6:35 AM.
Waiting.

Math or Verbal?

Since enrolling in full-time daycare six months ago, Miles's counting and speech skills have developed from barely existent to fairly elaborate.

My three-and-a-half-year-old now counts like this:
"...ten, eleven, fourteen, nineteen, two-teen."

He can recite days of the week very fast.
"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Sixday."

I heard Miles sing-screaming this last week. I was in the kitchen, he was two doors down in the toy room.
"...Buckle your shoe! Three, four, pick up sticks! Five, six, close the gate!"

Clearly he's balanced. He's not annoyingly strong on either the verbal or math side, just perfectly centered somewhere in the middle. Yes, he's perfect.

He has learned so much in daycare, things I couldn't single-handedly teach him. The teachers insist Miles is an enthusiastic helper and a great listener. More than one teacher has noticed that Miles can cut square and circle shapes with the precision of a boy months older. But what I find most endearing of all his recent changes, is how being in a large, multi-room facility, under one enormous roof, can shape my boy's language.

Our home is a quarter-mile away from a house with a barn and a horse. Miles will ask me once a week: "Want to take a walk down the hallway and see the pony?"

Prepositional Confusion

The post-Thanksgiving sales commercials came on last night.
"Toys For Us," Miles yelped, recognizing his favorite store.

Miles learns new songs at day care every week.
"Who let the dogs down?" he hoots now while in the shower.

One of his favorite pre-schooler shows is The Backyardigans. "It's O-tay to me," he might say, "if we watch Back-on-agains."

Other popular nomenclature mishaps:

The very hungry caterpillar, according to author Eric Carle, eats and eats and then builds a little home from which he will emerge as a butterfly. This home, according to Miles, is called a Racoon.

 

Since I last posted, we moved out of state, bought a fish fry restaurant, and had a baby boy.

To help us find our way though some of these transitions, my sister Eileen visited over the weekend.

On Saturday morning, Eileen took Miles blueberry picking at the farm down the road.

When Miles came rushing home, he was holding a basket of blueberries in his left hand, and a small shiny thing in his right.

“Momma, I have a shiny thing for youuuu,” he said, passing in front of my eyes what looked like part of a snap for a garment.

I thanked him and told him I loved small shiny things.

A few minutes later he rushed into our bedroom where Charlie was sleeping.

I had learned in a college psychology class that sometimes toddlers and preschoolers give inappropriate gifts to their newborn siblings. A salt and pepper shaker was the example the professor gave.

Remembering this, I grabbed my camera.

“Smell my finger Mommy.”


I should have known better.

I had been at the computer for almost 30 minutes. Miles had been sitting on the potty, watching a TV show. We were making great toilet-training progress that day last week. And at the time, my son’s finger looked clean enough.

I leaned toward his extended index and inhaled an unmistakable odor.

“Was this in your heinie?” I asked, knowing the answer.

YES, he said, with the same amount of enthusiasm he would have used if I had asked, “Miles, cupcakes for dinner?”

I suggested he take a whiff of his own finger. “Pee-yew,” my son said. “Stinky.”

I guided him to the bathroom to scrub his hands and talk about dirt and germs.

Later I chastised myself for not suggesting a bubble bath. That would have been the ultimate clean fun activity, since we could have chatted more about hygiene, and I could have scrubbed his heinie and his hands at the same time. Sort of.

Yesterday I got a second chance to teach in the moment.

Miles stole my computer mouse while I was online. I chased him laughing through the living room and out to the deck. He tossed the mouse under the picnic table. I grabbed it, turned my back to my son, and shoved the mouse down the front of my trousers.

Miles was baffled. He grabbed my wrists and examined my hands. He searched behind the curtains inside the sliding glass doors.

The mouse began to creep down my 7-month pregnant belly, bypassing my crotch and lodging on my right thigh. I threw my hand down my pants, rescued the mouse and held it high in the air, triumphantly.

“You hide it, Momma!” Miles shouted, sounding proud of me. “You hide it in your ja-eye-na!

What? I asked, knowing the answer, just needing to hear him repeat it.

“You hide it in your penis!”

No, I corrected, I put it in my pants.

“Pee-Yew,” Miles said, running away from me, “You have stinky ja-eye-na!”

I halted. Since the dawn of my puberty I have lived in fear of stinky-vagina-osis. Now that I’m pregnant, and in my opinion, more susceptible to the condition than ever, I bathe twice a day. Apparently, it’s not often enough.

But thanks to our recent smelly finger incident, I was prepared for any odorous orifice situations.

“Well, if I’m stinky, then I’m going to take a bath.” I headed upstairs toward the master bathroom, my head held high.

“Me take bahsh too,” my son announced, grabbing my hand to ascend the stairs together. “I have stinky penis toooo.”

I am sitting at an intersection on Long Island in rush hour traffic and someone inconveniences me by not signaling.

“Nice using your blinker, asshole,” I say in my voice reserved for tri-state driving.

From the backseat Miles recognizes my tone and instantly asks:
“Fucking drivers, Ma?”

At least that’s what I hear him say, and I choke on my laughter because he’s done it again: He has dispelled my anger by imitating me at my ugliest. It’s my favorite kind of comedy.

There is no time for me to respond to his query. My three-year-old hardly takes a breath before uttering a list of trucks, such as dump trucks and back hoes, and I wonder for a second if I am off the hook, if maybe he didn't use the F word, and so aptly.

But I am pretty sure his expletive skills are somewhere near a 14-year-old's.

While taking the long way to school this morning I hear Miles say: "Me found school bus store."

I look around but see only medical buildings.

He says it again, and points left. "Two bus store" is what I hear this time.

I mull it over. "Yeah?" I say, eager to acknowledge his eagle eye vision, but I am struggling to make sense of what a bus store is. Pizza Store is the pizzeria; Tractor Store is either Home Depot, Lowe's or Tractor Supply Company. I am befuddled by Bus Store.

This time, with more gusto, he says, "Brush Your Teeth Store, Momma, me found it. Back dare."

And then I realized we had just passed my dentist's office. Toothbrush store, that's what he was trying to tell me. I'd taken him with me last month for my check-up, my first in almost a year, and we walked out with two new toothbrushes in hand. We hadn't passed this way in some time.

Eagle eyes.

Consonant Confusion

This week, according to Miles:

Barn and farm rhyme. The terminal M sound is very prevalent in our language, at least in our home. Telephome! is what he calls when my handbag or jacket pocket chimes. Often he'll sing, "Wheels on bus go opem and shut..."

A shellph is what you might find Sally selling down by the seashore.

Chicken rhymes with turkey and baloney.

There was one more, I will post again when I can remember it.

For anyone who's counting, Miles has up to five babies in his belly. One is Jack, the other is Baby Jack, and three, four and five are as yet unnamed.

A few months ago, Miles crept into bed with us at 6 am. He sneezed and I whispered “God bless you.” In his early morning creaky voice, he said, “Bleshyou too, Momma.”

Yesterday I chirped “Morning!” at the site of him in his footsie pajamas. “Morning toooo,” he lingered as he hugged me.

This afternoon, right before his nap, I told him how proud I was of the way he shared toys at a kiddy party we had just attended. I told him how I really liked his friends but that I especially loved him.

“You know why I super duper love you?” I asked, leaning in for a final kiss, hoping it would help send him off to sleep. “Because you are my son.”

“You’re my son, toooooooooooo,” he said, patting me gently on the back.

On Thursday night I knocked over a reading lamp in our bedroom.

From downstairs, on the couch, Miles heard it crash.

He looked wide-eyed at his dad, clapped his palms to his face, and said, Fuck!

Damn me and my potty mouth.

One morning last week, I saw something that reminded me of my dead mother-in-law Lorraine. She passed away about a year ago. I still cry when I think of her.

I was in the closet collecting laundry when I saw a hint of a greeting card that she gave me years ago.

That’s all it took to get me hurling through time, re-living past moments and re-scripting last conversations.

In general I am so good about letting dying people go. Last week however, I was not so open-hearted about Lorraine’s departure. I was irrational. I was sad and lonely and angry. I re-felt the pain of the loss of her, my mom and my father.

I did not express my turmoil quietly or gracefully.

I scooped up an armful of dirty clothes and wailed through my sorrow. I headed down two flights of stairs toward the washer/dryer in the basement.

From the kitchen, Miles heard me.

He asked what I was doing.

I detoured to him and told him I was crying.

Why? he asked.

I stalled for a second, not sure I was ready to delve into the dead grandma topic.

“Because I’m sad,” was all that I could offer.

“You miss Chippuh, Momma?”

Oh my god, I thought. How closely this kid can read me.

Chipper is our pet cockatiel who died four months ago. Miles speaks only of the yellow bird in relation to his grandmother, and he recites how they live together in heaven. Miles has never brought up the subject of Chipper without being prodded.

To the best of my knowledge, Miles has never used the verb to miss.

My son's timing for dead bird chit chat was striking. Why didn’t he suggest “Boo-boo, Momma?” as he does when he sees me catch my finger in a closing door, or re-acquaint my toe with my bedframe?

To explain Miles's uncharacteristic show of empathy/intuition, I could say that he probably hasn’t seen or heard me weep aloud since the week Chipper died, and therefore associates my tears with yellow birds.

But I’d rather believe he thinks of Grammy and Chipper as one beloved, absent entity. I want to believe he took one look at my forlorn face and read my mind.

But that’s me. I’m pretty good at attributing SuperChild powers to my son.

DISCLAIMER: I am five months pregnant, and all observations I make today and this day forward should not, and can not, be used against me in a court of law.

Just to temper what I relayed regarding Miles’s outstanding empathetic powers, I need to disclose what he said a month ago, when I asked him what we should do with the new baby when we bring it home this summer.

I gave Miles some ideas such as "Give it some milk?" "Kiss it?" "Hug it?"

“Troe it in darbage?” Miles said full smile, lilting his palm toward our kitchen waste receptacle.

Since then I encourage Miles to kiss and wish the fetus good morning and good night on a daily basis.

I think we are making progress.

Today he shoved a small monster truck up my sweater, near the largest swell of my belly, and said it was for the baby.

Chipper died.

It was Monday morning. Chris found our 15-year-old cockatiel horizontal on the bottom of the cage.

Chris petted Chip’s head feathers for the last time. We both kissed the bird good-bye.

I helped open the Ziploc bag. Chris slipped the yellow bird in it, then rolled the bag into the size of large cigar. He opened the freezer and said something but I couldn’t hear him. He cleared his throat, lowered his voice by a few octaves and said, “We’ll bury him in Vermont the next time we go.”

Miles awoke after his Dad left for work.

Part of Miles’s daily ritual is to bid the birds good morning.

I prepared Miles that there was only one bird now, not two. That Chipper was in heaven with Grammy. That we wouldn’t be able to pet him or see him any more, only in pictures.

Miles is at a speech development phase where he echoes back the last word of some of my phrases. I was trying to not cry while I spoke, but my voice was cracking and weak.

Chip-puhhh? Heh-vin? Miles would confirm at intervals. My heart, already in pieces, melted at each of his questions.

The next morning, Miles came downstairs and asked, “Yellow tweet-tweet?”

I tried for an analogy.

“You know when the battery in your monster truck dies? And the truck won’t move? It’s dead?"

“Ja,” Miles said in his best Swedish. I don’t know when he became Swedish but he does a good Ja.

“That’s what happened to Chipper’s body. It died. His heart stopped working. He stopped breathing.”

“Ja,” Miles repeated, looking into my eyes.

“We can’t go to the store and buy another body for Chipper like we do for batteries. He’s gone, he’s with Grammy in heaven. He died.”

"Ja," he blinked. "Milk?"

And that was the end of that.

I was so exhausted Friday afternoon that I thought it would be OK to grab a pillow and just recline a bit on the cool bathroom floor tiles as Miles bathed in the tub. It was about 3 pm, and Miles had not napped once during the entire beautiful-weather week.

I was completely horizontal, locking my eyes on my child’s, when he said something that sounded like “Pancake, Momma?”

I repeated it. He rejected my interpretation.

"Bankate, Momma. Bankate?"

Backache? I echoed back to him. Oh my sweet son, he’s asking if I have a backache. Isn’t he a sensitive love?

Bankay, bankay, bankay, he said, straddling the tub, dripping wet.

Belly ache? I wondered. I did mention I had a belly ache this morning.

Miles’s wet bare feet soon padded past my head, and he repeated this indecipherable word as he headed through my bedroom, down the hall, and over to his room. "Be careful!" I called to my naked-and-on-a-mission son, who has a pretty excellent sense of balance, but still, I should have gotten up and investigated, or at least dried his feet.

When he stalled in his room, I figured it out: Blankie.

My two-and-half-year old boy left his warm and playful tub to retrieve and deliver to his lazy ass, floor-hogging mom one of his blankets from his crib. He wanted to ensure my comfort needs were met as he sudsed up.

I was curious to see what he’d bring back, as I knew his quilts and blankets were heaped on the living room couch where we left them earlier that day.

Bankaybankaybankay (I could hear his footsteps and mantra getting louder as he got closer).

“Bankay, Momma?” Miles asked as he appeared at the bathroom doorway, a diaper cloth in his right hand. He carefully stretched the rectangular white cloth between my chin and waist, and made a sound that sounded like, There, Blankie, Momma.

Then he straddled the tub wall and plopped back in the bath. He resumed playing monster trucks with his boats (he aligns his rubber ducks along the tub wall then takes a toy ship and steamrolls over them, all the while chanting "must-huh-chuck.")

If he's not certifiably a genius then certainly his EQ has to be off the charts.

Ok, well, if it turns out that his emotional intelligence quotient is just plain ordinary, then let it be known, for sure, height-wise he's off the charts. All the pediatric physician assistants say so.

My sweet son.

 

Underwear Bandito


I know it’s sick, sick, sick
It happened when I was washing down the tub
When Miles was doing other things
Like making jewelry out of my Jockeys
But really, despite the symbolism
I'm OK with it for now
Because he's so cute cute cute

The best and worst memories from Summer 2007:

I was planning on an overnight at my friend’s Long Island shore house. Miles and I (no Chris this time) were going to drive our car onto a ferry that would transport us over the Long Island Sound. Miles is very excited to board any boat of any size, especially one that travels fast, or fash, as he says.

Aloud, I reviewed what we had shoved into the back of our car: Pack N Play, towels, swimsuits, flotation devices, clothes, sandals, sneakers, toiletry bag, diaper bag,, handbag, baby pillow and blankets, two sippy cups, and a cooler bag of milk and snacks.

“What else do we need to take the ferry to the Mary’s?” I asked Miles, knowing no answer would come.

“Wah-wah?” he responded, three fingers tapping his chin, his version of the sign for water. “Fash. Wah-wah.”

Don’t tell me he’s not a genius.

Ok, maybe if he said “Biodiesel ferry fuel” or “Forty-seven bucks for a one way ticket, including the fare for the vehicle's passage" well then I guess certifiably he’d be a genius. For now, he’s just a parent-accredited genius.

But don’t get me wrong. In this blog I tend to write only the tender stuff, and ignore the awful painful behavior befitting any two year old.

For example, on that ferry ride, Miles had such a tantrum —- the kind where he screams, hits, bites, scratches and kicks me until he gets what he wants -— that I physically restrained him in a dining booth near the ship’s snack bar. Our struggle lasted a sweaty five minutes.

I am sure we collected stares, but I didn’t care, a first for me. I think it helped me that the roar of the engine muted his yells by 50 percent, and the walls of the booth were high, so we were partially hidden as we battled wills.

The important thing is that my son and I survived our struggle; afterward we kissed and hugged and held hands as we strolled to our car parked below deck.

Since that summer day I have new, better tools geared to decrease this unwanted behavior; I have much firmer and clearer boundaries and expectations. Time-outs occur daily, sadly, but I’ve been bruise, lump, and scratch-free for weeks.

The Very Worst Summer Memory:

Me telling Miles that I didn’t give a fuck about his boo-boos.

Could it possibly get any worse? I believe this is grounds for getting your parenting license suspended.

Miles had just sunk two fistfuls of fingernails into both sides of my neck, as I carried him from the pool to the parked car. He was non-verbally telling me he didn’t want to leave, and I no longer could bear his physical aggression. It was beyond his nap time and I guess mine too. I was pissed and hurt and I forced him into the car seat, somehow irritating one of his pre-existing leg bruises.

“Boo-boo,” he cried, rubbing his shin, when I uttered the offensive phrase. How terrible of me. I spoke to my child in a manner that did not show empathy or love, right after I caused him pain. Sure, I was hurt but hey, I’m the adult here.

On my local PBS station there are interstitials that remind parents of our role as teachers; we teach our kids how to handle stress by our real life examples. What a poor lesson I taught Miles that day.

This exchange occurred the same week as the ferry struggle, and since then, after I had the equivalent of Super Nanny (my best friend Anne-Louise) visit my home for a day, times have changed dramatically for the better. Thank you God.

Is it ok to use the F-word six paragraphs before referencing God? God I hope so.

Summer Update: De-Minted Communications with A Two-Year-Old


When I ask “More meat?” he hears “Mint?”

When I ask “Want to go to Vermont?” he hears “Mint?”

And when I am running late and I place him on the bathroom sink counter while I continue to get ready, and he hands me my toothbrush smothered with a green gel-like substance, I think mint, as in toothpaste. And when I shove that toothbrush into my mouth and quickly discern that it is not toothpaste lining my teeth and gums but instead a strip of my husband’s antiperspirant/deodorant, I sputter and growl a four-letter word which sounds nothing like mint. This happened only once, last month, and Miles laughed and growled the bad word right back at me.

Speaking of which, Miles has one very sweet bad-sounding word in his growing vocabulary.
When I say "Fox?" Miles says a word that sounds like luck but begins with an F. We have a family here in our town whose last name is Fox and I insist now that Miles address the father as Mister Fox.

In early June I bought Miles some blue rain boots. For a week he called them boops and I refused to correct him. OK, confession: I encouraged it; I encouraged my two-year-old son, tender and new to this complex language of ours, to speak incorrectly. I referred to his boots as boops at every opportunity, and there were many that week because he insisted on wearing them almost daily during a 90-degree heat wave. To my chagrin and his credit, he corrected himself before the weather broke and ever since has called them boots.

Three weeks ago, my son and I were playing our own special game What Else Can Miles Hang From (Besides Mommy?). I had a brilliant idea. What if I brought the broom into the den and somehow balanced it between the chair and the couch? I pictured Miles having fun while improving his hanging and balancing skills.

As I imagined this, I barked, "Broom!" and I darted to the kitchen. Miles followed me, joyous, squealing, his right hand in a fist, his wrist twitching. I was intrigued, but not understanding the meaning of this peculiar happy dance. Then I heard him confirm with me, "Brrooooom? Brooom-brooooom?"

I soon realized he had an imaginary set of keys in his right hand, pretending to start a make-believe car. He and my husband play VroomVroom in which Miles gets to sit on Dad's lap behind the wheel of Dad's parked car, and play drive.

Poor Miles, his Mommy don't play that. I avoid the car, especially in summer. To see his face fall once I explained how Vroom is different than Broom, it was enough to make a good mom haul her only child out to her car and fake drive with him.

I, so eager to stay out of my car, instead tried to perk up my deflated son with one word: "Mint?"

It has been a big week. Miles expanded his 2-word phrase repertoire beyond
“No, me!”

Beebee Duck?, or "Baby duck?" is Miles question for “May we please stop by the pond in front of the condo and look for the five or six goslings that just hatched?”

Daddah Sue came out yesterday, Milesspeak for "Daddy’s shoe." Miles was inside our front hallway, wearing one of dad’s bigger-than-a-bread-box Nikes, begging us to go outside and play.

Must-huh-chuck – this is growled, just like you would imagine any male would utter the mystical two-word combination “Monster Truck.” We have a Hard Hat Harry video (we actually have a 5-pack DVD set) and one segment features monster truck footage and education. My brother would like this video; Anne-Louise says her boyfriend would like this video. It’s Miles’s pick-o-the-week.

Moo stah is “moon and stars,” which not only refers to the moon and star-shape lamps we got from Ikea last month, but is a direction I call out during tub time when I try to shampoo Miles’s hair. He does not yet understand how the horrors of hair washing could be minimized with a gentle skyward tilt of his head, but he is getting closer everyday.

Other achievements:

Miles can trike up and down our community driveway. This was big. He started last week but perfected his form over the weekend.

This morning Miles got pretty far in his attempt to change his diaper. I found him upstairs diaper-free, with a tube of Balmex in his left hand and smears of white cream on his right hand and heinie cheek. I commended him for being a self-starter and taking initiative.

Nap's over, I can hear him thumping the slats of his crib now.
More later.

Paper Tucks

“Tuck,” he says, and points at the pen holder on the desk.

There is nothing near the plastic box of pens that looks like a truck, but I try to become two years old and imagine it. In the pen container is a yellow highlighter and a black pen, and near it is a dollar bill, a business card, an envelope of photos, and the computer's external hard drive.

Miles points harder and becomes more adamant. I point to almost all the items, and he tells me no to each one. He finally stretches his too short arm as close to the business card as he can. “This?” I ask in disbelief, and he says "Yeah."

With the card in my hand I twice confirm that the flat piece of paper is a truck. Twice he yeses me.

My son then points to the minuscule UPS logo on the bottom of the business card, next to the small FedEx logo. He looks at me and says, "Tuck." Miles recognized the quarter-inch square UPS logo and I guess associated it with the giant chocolate brown trucks that appear in our condo driveway at least twice a day.

Tuck, he says again, gently assuring me he’s right. And I think, my son can read! He is a genius!

Last night I was explaining to Miles why I thought our lives would be better without the paci.

"I can hear you so much better without the pacifier," I started. My fear is that he'll end up with a lisp due to prolonged use of the paci. I read somewhere that some docs believe the device might prevent proper development of tongue muscles. Our pediatrician told me to wean the boy off the paci a year ago. I'm getting to it.

I try to speak to Miles as if he understands everything I say, and to a great extent I believe he does. I warned him last night that the paci might be putting his tongue in the wrong position. To demonstrate, I started mixing 's' sounds with 'th' sounds, conjuring memories of Cindy Brady and teeter-totters.

Not surprisingly, Miles wasn't interested in hearing my speech about The Brady Bunch or speech pathology. The garbage can was seducing him, again.

"Miles please," I pleaded, "look me in the eyes." He resisted.

"I need to talk to you. The paci might train your tongue to be in the wrong position, resulting in incorrect speech—

"Choo choo? Choo chooooooooooo!" he interjected, piercing my eyes with his, suddenly eager to hear what I had to say.

I collapsed on the kitchen floor. He heard the word train. I called to my husband (who was unloading the groceries) because I needed someone else to know about this milestone misunderstanding, and how, like me, Miles is adept at hearing what he wants to hear.

I am guessing this is our first mom-son miscommunication, aside from the times when Miles signs in the dark and I am lost until I can grope his hands.

Dang this English language. Train.

We had a play date that extended well beyond Miles's mid-morning nap. On the short drive home, my almost two-year-old fell asleep in the back of the car.

As I carried him up to the kitchen, he began to wake. We listened to a snow plow as it scraped around in our driveway. The sound of any truck approaching (FedEx, the local recycling company, the garbage hauler) is an exciting noise to Miles.

I placed my son in the Learning Tower, a glorified step stool with railings, and positioned him in front of the window.

I sliced up two pickles and fed them to the mesmerized window-watcher. The slices could have been popcorn, Miles could have been watching a thriller. Every so often, "Mar" (more) would bubble from his lips. I was pretty sure he was requesting more pickles but it could have been he wanted more truck action. Miles used to wake up and immediately sign "outside." Now he awakes, signs for milk, and says Tuck.

I started to defrost some shrimp when I realized the “Mar" utterances had ceased. It was oddly quiet now that the Bobcat snow plow vehicle had drifted away from our condo wing.

I looked up from the thawing shrimp to see Miles slumped over the window sill, his head resting on a fluffy raccoon toy as if it were a pillow. With half open eyes he managed to mumble one lonesome wistful word: Tuck.

I slipped him into the crib, pretty sure of what he'd be dreaming about.