Thirtysomething

15.5 Months

Last week was not nearly as bad as the week before, but it did end with a wicked stomach virus. On Friday, I sent Rolo to his grandmother's house while I proceeded to make love to my toilet for the next 7 hours. Awesome.

So far, this week isn't too bad (knock on some wood here). Rolo is coming up with all sorts of delightful new tricks, including being able to open some doors. He doesn't say too many words yet, but he understands just about everything. Sometimes more that we realize: last week I asked him to get his ball, but he couldn't reach it and so he brought me his flash card with a picture of a ball on it. Scary. And earlier this week, he said his first "real" word--by which I mean outside of the usual "mama", "dada", "ba" (bottle, I think) and "dat" (that). I showed him a picture of an apple, said what it was and he promptly repeated "papal", which is close enough to apple for me. It was the first time he's really made an attempt at repeating something we've said, so I can only hope that "no" and "shit" are close to follow.

He's totally in love with his 4 cousins and points to their pictures nearly every day, demanding to be picked up to see them better. When he sees his only male cousin in person, he's completely infatuated and tries to copy everything he does. It's sweet.

Rolo's gotten much more settled at school. He never cries when I leave him anymore--unless, that is, there's something out of the normal routine. Like his mother, he craves routine. Today he had a doctor's appointment, so I brought him to school late. It was just before lunchtime and that I was dropping him off without his usual breakfast ritual proved to be too much for him. But even then he only cried for a minute before he started playing with his friends.

His obsession with books continues and he occupies himself for a long time, flipping pages and pointing to things. I read to him every day in the mornings and evenings. His other obsession, dogs, is still in full gear and he's added SEPTA buses to the list of things that fascinate him. Since our walks include passing by many dogs and many buses, it's never-ending entertainment.

He'll sometimes throw full-fledged mini-tandrums now, complete with kicking, screaming and occasional face-clawing (mine, not his). They only last a few seconds, but they may a daunting reminder of things to come. So far, I've been calmly explaining to him that he must be feeling frustrated or angry, but that [insert bad behavior here] is not acceptable. He can be surprisingly reasonable but I'm sure "time outs" are soon to be in my future.

I'm sure I say this every time I post about him, but it never ceases to amaze me how much of a little boy he is. If he wasn't so tiny, you would think he was about 4. And as my life continues to morph into something else than what I imagined (just today I had to give a presentation to senior execs right after the doctor's appointment, so I showed up with a sippy cup in hand), I'm still grateful every day to have this little guy.

Labels: Rolo

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 9:22 AM