Welcome to Mommy's Toy Review Story!

For about a year now, Mal has been watching Ryan's Toy Review (although, lately, he's been branching out; in part because we finally broke down and got Netflix). Our policy on "screen time" (though I cringe at that pretty useless label) is that we don't suggest it, but we don't refuse it. When Mal wants to play Angry Birds or watch videos or whatever, he can. But he always asks, mostly because he asks us to do EVERYTHING for him. 

Anyway, a few months ago, I got into the habit of, when he'd say, "I want to watch Ryan Toys Aview," I'd use my fingers to draw a box around my face and say, "Welcomes to Ryan Toy Review!" (which is how Ryan, as a young child, recorded the opening). Then I'd hum the opening ditty, and repeat his mom's eternal entree: "Hey, Ryan! What are you doing today?"

At that point, I'd start making up silly little stories that would usually end with disaster, and Mal would say, "NO! I want to watch it on my computer!" But, over time, it changed to, "Do another one!" That morphed into sometimes close to an HOUR of "Do another Ryan's Toy Review!" This is one reason that, as a parent, you should never start anything that creates work for yourself. Rookie mistake.

We have several versions: the original, Brian's Toy Review (which I said mostly to annoy Mal, but he started liking), Mal's Toy Review, and, as of this morning, Alien's Toy Review.

Today, in fact, Mal followed me around the house while I cleaned the kitchen and both bathrooms, just to hear more toy review stories. At one point, we started out with Mal's Toy Review, and in that story, he was training to be a NASA astronaut, planning to test the effects of space on the growth of a child. While he was in orbit, he met an alien. That morphed into his actually pretending to play with an alien, showing it around his room and sharing the alien food with me. After that, we transitioned into the Alien Toy Review, which wasn't in English and didn't tax my brain as much as actually creating a somewhat coherent story was doing.

I was thinking the other day about how different Mal is from D at his age. D was already creating like crazy at this point: painting, crafting, making things out of paper, etc. Mal just isn't into that. He doesn't color. He doesn't really use markers or pencils or pens. He creates by playing very imaginatively. And he "directs" when he has other people playing with him. Nicely, he likes to construct at scene and have it carried out. More honestly, he's bossy. "Say this" comes out of his mouth often. 

Also, D would sit for hours having me read aloud. In fact, I'd have to beg off after chapters and chapters so I could give my voice a break. Mal has a couple of go-to books he enjoys exploring, but they're mostly pictures that he likes to see. In the past few weeks, he's pulling out some fun Sandra Boynton board books, and has asked me to read Mater's Backward ABC book a couple of times in a row.

Now that it's getting warmer, I'm trying to keep Mal outside and in the sun as much as I can handle, in order to have him absorb that vitamin D. This whole week is supposed to be cloudy and rainy, but this weekend was awesome.

On Saturday, Mal swam for a couple of hours at my parents' hotel, and while he didn't go to sleep until 10 PM, he only woke up once during the night (he still took an hour or so waking several times to wake up, but I don't consider it night-waking once the sun is coming up). Then Sunday, yesterday, we went on a walk which ended up as a lake visit (his choice) and in addition to just being outdoors playing, he actually walked 1.23 miles!

He'd asked me to bring a stroller or his bike, but I'd found a "secret" trail (formerly unbeknownst to us) that is super close to our house and that attaches to the Canyonlands trail shown above. It's not laid out like the official trail, and we couldn't have gotten anything with wheels (except maybe a jogging stroller, which I don't have, because let's get real) over it. He handled the distance like a champ until the last hill from the lake to the house, so I did carry him about 1 block on my shoulders.

Mal really surprised me with how brave he was in the water Saturday! He's always been very intent on my being close by. This time, though, everyone was heading down to the pool while I still needed to change into my swimsuit. Mal went with my sister, and was in the water by the time I got there. He started "swimming" in the zero-depth entry, but by the end, was heading into the 4 foot water without me.

I'm hoping to sign him up for swim lessons this summer. This gives me more hope than I had before, because I was a little concerned he wouldn't go into the water without me.

Finally, in a bit of irony... I mentioned in my last post that I typically get <30 views per post now that I'm off FB. Someone apparently shared that post on FB, and I was back up to >200 again. Ha!