Have I Mentioned This? (It's about Mal...)

Forgive me if this isn't something I've shared before, but my son talks. A lot. He basically talks all of the time, and even if he's watching a video, he might be talking or just mouthing the words (and wanting me to watch) or humming.

I've taken to wearing wireless earbuds and listening to podcasts while he rambles maybe 40% of the time. I'm not proud of this, but it's necessary for my sanity. He doesn't stop. He doesn't stop when you say, "Hold that thought; I need to use the restroom." He doesn't stop when I've explained that I'm going to do chores outside and I'm standing with the door partially open. He doesn't stop when James and I are watching television. He DOES ask us to pause what we're watching before he drops the life-shattering news on us though, so that's something.

He just has a lot to say.

Today, we had gotten out to wash the car (cedar waxwings ate a bunch of hackberries and pooped alllll over my car... twice. This time was worse than the first, and those berries are RED and stain.), and on the way home, I told him, "I forgot that I bought French fries! If you want, I can bake some when we get home." Mal said, "No, thanks. I only eat fries from five-star restaurants."

I will say that we have some tentative good news! For the past week or so, when Mal has gone to use the restroom, we haven't had to clean and change his drawers. So, after almost a full year of working on things, it looks like maybe... just maybe... his sphincter muscles are regaining their tone? Oh, goodness, I hope so. For him and for us. 

Mal has spent the past week playing with his new Minecraft LEGO stuff, making lots of bead art (the stuff you iron and it looks like 8-bit graphics), and today because it was on a video he was watching, he had me get out the Lincoln logs we received as a hand-me-down from a neighbor. I dig all of the creation. He's also gotten Super Mario Maker 2 back out and is making new levels on that.

Oh! For a New Year's gift, we pre-ordered Lego Star Wars, the Complete Skywalker Saga, for Mal's Switch. On December 31, I went in to check the tracking, and it has a release date of December 31, 2021! Duh! It was supposed to come out on October 20, 2020, and it got pushed back to spring 2021. I guess they just have that late date so they only have to change it once, when a real release date comes out. Good times.

Here are some pictures of Mal's past week.

Collaboration Overload

My younger child has a new passion: Sharing information.

Malcolm likes to tell us (and especially me) what is going on. At. All. Times.

For instance, Mal was watching Mickey and the Roadster Racers last night. After watching a couple of episodes "with" him while I cleaned up the kitchen, I went into the back room to take out my contacts and get dressed for bed. While I was back there, he hit pause and ran back to tell me something amusing he'd enjoyed at least four times.

When we were at my parents' house last weekend, every time my Dad would say something funny, Malcolm would run into the room where I was (which, in an open floorpan, is basically the same room) and repeat it.

Mal plays a lot of Lego Star Wars right now, and he was already pretty big on the "Watch this!" then monitoring that our eyeballs were pointing at his screen at all times. But now, he stops playing to ask which characters we think he should play (and sometimes he does play them, but usually he already knows who he wants to utilize); he also will wonder out loud, "Who can use the force for this part?" even though he knows the answer... and will wait until one of us chimes in to proceed.

Adding to some frustration and exhaustion here is that he still just doesn't not know (or care?) about conversation etiquette in any fashion. James and I will be mid-sentence in an involved conversation, and he'll just say, "Hey, um, also..." and tell us something about what he just saw on TV or something funny he thought of.

Beyond interrupting is that he can't seem to listen in order to have an actual 2-sided conversation. He's been to Bricks and Minifigs (a neat, unauthorized LEGO reseller) a few times, and the people who work there seem impressed with his knowledge of characters and vehicles. They've tried to engage him with their own cool tidbits, and Mal just doesn't seem to be able to accept information instead of saying, "I know but, this is..." and going on with what he wants to talk about.

After I started this blog post, he decided that he wanted to play with his Sonic characters, and I told him I'd join him as soon as I was finished. He's been standing by me ever since, talking to me about his dad's Rubik's cube, or asking if I remember something that happened yesterday... even though I tell him I'll be ready a lot faster if he leaves me to finish this one thing and play alone a few minutes.

I'm trying to pull back and see a "big picture" concept where I can help him steer this "strength," whatever it might be, into a constructive and not annoying path.

But right now, I'm just too tired. My brain hurts.

When Pretending is Serious Business

Today, Mal's eye caught on fire, so he had to come into the doctor's (my) office for a shot, as one does. I gave him a shot, and he proceeded to tell me that I needed to use the hammer. I tested his reflexes, and there were none, but that could be because the hammer is plastic and I wasn't getting near any tendons.

As the exam went on, he kept telling me instruments I needed to use, ending with scissors. I proceeded to cut off his big toe and replace it with a Play-Doh prosthetic (pretend, also). Mal got really upset and pretended to take off the prosthetic toe. "I don't want Play-Doh! Give me something else!"

"I can't. I super-glued that on. You can't just take it off."

Mal started to get genuinely upset. "Give me my toe back!"

Then he changed tacks: "I want a tire."

So I put a tire on his toe.

"Not that one. That's yellow. I want a black tire."

I put a different one on.

"That's brown."

Then I pretended to use a spray can. "Shhhhh-shhhhhhh shhhsshhh. There I painted it black."

Brightly, "Okay! Thanks!"

And that was all for playing doctor.

Later, Mal was playing Paw Patrol. Recently, I rearranged his closet to fit more stuff in it. It looks great and works like a charm... until something needs to be removed. I'd just taken down the giant Paw Patroller, and pulled out a bunch of track pieces and the lookout tower. I was sitting in the floor when Mal decided he wanted to get out his Cars, too, to play "Car Patrol."

"Okay. Your cars are right there, just inside the closet."

In fact, I'd just picked ALL of them up and put them away to make room for the new play sets. Mal, who was sitting halfway between me and the closet, said, "You get them!"

"Nope."

Mal insisted louder that I get the Cars. At one point, he got mad that I was playing with Rider on a bike and took him from me, hiding him on the far side of the room and walking much further than he would have had to in order to have gotten his cars.

"Mom! You get them!"

"Why can't you get them? You're much closer and they're right there."

"Because I'm scared of the monster!"

"Well, so am I. I don't like monsters."

"There are no monsters that live in my home; there's only me and my family."

"THEN YOU CAN GET YOUR OWN CARS!"

"NO, MOMMY, YOUUUUU!!!"

He climbed over me and asked for "deedees" and kept insisting I get his cars. At some point, we got back onto the monsters. I told him I was still scared, and to prove to me that there weren't monsters, he opened his closet door, revealing the Cars bag.

I pointed this out, and he hid behind me saying, "But I'm still scared!" I told him I was, too. He said, "But the monster will eat me because I'm a kid! He won't eat you!"

"Yes he will! He'll say, 'Look! There's a big lady. I'm not wasting my time with this little kid. I want the giant treat!' Then he'll eat me and poop me out later and it'll be really gross."

I can't tell you what happened after that, except that neither of us got the cars and a few hours later, when one of Mal's friends came over, he did try to get the cars himself, but the bag got hung up on a drawer knob. Again with the "everything fits, but just don't try to move anything."

And this, friends, is why my brain is how it is these days. This is how I spend my hours. Good times. Gooooood times.

More Stuff Mal Says

Lately, chatting with my little is an absolute hoot. What comes out of his mouth belies so much of what's taking place in his mysterious mind. So here are some examples I want to remember.

The other day, Mal asked me to go do something with him, to which I agreed. He lit up and said, "Really, you will?! That'll be precious!"

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One night he wanted to make pancakes, so we just threw stuff into a bowl and every time he had an idea of something we should put in  (mostly food coloring), he pronounced, "It will be FAB-uh-luss!" Over and over again.

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Today at Little Land, Mal was obsessing over the 18-month-and-under play area, affronted because there was a kid in there who was over 18 months. I told him that I was sure it was because he had a smaller sibling in there with his mom. This conversation started, beginning with Mal:

I wish I had a baby so I could go in there!
You want a baby?!
I could be a babysitter.
Yes, if you were a babysitter, you could go in with your baby. Maybe when you get a little older.
I'm getting bigger right now!
But you need to be a little more mature before you can take care of a baby.
I can be a babysitter.
Okay, if you were a babysitter and your baby didn't feel good, what would you do?
Hug it.
What if the baby were hungry?
I'd give it breakfast.
What's breakfast for a baby?
A Popsicle.
What would you do if the baby threw up?
I'd clean it up.
What if you needed help? Who would you call?
Spiderman.

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James and I have discussed lately the unfair reality experienced by most families: That the kids go to the mom for EVERYTHING, regardless of which parent it would be more convenient to approach. Today, James and I were both hanging out, lying on the master bed, while Mal played with his cars in "Radiator Springs" (the cat condo). He said, "Mommy! Wake up!" I suggested, "Why don't you ask Daddy to wake up?" He reasonably answered, "Mommy, no! Daddy's sleeping!"

Then James laughed so hard he cried, and the same again later in the day when I brought it up again.

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Along the same lines, later I was working in the kitchen. Mal had gone to the back restroom and passed his dad in the hall to come ask me to help him put his underpants back on. I told him to go ask hi Dad to help as I was in the middle of something. He went to the back of the house yelling, "Daddy! I need Mommy!"

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Mal wanted mashed potatoes the other night, and the only potatoes I had were little new potatoes that had been cooked in a beef stew. Because of the carrots and tomatoes, the potatoes did have an orange tint, but I made extremely tasty mashed potatoes out of them and handed them to Mal. He received them with, "This isn't right. Try again, Mom."

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In pulling out his desk chair, Mal accidentally knocked it over. Very understatedly, he said, "My beautiful plan... Ruined."

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We were eating with my parents recently, and Mal asked my dad something. Dad responded genuinely, but Mal thought he'd said something about boogers. Mal reprimanded him, "Pappy, don't be a jerk."

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I think on these things when I'm lamenting how tired I am, how hopeful we were when we removed caffeine from Mal's diet and he was sleeping hours on end for a while but we're back to the same or worse than usual, or how monotonous so much of parenting a tiny person can be. It's also very rewarding and outright hysterically funny much of the time. I'm grateful to get to accompany this kid through his days.

More Stuff Mal Said...

There is a dark cloud hanging over my head right now, and I wish it'd go away. I know it's circumstantial: a mix of hormones, issues my immediate and extended family are having that don't directly affect me but that I bear because I care about them, and then some personal disappointment today when something I'd really been looking forward to doing didn't pan out.

So.

To combat that, I'm going to share some stuff that Mal has said lately. It's like his vocabulary just went from nothing to every word in the universe all at once. That, plus now when he wakes up from a deep sleep, it takes him a while to transition, but he's still super verbal so will often say things that don't make sense or that are impossible.

For instance, he'd taken a rare nap yesterday, and the first time he woke from that, he woke up asking me to "fix it" an pointing vaguely at his leg. When I asked him what he wanted me to do, he said, "Pull that. Mommy, you can. Push it!" Then when I asked again what he wanted, he said, "I need batteries." I asked, "You do? For what?" He said, "My neck!" and pointed toward his throat. I laughed so hard at that, and so did he. Then he fell back to sleep. When he woke up the next time, it was to report that someone had stolen his books.

Last night, he woke up at one point asking for a dragon sucker. I told him we didn't have one, and he started crying. "Mommy, get one!" I told him I would. He said, "I want it now." So I said, "Okay. Here it is." Then he said, "I don't want that one. I want a Paw Patrol sucker." Then we had to start over with my staying we didn't have it.

When we were out today, Mal was very sad that I wouldn't plough more quarters into some machine he wanted, after having paid $8 for him to play in the "bounce park" where he refuses to go into the inflatables at all, because the ambient noise scares him.

Anyway, we'd gone into the restroom (still waiting for him to use the toilet in public; nothing so far) and he was bawling, complete with snot running down his face. He never likes for me to wipe his nose, and this time as I went at him, he said, "No! I just want to cry!" "You can cry!" I assured him. "No, I can't. You wipe it off!"

Oh, and last night he woke up, upside down and hanging half off of the bed, so I grabbed him up to reposition him. At that, he yelled, "No! No! MOMMY!" I said, "Sweetie, I *am* Mommy." "NO! Mommy! Not you!" I said, "Mommy has you, sweetie." Then I kissed him on the head. He softly cooed, "Aww, Mommy."

Last night, we'd driven out to see the sunset from Sunset Deck. In the picture above, Mal is telling me, "The dinosaurs are coming!" I guess dusk ushers them in?

Mal's latest interests involve: using tools to play with Play-Doh, playing "dirt" with his marbles and "instruction" trucks, and "driving" around the house in his "car" asking, "What's the problem?" and wanting us to give him something to fix.

There is more, but Mal has been asleep for almost five hours already, so I need to go to sleep NOW to prepare for the inevitable pre-dawn wake-up. *yawn* Did I mention that I'm 45 now? Not surprisingly, the frat boy schedule of a toddler is not getting easier as I "mature." But, goodness, what a fun age.

Speaking with Mal

Here are a few snippets from conversations with my son this morning, in the space of about 2 hours:

MAL: Eww. Earwax.
ME: Yummy!
MAL: No! Earwax is gross. Boogers are yummy!

Later, Mal handed me something that looked like a seed.
MAL: What's this?
ME: (realizing it wasn't hard-shelled) Um, did it come out of your butt?
MAL: Yes.
ME: Then I think it's poop.
MAL: Not, it not.

MAL: Mommy, deedees!
ME: Sweetie, there's not any left.
MAL: I just need two deedees!
ME: We already did two.
MAL: I just need five deedees.
ME:...
MAL: They're not tired! They're just closed! Right there!!

Permanent mood

And here's a bonus conversation with that child's dad, many many hours later.

ME: Good morning! Are you hungry?
JAMES: Yes.
ME: What sounds good?
JAMES: You want to do that thing you mentioned? With the pies and the cheese and the video games?
ME: Um, no. You can't do Chuck E. Cheese on the weekend unless you get there right when it opens.
JAMES: Is it too late for that?
ME: What time do you think it is?
JAMES: About 8?
ME: It's 20 'til 1.
JAMES: Wow. Thank you.

I think we can all agree I'm the best wife. I don't think I've ever even made a honey-do list. :)

Have an entertaining weekend, people!

Let's Talk

Mal was slow to the verbal game, but now that he's off and running... He seriously cracks me up every day.

Today, he was having me be "the horse." Okay, sidebar story: "The horse" is actually a beautiful giant white pegasus puppet. When D was little, we bought it on Amazon (before Prime) for a friend's birthday. It had been like $65 but was on sale for $5. I used to have a limit of $7 on any birthday gifts for D's friends, and I always managed to come up with some cool stuff. Anyhoo, the pegasus didn't get to us until after Ansley's birthday party, and we'd gotten her something else, but D loved the pegasus, anyway, so we kept it. And now Mal loves it.

So.

I was being "the horse" and Mal was showing her (Mal says she's a girl) around his room. He got to this toy boat he has for his (at this point theoretical) baths, and said, "Horsey, here's the door, and here's the steering wheel, and here are the stabilizers." Um, what? I'm pretty sure that's from Peppa Pig. And they're actually where you'd tie up to the dock, but I'm not correcting him.

Tonight, I defaced a $30+ pair of Hanna Andersson pajamas (I didn't pay full retail, though!) because Mal REALLY wanted to wear his "stars and Ms" PJs (Wonder Woman; look at the logo and think of it from his perspective, viewing it from above), but they're winter pajamas and we're looking at near-record heat from now until the earth ends, apparently. So I cut off the arms and the legs. It's not like he could have worn them this winter, anyway. He's growing like crazy.

Look at this! The picture on the left was a year ago today, and the one on the right was last Tuesday, I believe. Now, he has been wearing those shoes for a year, but they are almost too tight. The clothes he outgrew long ago.

Before James got home this evening, I put on makeup for the first time in a long time. He doesn't usually notice/care about that kind of thing, but I was feeling mehh and wanted to spruce up. A couple of hours later, we were all in Mal's room, James finishing up his dinner, when Mal came over to me to hug me and said, "Mommy, so beautiful! Wearing makeup!" Hey, at least one guy in this house notices.

He's a fun kid, and he likes to go out and do things, but he can also be a homebody. Several times, he'll ask to go somewhere (the pool, Nana and Pappy's, the library) and once we get all dressed and ready to go, he's on to his own other thing and acts affronted that I'd suggest we go anywhere.

Lately, he's taken to saying "I'm scared" when he doesn't want to do something. I have to be careful with this one, because I do want to be sensitive to any fear he has. But also, he says it about going places and doing things he loves.

He DOESN'T love taking baths, but today was the first time he's told me he was scared. That, I get. He thinks the water is too loud. So I'll need to start filling it up before he gets in. We need to do that tomorrow. He has dirt tracks down his legs. Seriously.

Although I don't think it's therapy-worthy, Mal definitely has some sensory quirks. He is weird about noises being "loud." HE is loud. Loud isn't what bothers him. It's unexpected or prolonged or something out of the ordinary that bothers him. He will often turn his tablet down so low there's no way he can hear the words. The "air kites" down by the lake make him nervous, and although they're likely loud if you're riding in them (paragliders with fans), they're by no means "loud" at our house.

Mal has this battery-operated "drill" that has been slowly winding down for weeks. Finally, Monday, it stopped working altogether, so I had to switch out the batteries. On and off for four hours, he cried about how it was "too loud! Make it quiet again!"

Also, if it's windy, he thinks it's cold and that we need jackets and hats and gloves and scarves. There's no convincing him that it's hot and windy. He will say "brrr" when the wind blows, even if it's 85 degrees and 75 percent humidity in the full sun.

So I try to pay attention to what he's actually experiencing and take it seriously as a mystery to be solved, because he's trying more and more to communicate how he wants things. It's exhausting but fun work!

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!

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!