!"

So guess what? After James and I stopped laughing, Mal got a bath.

I'm a sucker for a kid using his words. Especially the ones I didn't know he knew!

Living and Learning

Mal had such a hard day today, but this was adorable: He'd fallen asleep on our walk back from the mailbox, so I laid him on the couch and he slept for maybe 15 minutes.

The last thing that had happened before we left the apartment for the mail was that our downstairs neighbor came home from work. Her little dog was VERY excited, and barking a lot, then she took him out for a relief walk, and he barked all around the back of our apartment. Mal heard the dog and mimicked his bark. So I repeated it. Then Mal said, "Dah!" So I said, "Dog." We barked and said "dog" back and forth maybe a dozen times, then left for the post.

When Mal woke up from his nap, he sat up and was doing something with his hand that looked like snapping. Then he barked. He knows the sign for dog! I was doing it when we were saying "dog' and barking, and even though he didn't attempt it or repeat it then, he remembered it! :D

Ohhh, we're in trouble...

Just a quick update because I really needed to note this.

Tonight, after a long day of construction (of the "some assembly required" kind), Mal and I needed some together time that didn't involve him trying to climb up me while I used an Allen wrench, so I asked him if he wanted to take a bath, and he lit up. He loves baths. And he loves it when I take a bath with him even more.

We got in, and whereas I let him play with the water control when he bathes alone, I make him keep it warm when I join him! We filled the water up, and were chatting as I washed my hair.

After I'd shampooed it, I filled up a water cup and dumped it over my head. I did this several times to get all of the soap out, and while I did that, Mal approached me. But he wasn't trying to nurse like he does sometimes when the opportunity presents itself.

Instead, he had noticed the foamy (though rather pathetic) bubbles that were accumulating around me where the water had rinsed the shampoo off of me and into the tub.

Mal put his hand down in the bubbles and pulled it back out, put his fist into the "o" shape, and then started blowing on it.

That child has watched me make soap bubbles and he gets it!

He's so observant, we already know. Now it's fun to see him putting things together and mimicking them. I can also tell he's going to get into tons of trouble being so inquisitive and sharp.

When James and I were talking about it tonight, I said, "I think he cottons on to a lot more than he lets on." James said, "Kind of like me." I thought about that for a moment, and truthfully told James, "You're the smartest man I've ever met." He kind of looked sideways, pondering this, and started to say, "I don't know about--" but then just said, "Thank you. That's a sweet thing to say." I think he knows that's true, too; he's just really humble.

And now we have a kid with his brain and my... um... I don't know. But it's going to be a ride.