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!

Verbal Explosion

Mal was slow to the talking game. I wasn't worried, though, because D was, too, and by the time that kid hit 4 years old, my poor old brain tapped out several hours before bedtime from the onslaught of constant words.

And, sure enough, now that Mal's caught on to some language basics, every day he seems to have a few more words in his arsenal.

He went from not really putting two word sentences together to just talking. He will often just use two or three words, but sometimes will just go off with a full sentence or two.

One thing that's cute is that he often past-tenses the wrong word, if he's using an phrasal verb: "Mommy! You came backed!" "Mal jump upped!"

At least he's saying "jump" now. For a while, he pronounced it "gump." And if he says he wants to "jump (or gump) rocks," it means he wants to throw rocks out at top of the grotto. Just FYI, if you're ever over here and it comes up.

Oh, I just asked James about stuff Mal says, and he mentioned that today, Mal was counting through things on Starfall and doing pretty well, so I need to mark for posterity's sake that for several weeks/a month or two, he's been counting fairly consistently like this: "One, two, eight, seben." I guess he's getting it right now, so that's kind of a bummer because it was pretty cute the other way. Ironically, he can count down from 5... but it always ends with "blast off!"

The best part about Mal's newfound ability to express himself is that we get to peek into his brain. For instance, here's an exchange from when we passed a fire hydrant the other day.

MAL: Siren truck?
ME: Yes, that's for a fire truck. It hooks up a hose to spray water on the fire.
MAL: Fire *hungry!*
ME: Yes, the fire *is* hungry, but it eats wood and houses and other stuff. The water actually puts the fire out.

He does seem very concerned about the hunger of others frequently. I'll tell him it's time to start getting dinner ready because Daddy will be home soon. "Daddy hungry!" I'll tell him that we want to save one yogurt for D. "D hungry!" The dog will drink water out of the watering can outside. "Doggy hungry!" We're working on the difference between hunger and thirst.

Last week, Mal and James both had doctor's appointments. James' was for his Achilles' Tendonitis and Mal's was just a well-check/meet the new doctor thing. As we were getting ready, I explained what we were doing.

MAL: Daddy nervous?
ME: I don't think so.
MAL: Mal nervous.
ME: I'm sorry you're nervous! I'm not. The doctor will just look into your eyes and your nose and your mouth and make sure you're getting big and strong.
MAL: Mommy nervous?
ME: Nope!
MAL: Mal not nervous.

(Note: he actually says "nerbus.")

The other night, as he was getting ready for bed, he asked, "Monsters coming?" I said, "No! There are no monsters in this house." "Mal safe?" "Yes, Mal's safe." "Mommy here." "Right. Mommy's here, and no monsters." So he hugged me and said, "All better."

He still breastfeeds *a lot* and I'm really trying to discourage it as much as possible by distracting him during the day (it's hopeless at night, because he gets upset and wakes himself up crying and trying to get to it himself). He gets so desperate that sometimes he'll parlay a typical toddler spill into a demand for "deedees." If he falls down or trips or hits his hand on something or is even mildly upset by the dog stealing his food or something, he'll cry, "Mommy, deedees. Feel better."

That child.

In addition to this, if he hurts himself, he'll say, "Dr. Anna's office?" This is the doctor on Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. Honestly, I tried to find a female Indian pediatrician around here because that's what he expects, but there wasn't one close enough. (We ended up with a great doctor, anyway, it seems.)

He has a sense of humor, too. He'll play along and even take over when we ask questions that are definitely wrong. He'll ask, "Mal girl?" or "Mal puppy?" and laugh, and usually end by asking the appropriate question. Then on to "Mommy boy?" etc.

Usually, when I say things like, "Sorry, Mal can never eat again. No more food!" he'll just laugh and say, "Yes, food!" But tonight, I was moving his computer out of the way so we could pull his bed out. He said he wanted to watch ChuChu TV, and I said, "Nope. No more ChuChu TV ever." He wailed, "Yes, more ChuChu TV!" I guess I shouldn't be silly when he's really exhausted.

One thing that we don't do is  tell Mal, "Say thank you." Or "Say please." That kind of thing. If someone does something nice for Mal and he doesn't express gratitude, I do it. Well, it's funny because started saying, "No, thanks." And, "Thanks so much." I thought he must have gotten that from television, too, but now that I'm listening for it, I say it often enough. Today, after Mal had taken a swig off of my soda, he burped and followed it up with, "Excuse me!"

Sometimes, though, I can't understand what he's saying (although, necessarily, I do better than most in terms of translating his toddlerese). The other day, he said something like, "Fefferknees?" and he smiled really big.

ME: What?
MAL: Fefferknees!
ME: (thinking) Strawberries?
MAL: No! (grinning bigger) Fefferknees!
ME: I don't know what that is.
MAL: Fefferknees!
ME: Fefferknees?
MAL: (ecstatic) YES!
ME: I still don't know what that is! Can you show Mommy?

Actually, that probably happens 2 or 3 times a day. And sometimes he can show me. Other times, we just have to wing it.

Misunderstandings happen pretty often. He's pronouncing things phonetically, the way he hears them, and not always as they are spelled. I think he is saying "Pancakes, Nana Pappy's house." And tell him next time we go, he can have pancakes... then realize, because of what he's watching on TV, that he's saying "Pink eggs, Nana Pappy's house." And that actually makes more sense.

He calls an umbrella "ungabunga." This goes along with his early speech development, where anything that had a difficult tongue movement was pronounced "blub." "Quarter" was "blubblub." Incidentally, he can say "quarter" properly now, though he cannot with any consistency, identify a quarter.

There's more I'll probably think of as soon as I lie down, but I want to go do that right now. My body feels like we fell back instead of sprung forward!