For those of you counting the Fiendling is now 31 months old.
He’s been relatively well behaved, listening and following the rules. Instead of running away from the playground to the gazebo down the hill he says, “If I run away we go home.” Instead of jumping on the baby he says, “If I jump on him I have to go to my room.” He’s been sweet to his brother and sweet to me.
Our days have been good. We’ve settled into a nice routine. In the mornings we hang around the house for a few hours so the baby can get in a morning nap then we go out around 10 or 11. We go to a Fiendling-themed activity until 12.30 or 1 then come home for lunch and the baby’s afternoon nap. While the baby naps the Fiendling watches movies, plays with trains, reads stories, colors or we play outside. He usually gets a little rammy by the time the baby wakes, but it’s bearable and I’m usually able to get a few chores done while he plays.
He’s still a pain in the ass at bedtime. Some nights it isn’t that bad but most nights he just doesn’t want to go to sleep. He tosses and turns and screams and shouts then cries and I just want to throttle him. On occasion he wakes up in the middle of the night and crawls into bed with us. He just walks downstairs and climbs into our bed. Sometimes I wake up and bring him back upstairs but other times I sleep through it and find him in bed in the morning. The other night his wake up unfortunately coincided with one of the baby’s. I was nursing the baby and heard the Fiendling coming downstairs. He went into my bedroom and couldn’t find me. He went down the hall into the parlor and didn’t find me there either. He started to walk downstairs so I had to dump the baby in the crib and grab him before he took a stepstool and unlocked the front door when he didn’t find me down there either.
The kid is not such a good eater but he’s not altogether horrible either. He went from eating salsa and Thai curry a year ago to eating mostly fruit and noodles. I hate serving him plain pasta and rice for dinner, but when he refuses to eat what we’re eating I’d rather have him eat something than nothing. Some nights he just eats crackers. Last night he ate sunflower seeds for dinner. Tonight he ate stir fried spicy greens and bok choy with rice, sunflower seeds and raw, whole carrots. Later, after I’d gone to the gym he ate macaroni and cheese. He’s unpredictable.
I think it’s absurd that he says, “Mom, change my diaper. I have poo,” then climbs up on the changing table. He flushes the toilet after I dump the mess then washes his hands in the sink. It’s ridiculous. Yet he has no interest in using the toilet or a potty. He says, “No, I’m just going to go in my diaper.” I’m unwilling to force the issue. I won’t potty train a kid who doesn’t want to be potty trained. But for god’s sake, enough already with the diapers.
You can really have conversations with him now. I’m sure that if you don’t spend a lot of time with him he can be difficult to understand but the level of discourse has really improved. I mean I’m using the word discourse here.
The other day we were watching videos of him on the computer. One of the videos was from his birthday shortly after he’d opened a gift I’d never gotten around to giving him for Christmas or Chanukah. The gift was a bag of play food and he loved it. He was walking back and forth between family members giving them food. In the brief video I asked him to get me some more food. He got a head of cauliflower. I asked him if he could eat it and he mimed eating, nodding his head and saying “yum, yum, yum.” That particular video fascinated him. We must have watched it more than a dozen times before he said, “Mom. Say get me more food.” I said it and he took off down the steps. He returned a few minutes later with the cauliflower and said, “Mom. Say can you eat it.” I asked if he could eat it and just like in the video he pretended to, nodding his head and saying, “yum, yum yum.” We must have played that game for hours. He kept returning with different food items and each time he’d tell me exactly what to say and correct me if I tried to ad lib.
He likes to be assured of things. He’ll see an elephant in a book and ask, “Mom, that is an elephant?” I’ll say yes and he’ll say, “Oh yes, it is an elephant.” Similar exchanges occur numerous times a day. That is an apple? Oh yes, it is an apple. You dropped something? Oh yes, you did drop something.
Speaking of dropping things, when he hears something clatter to the floor (and the inevitable cursing that follows) he’ll ask, “Are you okay mom?” When I say yes he’ll say, “Oh, you are okay.”
He also seeks approval. He often questions if he’s made me, or his dad or his brother happy. Sometimes he’s dead wrong. His brother will be sobbing uncontrollably and he’ll say, “I make him happy!” But most of the time he’ll see me smile and say, “You are happy mom, I make you happy?” And nine times out of ten the answer is yes.
Last weekend he insisted on wearing his elephant costume from his first Halloween. He wore it all day long. He’s a little bigger, but he’s as cute now as he was then.
