February 2009 Archives
Lately, Ollie's language skills have gotten good enough that his brain can construct the sentences faster than he can say them. This leads, first of all, to the world's cutest "Ummmmm...." while he tries to figure out what he's trying to say. Second of all it leads to a fair number of spoonerisms and malapropisms. Tonight during his bath, Ollie was talking about his "Dubber Ruckies", but I missed the best one. Apparently Ollie and Jenny were in the car a few days ago driving home from daycare and Ollie saw a fire truck and got very excited, repeatedly yelling "Tire..." (I'm sure you can figure out the rest ;). I guess after several repetitions he stopped and said in a thoughtful tone, "This is hard" before continuing. Myself, I can't imagine how Jenny stayed on the road for laughing.
It seems like every month brings a new set of catchphrases and funny behaviors. Ollie seems to have picked up on our attempts to get him ready for various transitions ("Ollie, you can play trains for 2 more minutes, then it's bath time", etc) and now announces at random intervals that he's going to run in circles for "two minutes!".
Also, I think he may need to be checked into a Betty Ford clinic; he has a fairly serious addiction to granola bars ("ola bars" in toddler parlance). Since we keep a box of granola bars from Costco in the front seat to hand out to homeless people (you'd be surprised how many actually turn them down), he likes to take a quick detour while climbing into his seat, lunge over the cupholder, and seize a granola bar. A lot of the time he doesn't really even want to eat it, at least not right away, just hold it like some magic talisman. The other night he slept with an ola bar... still in its wrapper. He woke up, picked it up, carried it downstairs, and then ate it. I think he was testing to see if ola bars, among their many wonderful qualities, fended off nightmares. Unfortunately that hypothesis turned out to be unsupported.
I have to reassure Ollie each night right before I close his door that there are no masks in the room and that if any show up, I'll come right back. Tonight he's sleeping with a new stuffed dragon from Barnes & Noble (his current favorite stuffed animal, he picked it out Saturday), maybe that will help.
Other recent favorite activities: He's loving playing with the farm set his Aunt MeMe sent him, especially the tractor and the pigs. He's very into reverse psychology; the surest way to get him to do anything -- eat a new food, give kisses and hugs, climb the stairs for a bath -- is to tell him you do not want him, under any circumstances, to do it. Of course this carries the very real risk that when you then tell him not to do something seriously (such as, oh, I don't know, run out into the street chasing a leaf) he is only too eager to disobey. It's a tough balancing act some days.
Another current favorite game is to pretend to be a froggie, crawling around on the floor and popping up to scare/attack people. We played this game with me lying on our bed and him sneaking all around it for about an hour straight on Sunday. I don't know why a froggie, honestly.
We've planted much of our garden, including starting a bunch of seedlings in a little indoor greenhouse. He loves to check on the seedlings every day--he always tells them "Grow up baby plants, I eat you!" I'm pretty sure he means it as an inspirational speech. Hopefully the plants take it that way. :) Growing our own food and trying new stuff from the CSA basket (which starts again soon) has been a great way to get him interested in all kinds of veggies (and us too, honestly). We went out to dinner Friday at Trudy's, and the only non-water drink we could get for him was a Shirley Temple, which he did not like at all -- he asked for water after one sip. He loves tomatoes and carrots, especially if he can steal them out of my salad, and he'll eat an entire corn on the cob in one go. Tonight we had a really tasty leek and cauliflower tart (Jenny made some awesome pastry dough for the crust) and he loved that too, as well as the leek and sweet potato chowder we had this weekend.
Finally, I give you--the Trouble Face. This is the face Ollie makes when he wants attention and isn't getting it. He walks up to you and makes this face to inform you that if you don't start entertaining him, he's going to start breaking the rules until you do. Frankly, it's really helpful. :)
Also, I think he may need to be checked into a Betty Ford clinic; he has a fairly serious addiction to granola bars ("ola bars" in toddler parlance). Since we keep a box of granola bars from Costco in the front seat to hand out to homeless people (you'd be surprised how many actually turn them down), he likes to take a quick detour while climbing into his seat, lunge over the cupholder, and seize a granola bar. A lot of the time he doesn't really even want to eat it, at least not right away, just hold it like some magic talisman. The other night he slept with an ola bar... still in its wrapper. He woke up, picked it up, carried it downstairs, and then ate it. I think he was testing to see if ola bars, among their many wonderful qualities, fended off nightmares. Unfortunately that hypothesis turned out to be unsupported.
I have to reassure Ollie each night right before I close his door that there are no masks in the room and that if any show up, I'll come right back. Tonight he's sleeping with a new stuffed dragon from Barnes & Noble (his current favorite stuffed animal, he picked it out Saturday), maybe that will help.
Other recent favorite activities: He's loving playing with the farm set his Aunt MeMe sent him, especially the tractor and the pigs. He's very into reverse psychology; the surest way to get him to do anything -- eat a new food, give kisses and hugs, climb the stairs for a bath -- is to tell him you do not want him, under any circumstances, to do it. Of course this carries the very real risk that when you then tell him not to do something seriously (such as, oh, I don't know, run out into the street chasing a leaf) he is only too eager to disobey. It's a tough balancing act some days.
Another current favorite game is to pretend to be a froggie, crawling around on the floor and popping up to scare/attack people. We played this game with me lying on our bed and him sneaking all around it for about an hour straight on Sunday. I don't know why a froggie, honestly.
We've planted much of our garden, including starting a bunch of seedlings in a little indoor greenhouse. He loves to check on the seedlings every day--he always tells them "Grow up baby plants, I eat you!" I'm pretty sure he means it as an inspirational speech. Hopefully the plants take it that way. :) Growing our own food and trying new stuff from the CSA basket (which starts again soon) has been a great way to get him interested in all kinds of veggies (and us too, honestly). We went out to dinner Friday at Trudy's, and the only non-water drink we could get for him was a Shirley Temple, which he did not like at all -- he asked for water after one sip. He loves tomatoes and carrots, especially if he can steal them out of my salad, and he'll eat an entire corn on the cob in one go. Tonight we had a really tasty leek and cauliflower tart (Jenny made some awesome pastry dough for the crust) and he loved that too, as well as the leek and sweet potato chowder we had this weekend.
Finally, I give you--the Trouble Face. This is the face Ollie makes when he wants attention and isn't getting it. He walks up to you and makes this face to inform you that if you don't start entertaining him, he's going to start breaking the rules until you do. Frankly, it's really helpful. :)
Last night Ollie had his first bad nightmare. He went to bed like usual, with only a little fuss, but then a couple of hours later he woke up very upset. He couldn't calm himself down, so Eric went up to see what the problem was. Ollie was crying and asking Eric to stop people from biting him and pinching him. Though we assured him we wouldn't let that happen, he didn't calm down for two hours or so. Poor guy. I used to get terrible nightmares as a kid and want to sleep with my mom and dad. And we tried that, last night. The good part was that he didn't want to go to sleep so instead he snuggled up close and kept petting and kissing me. The bad part was there was no sleep happening for him, so he eventually got moved back to his bed. But he was ok by then.
Not much else happening in the world of Ollie. His cousin Ben recently left. Ben visiting was an interesting thing for Ollie. In some ways he totally loved it. He didn't love that Ben wasn't the greatest sleeper and his room was right next to Ollie's. The first night when poor Ben was jet lagged you could hear Ollie over the monitor saying sleepily, "Go Sleep Ben. Ben, just go sleep!" and then the first night Ben was gone Ollie was muttering, "Ben no crying." I think if Ollie had been getting less interrupted sleep he might have been a more charitable host and less grabby about his personal belongings. Who knows though.
In the last few weeks Ollie has gotten really into telling us long and complicated stories about things that have happened. For example Ollie and Eric were out at the playground by Central Market and they ran into a kid Ollie knew from school, Gibson. For weeks now Ollie has been telling me about how he saw Gibby from school and how they took turns banging on the gong. He also wants to tell me in detail over and over about how he had a bandaid (he got a blood test to check his lead levels) and then we took the bandaid off. I have no idea why these two minor events have made such an impact on him, but they have.
Another thing he does I find fascinating is that he tells me his moods by relating himself to literary characters. When he's feeling crazy and has too much energy he tells me he feels like Max (from Where the Wild Things Are). Oh! And I forgot! He also hides his face and asks in a really good imitation of my voice, "Where did Ollie go? Where did Mama go?" It's hilarious.
We caved and let him watch fifteen minutes of television one day when he wasn't feeling well (and we weren't either). It was Playhouse Disney and he was very into going to Mickey's house. We determined that TV was no good (he started whining and crying when we turned it off), but told him we were going to Mickey's house this summer. In general I think we're going to try to stick to no TV as a means of entertaining him, but be less uptight about it being on for a special occasion (like I like to watch red carpets for events and parades).
That's about all. None of us have been feeling well for awhile around here. First I had a massive allergic reaction to poison oak. Then I had a stomach bug. Then we all had a really bad cold. It will be nice if we just all feel well for awhile.
Not much else happening in the world of Ollie. His cousin Ben recently left. Ben visiting was an interesting thing for Ollie. In some ways he totally loved it. He didn't love that Ben wasn't the greatest sleeper and his room was right next to Ollie's. The first night when poor Ben was jet lagged you could hear Ollie over the monitor saying sleepily, "Go Sleep Ben. Ben, just go sleep!" and then the first night Ben was gone Ollie was muttering, "Ben no crying." I think if Ollie had been getting less interrupted sleep he might have been a more charitable host and less grabby about his personal belongings. Who knows though.
In the last few weeks Ollie has gotten really into telling us long and complicated stories about things that have happened. For example Ollie and Eric were out at the playground by Central Market and they ran into a kid Ollie knew from school, Gibson. For weeks now Ollie has been telling me about how he saw Gibby from school and how they took turns banging on the gong. He also wants to tell me in detail over and over about how he had a bandaid (he got a blood test to check his lead levels) and then we took the bandaid off. I have no idea why these two minor events have made such an impact on him, but they have.
Another thing he does I find fascinating is that he tells me his moods by relating himself to literary characters. When he's feeling crazy and has too much energy he tells me he feels like Max (from Where the Wild Things Are). Oh! And I forgot! He also hides his face and asks in a really good imitation of my voice, "Where did Ollie go? Where did Mama go?" It's hilarious.
We caved and let him watch fifteen minutes of television one day when he wasn't feeling well (and we weren't either). It was Playhouse Disney and he was very into going to Mickey's house. We determined that TV was no good (he started whining and crying when we turned it off), but told him we were going to Mickey's house this summer. In general I think we're going to try to stick to no TV as a means of entertaining him, but be less uptight about it being on for a special occasion (like I like to watch red carpets for events and parades).
That's about all. None of us have been feeling well for awhile around here. First I had a massive allergic reaction to poison oak. Then I had a stomach bug. Then we all had a really bad cold. It will be nice if we just all feel well for awhile.
