Friday, August 11, 2006

Fingers + Drawer = "Waaaah!"

I had to duct tape my desk drawers shut the other day. Simon learned how to open and close them, and that was fine; I put stuff he's allowed to play with in the bottom drawer so he could practice his new skill. Hooray for me! A new activity!

... and then he closed his fingers in the drawer. Not hard enough to do any serious damage, or even to hurt for long, but hard enough to make him angry. I'm not sure if he was mad at the drawer for hurting his fingers or for not closing properly, but he made his scrunched-up angry face, anyway. I took his fingers out of the drawer, closed it, and took him to find something else to do. That's what the books say to do: distract them. Yeah, thanks, books.

He went back and did it 5 more times. I'm choosing to believe that this is a sign of a scientific mind in development. He's re-testing his hypothesis... or something. Whatever, at least he's cute.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Happy Birthday... Almost

My little guy will be turning one soon. I can't believe almost a year has gone by since the day he was born. It's actually a pretty good birth story... have I told you? I will some time, if I haven't already.

It's been a good year. A great one, in fact. The best of my entire life, in spite of the lack of sleep. I never knew that I could love anyone as much as I love my little guy. Don't get me wrong; I love my husband as much today than I did the day we were married... but it's different. The love I have for my baby has often felt so strong I thought my heart would break from it, and I have cried as I held my little sleepy bundle in my arms, overcome by the depth of that love. Many times I have thought that God allows us to be parents so that we can have a small taste of the love He has for us; otherwise, how could we know? It's not a love that begins with infatuation or physical attraction, as romantic love so often does. It is pure, simple, and almost unbearably strong.

Obviously I haven't spent every day with my son crying all over his fuzzy little head and wondering at the mystery of motherly love- practical concerns make that impossible (and thank God for that!). The last year has been full of poopy diapers, sore breasts (sorry, guys), crying spells for both me and Simon, and teething frustrations. It has also been full of trips to the park to see the ducks, amazing growth and learning (again, for me and my boy), and new discoveries every day. I hope I never forget the first time he turned to me and smiled, the day he figured out that he could make things happen by kicking the buttons on his music box, or when he finally decided to start crawling... right for the DVD player.

I guess what I'm saying is this: this has been the hardest eleven months of my life, and I don't expect parenting to get any easier as my boy grows up. But it has also been the most amazing time I've ever experienced, and I thank God every day for giving me the chance to know, love and (scary thought!) raise this special little person.

Wish me luck in another year when we reach the Terrible Twos!

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Simon is getting to be so funny.

A few days ago, he was playing on the floor with his Daddy. Simon noticed that the cover for the x-box (which is serving as our DVD player right now) was open, and he headed over to push the buttons. Daddy closed the cover and sat back down... and Simon kept picking at the cover.

"No, no, Simon," said Daddy. "That's Daddy's. Ta Ta!" We say "ta ta" when we ask Simon to give us something. Simon looked at Daddy... and went back to what he was doing. "Ta Ta, Simon. Ta Ta!"

Now, we all know that Daddy probably should have gone and taken Simon away from the x-box, but I guess he thought he could reason with Simon in the language of "Ta ta". In any case, it didn't work. Simon turned to Daddy with a big smile on his face, said "ta ta," and went back to what he was doing. The two repeated this exchange several times. "Ta Ta, Simon." "ta ta!" "No, Simon... Ta Ta!" "ta ta!"

I probably shouldn't have laughed, but it was too funny. I couldn't help it.

It looks like Simon is getting into the "monkey see, monkey do" stage- in fact, his newest nickname is "Monkey C. Monkeydoo". He's learning lots that way; clapping his hands, banging toys together to make noise... lots of fun stuff!

I think the copying might be leaving him open to the dangers of peer pressure, though. I've been looking after Raya for the last few days; she's a few weeks older than him, and she walks around (though she looks too small to be walking- it's too cute). She came in this morning, as she did yesterday, with her pacifier (soother, dumb-tit, whatever) in her mouth. Simon went right for it. After he pulled it out of her mouth a few times, I dug out one of his old ones from a basket in the kitchen, and he popped it in his mouth. Oy vey... I hope he grows out of this before the "cool" (or stupid) kids are smoking...