New Tricks

In the past, we've posted to this blog using the first-person narrative style. I think that seemed a little saccharine, and got boring pretty quickly. There's only so many times you can you can write things like, "Ooh! These round things turn out to be potatoes," without sounding repetitive.

However, I often find myself faithfully trying to relate Leon's latest behaviors to his grandmother when she visits. I figure these little events could stand to be recorded, if for no other reason then that I'll be able to answer Leon's questions about himself when he grows up. ("When did I learn to count?" "Gee, I can't remember exactly when...") For those of you that we haven't shared the good news with yet, Leon has a very special present that'll be delivered a week or two after his second birthday. This blog might hopefully be a good way of recording his reactions to a new baby in the house.

So, let's give "microblogging" a try, in the hope that it's more useful and entertaining than nothing at all.

Here's some recent history, just to catch up to the present. Leon has an expansive vocabulary in sign language, and continues to learn more signs. His first sign was, 'milk,' which probably also meant Mommy for a time. We all learn new signs from a series of DVDs called, "Signing Time." Recently we've been trying to get him to use multi-sign words like, "good morning," "breakfast (eat morning)," and, "pajamas (sleep clothes)." He also speaks single words, and picks them up equally quickly. His first spoken word was, 'more,' as in, "more food please."

True to his Chinese-Italian background, he loves food. His favorite food is undeniably cheese, but any sort of berries are tops on his list as well. He isn't very picky, but will gladly ignore mushy vegetables if there's meat of any kind. He is as likely to hold a spoon (usually in his left hand), as he is to pick food out of his bowl. He eats oatmeal every morning, and recently we put some dried cranberries in to jazz it up a little.

Leon is inevitably exposed to technology. He is fascinated by my iPhone and laptop, but not for any reason you might guess. He sees both devices as wonderful ways of viewing pictures of himself. He learned this from my laptop's screensaver. Any time he sees either device, he goes to it and pleads, "Bibi! Bibi," to get us to start a slideshow. We try to limit his TV time, but without it, Jean would probably never manage weeknight dinners. Occasionally he points to the TV and demands, "Street!," hoping we'll turn on Sesame Street. If I give him an old Nintendo 64 controller, he'll sit and "play" a video game with me for a short while.

He's a very active boy. He barely managed lying on his back, and hated tummy time. When he was approximately 8 months old, Leon stopped playing with any toys and concentrated on hauling himself up to a standing position. He walked shortly afterward, and now he runs. He only sits still for TV, and usually gets bored before the end of an episode of Sesame Street or Signing Time. For Christmas, Leon got a variety of musical instruments, including a xylophone and bongo drums. He loves to hammer on them.

About seven months ago, we realized that children need to be taught how to go to sleep, and that we had no idea how to do so. We'd been letting him stay up until he got tired, sometimes 10pm or later. This was a big mistake, so we read a few books and gathered some advice. Now we start the bedtime routine at 7:30pm, and he's typically in his crib shortly after 8:00pm. We tried letting him "cry it out," which sort of worked, but was never satisfying. Now, I stay with him till he's asleep. This is less stressful, and he realizes that the crib isn't a terrible prison to which he's abandoned when we're done with him every night. Some nights, he even skips story reading, and points straight to his crib. Unfortunately, he's recently started waking up terrifically early. Perhaps the winter storms are waking him up. We try not to go to him until 06:00am. If we do so, he won't fall back asleep, and we'll all be exhausted. For example, last night he was restless from 02:40 to 04:00am! After alternately dozing and crying for 80 minutes, however, he finally fell back asleep. We all slept late, past 07:30am!

This is turning into a much longer post than I'd intended to write (from my phone, no less), so I'll get to the recent stuff.

This weekend, we attended a potluck and had dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. Leon stuffed himself with enthusiasm. So much so that he threw up, both days! Before this, he hasn't so much as spit up in months. Cleaning the restaurant's unfortunately fabric-covered chair was challenging. It gave me a great excuse to grab the check, though. We left an enormous tip.

As I mentioned, we've recently had abnormally stormy and wet weather. Several times I've resorted to escaping the house by taking my two L's (Leon and Luna) to my high school. There, we walk underneath the covered walkways, protected from the rain. He loves to dance in the puddles (see video posted to flickr), but I leash him with a monkey-backpack so that he doesn't get totally soaked, as he did that first time.

Anyways, Leon tolerates hats and hoods now, but mittens are still too cumbersome. His poor hands turn pink on these walks! So, yesterday, I tried something different - I stuck his hands into the tiny pockets of his fleece jacket. It worked like a charm and he got it immediately. For the first time ever, Leon can walk with his hands in his pockets. Now he can point and touch as much as he likes, then retun his hands to a cozy place. I feel better about taking him to the high school and mornings at the dog park now that he can do more to keep warm.