Simon is becoming more of a character every day. Inasmuch as ‘character’ means mostly adorable, occasionally insufferable, and often hilarious. He seems to develop a new peccadillo every week, and I’m writing this as much to capture them for posterity as for entertainment value.
For instance, he’s picked up a couple of phrases from the bigger kids at daycare, and I’m by turns mortified and amused every time they come out of his mouth.
The first is a very blasé ‘That’s BORing.’ Any time he doesn’t want to do something, wear something, eat something, it’s ‘BORing’. Imagine it uttered with all the disdain a teenage girl could muster, multiply it by three an infuse it with a world-weariness unprecendented in your average two-year-old.
The other is a very staccato ‘No way!’, as if whatever you’ve suggested is the most idiotic thing he’s ever heard.
“Simon, would you like a banana?”
“No way!”
Or:
“Simon, could you please let go of the dog’s lips?”
“No way!”
He’s also exhibiting vaguely alarming tendencies to hoard things, and to depend on rituals. Bedtime has become a complex series of arcane protocols – first books, then the story of his day, then soothers (three, always three, and he will cycle through them looking for just the right one. If one is not to his liking, he will pull it out with a very lispy “Too small,” and repeat until he finds just the right amount of suction and resistance. And yes, they are all the same size.) I’ll push play on the CD player to start the lullabies, place him into his crib, and start the blanket ritual. He must have at least three or four blankets. It can be February or July, but if he sees a blanket you haven’t put on him, he will hector you for it – he’s kind of like a reverse princess and the pea, except he’s the pea. And then there’s the de rigeur rounds of “Hey, you! Put your feet down” as you place the blankets. And he needs companionship as well. Just now, I put him to bed with three blankets (it’s 25C in his room), Gordon, Percy, Scoop, Wags the dog and Dorothy the dinosaur. There’s barely room for him in there.
I have this image of him, twenty years in the future, in a bingo hall somewhere. He’s about 6’5″, 300 lbs, and you’ll loose a finger if you touch the collection of treasures arrayed out in front of him with his bingo daubers. Either that, or he has to touch the doorknob five times before he leaves, tap the glass twice, turn around once, and walk to his car without touching any of the cracks in the sidewalk, with one eye closed and his finger resting against his right earlobe.
If only I could argue with any conviction whatsoever that he doesn’t get it from me.
How adorable!
I never cease to be amazed by how much toddlers are their own little people already. Somewhere in my head I had it that this stuff wouldn’t present itself until kindergarten and that they’d remain generic little bundles of pudding until that time. Boy was I wrong!
“He’s also exhibiting vaguely alarming tendencies …to depend on rituals.”
You really need to curb this right now… Immediate action; psychiatrist stuff. Because if you don’t the next thing you know he will be separating his Shepherd’s pie into 3 piles, the corn goes here, the mashed potatoes there, the beef over here…
Hey look and apple, on the ground, right under this apple tree…
Go figure.
I love walking bags of quirks – like me.
We’re just getting into this too. I laughed out loud reading it because I heard Erich’s voice in the “NO WAY” though his favourite saying is, “I NO WANT THAT!!!”. For us, it’s the obsession with orange. There’s crying and yelling whenever I remove anything orange from his person. I hear that they get over it so don’t get too used to the 300 lb bingo daubing version of your son in the future. Until then, watch your fingers when approaching him…
The dance we have to do to get all four kids to sleep by 9pm took a while to learn. They all have their little rituals and quirks. Kiss me this many times, where’s my water in the cup with my name on it, turn off this light, but not that one. I’m ready for bed when it’s all done!
I just laughed out loud about the dog lips ‘No Way!’. Hey, he’s passionate; that’s what he is. He knows when he must do something!
Great post. I’m going through something similar with Baby Girl as she seems to have picked up all of my charms (including my hatred of loud noise and my penchant for peppering everyday speech with the f-word). Yikes!
Gee I really hope he is not in a bingo hall playing bingo at 22 years of age. HOPEFULLY He’ll be in university and out having some fun.
😉
Sounds like you have a card there Dani.