Tuesday, Jan. 31: Quiet Riot

Gavin has decided that nap time is ruckus time at day care. This is most unfortunate since all of the kids sleep in one room and with one kid (my kid!) raising hell, none of the other kids get their naps, either. Which means these kids go home crabby and as a result their parents probably end up pretty crabby, and anyone who has to deal with their parents probably end up crabby... And so on. Basically Gavin is causing a chain-crab-reaction and is destroying the very fabric of polite society. Alas.

On Jan. 25 the following was written on his report: "Very disrespectful - screaming and laughing. He woke up our friends that were sleeping. :("

We talked to him about the importance of being quiet during nap time and the rest of the week he was cool.

And then the weekend happened and I guess his brain got reprogrammed. Monday's report: "Gavin was very disrespectful when trying to put other children asleep - He chose to sit at table with book. He was hitting the book - we tried crayons - threw them on the floor - we tried markers - colored on himself. :( We had to sit in hallway because our friends were sleeping and his choice was not to be quiet for them."

Note that Gavin was given several options when it came to spending his nap time hours. He doesn't even have to sleep! But he does have to be quiet. Considering naps last for 2 hours, that's a lot to ask of a little guy. And clearly some days he just can't handle it.

Stacy was really freaked out by this report and even started talking about pulling him out of day and getting a nanny, but when I talked to Debbie, one of his teachers, she didn't seem that concerned. I mean, obviously Gavin's Quiet Riot moments weren't ideal, but she's been working with toddlers a long time. And he isn't the first and won't be the last to "fing" his blanket (that's "fling," by the way, a word he learned at day care after Shelly told him not to fling his blanket). And she said that he's great with everything else. But he's acting out in part because of his age, and in part because we've taught him to be an sociopath. I'm kidding. At his age all kids are sociopaths, though the goal is that they grow out of it. Which he will do.

My friend Claire's Facebook status from today made me laugh really hard: "I used to think the most beautiful sound was a child's laughter, but now I know it's actually the sound of a child getting out of bed, using the toilet, flushing and returning to bed all on their own." Some day I will know this joy. Right?

Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012: Big Bad Wolf

At our house you're either a wolf or a pig. And Gavin gets to decide.

On Tuesday morning he woke up with a dry diaper and then peed on potty. As the Big Bad Wolf. He's pretty obsessed with the Three Little Pigs right now. We have the Disney version of the story, a Little Golden Book. And Stacy and Gavin watched the cartoon in Spanish on YouTube. Gavin cried at the part where the wolf blows down the straw house. "I don't like when the house blows down," he said. Stacy stopped the video and explained it was for pretend and Gavin said he wanted to keep watching.

Later he and Stacy staged a recreation of the scene from the story where the Big Bad Wolf shows up at the pigs' door disguised as a little lamb. Behold:

Last night Gavin peed on the potty at Grandma's house after I gave him a bath (we were using my mom's house as a warming shelter while our power was out. Thankfully it was restored before we had to spend the night there. Although that would have been fun. Still, it was a school night). He didn't even have his potty seat. I put my hand on the small of his back to steady him and he gripped the edges of the toilet seat. Had it been a public restroom I wouldn't have advised such a thing. In fact, I would have explained to him that public restrooms were why diapers for grown-ups were invented.

On Saturday we went to the July Babies Parenting Group monthly get-together. Gavin had a pretty awesome time, especially since there was a drum he could play. It was the kind that goes around your neck, which he recognized as the kind the monkeys play in Hand Hand Fingers Thumb. He got pretty wild and crazy, jamming out with his friend Colin who not only was born around the same time as Gavin, he's also in Gavin's daycare. At the party Gavin composed an original punk rock song called "Goodbye, Elmo." The crazy thing is, in the video you see the beginning of his creative process, but the song now has complete and consistent lyrics:

Goodbye Elmo
My daddy's knockin at the door
Santa's coming
Yow!

Mind you, proper performance of the song includes lots of head shaking and jumping up and down. But Gavin basically wrote a song. Which just proves that he's the coolest kid in the world. Oh, and I asked him about the lyrics. Since he doesn't have a daddy I asked him if the daddy in the song was Elmo's daddy, like maybe the voice of the song switches from the speaker (Gavin) to Elmo and back. Gavin looked at me and after a beat said, "Yes." Though I know he has no idea what I'm talking about and it's probably pretty nuts to over analyze the lyrics of a two-and-a-half year old's song. And anyway, when he composed the song he was surrounded by daddies. In the video there are a couple dads of the other kids and Gavin is talking to another one whose voice you hear. So basically Gavin was just making poetry out of his surroundings. Here's a video of the beginning of the creative process. It's not the whole song because he wasn't done writing it yet. Though he just sang it to me this morning and then again this evening and it's still intact in his adorable brain.


In the kids say the darndest things department, we had this conversation tonight before dinner:

Me: "My eyes hurt so bad."
Gavin: "Why your eyes hurt so bad?"
Me: "Mommy was chopping onions."
Gavin, turning to Stacy: "Mommy, you hit Mama D with a sharp knife on the eye?"
Stacy: "No" (and then something to Gavin in Spanish about how I am very sensitive).

Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2011: Amniotic hot tub time machine

Gavin is now starting to not only notice but also articulate the fact that most of his friends have a mommy and a daddy, not two mommies. He doesn't seem bothered by this or anything, it's just one of his many observations (and trust me, nothing gets by this kid). But I suspect it may start to bother him at some point and I'd say that we'll cross that bridge when we get there, but we're trying to help him picture the bridge in advance, so to speak. We have books, including Why Don't I Have A Daddy? which Lisa gave me for Christmas and I have not read yet. We have another little story book that I got way back when I worked at Between The Lines. We even made him a book ourselves explaining the process that even includes a photo of the donor. Still, he'll no doubt always have questions and the best we can do is answer them as best as we can. It's just that, well, I know that the best we can is sometimes not going to be very good. Granted, this is true for all parents. No matter how you were made there are some things you just don't know (a lot of it you probably don't want to, actually). The idea that you grew from the size of a poppy seed to the size of a watermelon while hanging out in an amniotic hot tub inside of some lady is hard enough to wrap your brain around.

I last recalled Gavin's experience watching Santa die before his eyes. I'd like to report that this has now become one of his favorite stories to tell. He sings all of the time now. "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Ring Around the Rosie", "Omit Donald had a farm"(because the farmer's first name is Omit, according to Gavin. If you, as Stacy once did, refer to Farmer MacDonald, Gavin will correct you. It's Farmer Omit Donald, got that?) and, lately, "Jingle Bells," which is the very song Santa was singing during his demise. Basically whenever Gavin sings that song it triggers the memory and he'll stop and tell you, "I was singing 'Jingle Bells' like Santa" and will then go on to tell you that he was riding in a golf cart with Granny and Mommy and that they saw Santa singing and that he fell down "because he wasn't being careful."

We have had several more peeing successes on the potty (I'm talking about Gavin, of course. I, myself, am pretty consistent with that, thank you), but no poo. We tried big boy underpants this weekend after a successful on the potty pee, but after awhile he peed his pants, which he, no surprise, did not like and was kind of panicked about. They were his red Thomas the Train underwear (although the train adorning them is not Thomas, it's the red train, who has a name but I don't know it. Gavin does, mind you, and he did not like that he peed on this particular train for which he has some fondness for reasons I will never understand but will support as much as I can because I love my son.

Speaking of pee, Brenden and Lisa came to visit shortly after Christmas. I say speaking of pee because Brenden is fully potty trained and when Gavin is around him he gets very inspired. Gavin peed at least once in front of Brenden, which followed immediately after Brenden had both peed and pooed in our potty. Gavin was SO determined to poop. The poor kid just couldn't do it and was seriously crestfallen. It was one of the saddest things ever. Especially since he did manage to pass some audible gas, which gave us all false hope.

That's not to say Brenden and Gavin didn't have lots of non-potty related fun together during Lisa's oh-so short visit. See for yourself: From now on this is going to be my go-to video whenever I need a pick-me-up. I never tire of watching these crazily happy boys.

It's really interesting to see Brenden and Gavin together because they're so close in age (Brenden is just six weeks older). Gavin has sprouted over and above Brenden in the short time since we saw them last. He's taller and weighs a lot more. As far as development goes, both boys are within normal ranges and everything, but it's interesting to see that Gavin's verbal skills are a little more developed while Brenden's potty skills are way more developed -- and have been for a long time (Brenden's basically a potty prodigy. I still am amazed at how early he was potty trained, especially since we're just now trying to do it ourselves). Maybe it's because we're teaching Gavin both Spanish and English he spends so much mental energy trying to understand and speak two languages that he just doesn't have the energy to not crap his pants. It's a process. Some day he'll use the toilet and he won't even need a Rayo McQueen potty seat as an incentive.

Friday, Dec. 23: Dead Santa

Here in Florida at Granny Marilyn and Grandpa Paul's house Gavin is sleeping in a "big boy bed," which is a full size mattress on the floor of the bedroom across the hall from the one Stacy and I are sleeping in. Every other time he's been here he slept in a Pack N Play but he's way too big for that now (he's been on several scales since we've been in FL including a big old-timey scale at Publix and on each one he's weighed about 37 lbs.). This is the first time Gavin has slept in a room by himself in a bed he can actually get out of. It's gone well, though he has locked himself in the room several times now. The first time he did it he'd woken up from a nap and I thought I heard the thump of Paul's shoe organizer which hangs on the back of the door (the room is a spare bedroom but is where Paul has a lot of his clothes). I put my ear to the door to listen because I wanted to be sure Gavin was awake before I went in. And then the door knob rattled a little bit, but when I tried to open it I could not. I knew this wasn't good, but I also knew that he's a smart guy and could probably unlock it since he's the one who locked it in the first place. I called to Stacy, "Hon, Gavin's locked himself in the bedroom." My goal was to inform her, not to panic her, though her first course of action was to run past me out the front door saying, "I'll go check his window!" It took me about 1 minute to talk Gavin through it: "Turn the little button in the center of the door knob, Bud." His response? "Gonna." The knob wiggled a bit more. I repeated my instructions and he repeated his response. Then he did it and I opened the door before Stacy could throw a rock through the window or something.

I have a bad habit of expressing my impatience to Gavin by saying, "Are you going to_________, or what?" Now, that blank can be filled with anything from "put your shoes on" to "pick up your trucks," it doesn't matter. It's always something he doesn't particularly want to do. And so each and every time he answers, "What." He's too smart for my own good.

Paul let Gavin use a band saw, which nearly gave me a heart attack. Not by himself, and completely supervised, mind you, but still. If you ask Gavin about it he will excitedly tell you that he cut a diamond. A diamond shape, that is, out of paperboard. I am going to have nightmares about Gavin losing fingers for months.

Stacy is giving Gavin a bath right now and I can hear them singing a song in Spanish (Stacy is doing most of the singing) and they keep inserting names of people Gavin knows. They've said, "Mama D" twice, and both times my name got big laughs. I have no idea if this is a good thing or not.

So the Santa lie has begun. I'm not sure how I feel about this. What's the benefit of deceiving Gavin for the next five or so years of his life? I know it's all in fun (right?), but I don't claim to get it. I don't remember when or how I learned that Santa wasn't real, so I can't say if it was hard news for me to take. I remember in elementary school that Courtney Perna believed in Santa longer than anybody. But now judging from her Facebook profile, she's successful and glamorous, so it must not have damaged her that much.

Actually, Stacy, Gavin, and Marilyn saw Santa die last night. They were driving around in the golf cart to look at Christmas lights (I opted out, offering to clean the kitchen instead, that's how much I like Christmas light tourism). At one house there was quite the display, the yard decked out with a life-size Santa on a little stage in the middle of the yard. He even danced and sang "Jingle Bells" and Marilyn swears he almost looked real. That is until he danced himself off of his platform and fell face first into the ground where all singing and dancing ceased. Stacy and Marilyn laughed and laughed but Gavin put his thumb in his mouth and announced that he wanted to go back to the casa. Can't say I blame him.

Friday, Dec. 9: Seriously, David. No.

Two of Gavin's favorite books right now are No, David! and David Gets In Trouble by David Shannon. Personally, I'm not such a big fan of these books. In case you're unfamiliar, David is a little boy who does many naughty things and in No, David! is scolded by his mother and in David Gets In Trouble repeatedly denies culpability for his transgressions. In the later book, there is a page that features David trotting off to school clad in underwear and his mom trailing behind him waving a pair of pants. The text on the page reads, "I forgot!" Taking our cue from this book, Gavin and I have played the "I forgot" game in which he runs around the house in his diaper and I chase him with a pair of pants. It's good fun. Sadly, most of the things Gavin has now seen David do repeatedly in the book have inspired imitation of bad behavior. Especially chewing with his mouth open and putting his finger in his nose. I do not find thesethings cute. I could, perhaps, find all of these things forgivable if it wasn't for the profoundly disturbing image of David cowering under a sink with a bar of soap crammed in his mouth next to the text, "But Dad says it!" It's just such a horrible thing to do to a child. I've taken to skipping over that page altogether when Gavin and I read the book because I don't want to have to explain it to him. For one thing, he doesn't even know what swearing is (not that he hasn't heard some in his time) and he certainly wouldn't understand that the consequence for repeating something he heard a grown-up say in front of him is to be forced to suck on a bar of Irish Spring. I keep meaning to glue the pages together so that we never have to look at it again. I know I can't shield Gavin from every unpleasantness on earth, but, like I said, I don't want to have to explain to him that David is eating soap because his parents are assholes. 

And I know I would have to explain it because Gavin is hard core into the "Why" stage right now. I know this is something that a lot of parents find frustrating. On the one hand, it's amazing that your child is so curious about the world and so interested in learning about it and is looking to you as his guide. On the other hand, it'd be nice to have something to eat without having to answer questions like, "Why you eating hummus? Why you eating pita? Why you eating hummus and pita together? Why you fold it [the pita] like a taco? Why you dip it? Why you not use a plate?" Jesus, kid, let me live my life. 

He really doesn't miss a thing. In fact, Gavin asks me questions about things that I didn't even realize I did or said. For example, we were in the car and a truck pulled in front of us without much warning and I must have made some kind of verbal response because I was surprised and did have to put on my brakes quickly. A moment later Gavin said, "Why you say?" And I said, "I didn't say anything." A beat later, "Why you say, 'Oh'?" I assured him that I said no such thing. It took me a minute to realize what he was talking about and then I realized that it must have been when the truck non-incident happened. So I just said I made a noise of surprise because the truck wasn't watching where he was going. This answer apparently satisfied him, though I assure you there have been many more moments like this. I apparently make a lot of unintentional noises. 

While he can't read yet, Gavin can consistently recognize a handful of capital letters. G for Gavin, D for Mama D, S for Stacy/Shelly, M for Mommy, L for Laura, A for Amanda, H for Henri, B for Brian (in order of consistent recognition). So that's A B D G L M O S. C'mon Words for Friends addicts. What you got? Gavin is especially good at recognizing G. As 'tis the season and all, we've been getting a lot of packages via "the P.S. man" and he's able to look at the shipping label and figure out who the package is for based on whether the first name starts with a G, D, or S. He gets very excited when it's a G package. 

It seems like everyday Gavin is singing a new song. He sings a lot now, which I love. His singing is pretty tuneless and no-frills, but he's often very serious about it. Perhaps it's his low register. Favorites include "Ring Around the Rosie" (which I've taught him to say is about the Black Plague, even though that may not actually be true), "Old MacDonald" (often I hear him singing to himself, "With a moo moo there, and a moo moo there, and a moo moo over there"), "Itsy Bitsy Spider" (he sometimes sings this in Spanglish), "Wheels on the Bus" (the Kyle Andrews version is quite tolerable), and some other songs that I don't quite recognize. He sings a Chuggington song, which basically consists of him singing, "Always be Chuggington," over and over. It isn't the theme song and since he's only ever watched the show in Spanish, I don't know where he might have heard or learned this song. I hope he made it up because that's pretty adorable. 

So, yeah, Chuggington. And Thomas the Train, and La Casa de Mickey Mouse, and Cars. All of the overly commercialized cartoon franchises I hoped he would somehow be "too cool" for. But he isn't. And I'm not. Stacy and I just went on a trek to the Payless store in Northland Mall to get him a pair of Rayo McQueen light up tennis shoes. He loves them. Which means it's that much easier to get shoes on his feet in the morning, which makes it all worth it. I hope. In potty related news, he's peed several times on the big potty, now, though no poo. We thought we'd let him test run his big boy underpants (Thomas the Train underpants, no less) in the house. He was very excited and was showing them off, with our encouragement, to Granny and Paul via Skype. Unfortunately he peed in them as we were all oohing and ahhing over what a big boy he was. He was pretty upset. Hopefully this doesn't set him back to infancy. The other day Gavin and I went over to Megan's and he played with Olive. At one point Ollie was trying to show him some kind of toy but she couldn't reach it. I heard Gavin said, "You need help?" Presumably Ollie said yes because he said, "I'll help you." He then moved a box of toys and an end table to get to the toy and he handed it to her saying, "Here you go, Ollie." It was a super sweet moment. The kind that make me think, "Looks like we must be doing some things right."

Thursday, December 8: Bake me a cake as fast as you can

Gavin and Stacy had a fight last night while I was at work. According to Stacy, she wanted him to take a bath. He did not want any part of that. Strife ensued. He cried all the way through his bath, he didn't even want any toys. Then after his bath he refused to get out of the tub. And then he wanted toys. And he wanted a bath. Except he had already had a bath. This didn't go over well with him. Stacy got him out of the tub, dried him off and wrestled him into a onesie and a diaper, which he tore off. She put a diaper on him again, snapped up the onesie, and let him cry it out in his room. After 10 minutes she came back and he was curled up in the fetal position on the chair in his room, sans diaper. He'd torn it off again, but instead of throwing it on the floor in a fit of rage, he put it back in the diaper drawer (I can't help but be a little proud of this detail). He told Stacy, "Go away. I no want you put diaper on me." So Stacy went away. When she came back again 10 minutes later, he was happy to see her. The drama wasn't over, however, as the pajamas he picked out ended up not fitting "over his fat thighs," as Stacy put it. And he didn't have the patience to play fitting room. He cried again. Then he wanted to play monster trucks, but there was no time. Then he wanted to read two books (his usual bed time routine) but there was only time for one. He wanted colors and pingüinos, which he actually picked out that morning and told me those were the books he wanted to read before bed. Counting Colors has been a long time favorite, while And Tango Makes Three is a new favorite. It's about gay penguins and is based on a true story. It's a sweet book (not the indoctrination tome that the anti-gay right suggests). He finally settled on the pingüinos and Stacy managed to get a very exhausted Gavin to bed.

Not napping was the culprit. He did not sleep at la guardería yesterday. He's been napping less and less there and occasionally not napping at home. Though he napped really well for me on Tuesday. So maybe he's starting to grow out of napping. Though, like I said, he sleeps well at home. Maybe la guardería is just too exciting.

Speaking of which, tonight is the la guardería holiday party. I told Gavin there would be cookies there and he's pretty stoked. Right now he's making a cream and pear cake. It's pretend, mind you. But he got a box of puzzles and toys in the mail from the great Claire Callow in the South Pole (a.k.a. Georgia) and he is in love with the toy cake set. I mean, he giggles as if it's a real cake. He doesn't want to put it away. Ever. Because it's always cake time now. He sings "Happy Birthday" to himself and invites you to have some cake with him. Except if you sing too he'll tell you to stop because he's already sung. Then you have to wait forever to get a slice of cake. It goes in the oven (his book case, actually. He has a really great imagination), candles and all, then it's too hot to eat. Then it's too cold. Then he wants to change the toppings. Then it'll go back in the oven. Then he'll take it out and try to slice it and he takes his sweet time with that and usually once he cuts the cake he'll tell you "don't take it" because he wants to put it back together again. Anyway, my point is, his dedication to his pastry chef craft is admirable, but if you have a real hankering for cake you'd be better off going to the store and buying your own. Unless you're the only one home with Gavin. Then you've got to stay home with him. Seriously, be responsible. Let the kid have his cake even if you can't eat it, too.

Monday, Dec. 5, 2011: Good morning vómitos

Gavin woke up in a puddle of puke this morning. Earlier yesterday Stacy said he told her his stomach hurt and he didn't seem to be feeling all that well last night during his bath. In fact, at one point he said that he needed to poop and so we got him out of the tub and put him on the potty (he did not go in case you were wondering. Ever since he got his Rayo McQueen potty seat he has been much more enthusiastic about potty usage and we've had a good run with pee, but no poo). I was kneeling in front of him, drying his legs and feet. He looked, to me, like he was going to puke and so I told Stacy, who was standing to the side near the tub, "Trade places with me. I think he might puke." She did, though she did say something about that not being fair or nice or something. Though she also understands that I don't do puke very well. And so, this morning, when I walked into his room I heard a rather cheerful sounding Gavin and saw the outline of him on his back in his crib peeking out at me through the semidarkness. And I smelled puke. And so I said hello to Gavin and told him I needed to turn a light on and then said, "Babe, you need to get in here," because I knew what I was going to find. And sure enough. Vómitos. Stacy and I divvied up the duties. She got the pukey sheets and blankets into the wash, I got the boy into the tub. He wasn't particularly thrilled to be getting a bath in the morning. For one thing, it's totally not his routine. For another thing, he'd just had one last night. But once in the tub he was in good spirits. He seemed to feel fine, in fact, so after he was scrubbed and dubbed I got him dressed and he and Stacy headed out the door just like any Monday. I am hoping he really is all better and there is no vómitos at day care.

Of course, my biggest concern is what made him throw up in the first place since that's not normal and all (I am also concerned, judging from the contents in his crib, that he is not chewing his food enough before swallowing it). He is not a kid who pukes much. In fact, he hasn't thrown up since puke-a-palooza last year. But that was a lot of puking. And this is (hopefully) just once. Maybe it's the beginning of an annual ritual: the early/mid December vómitos. Though I hope not. But he is, after all, Stacy's son and she gets sick every year around the holidays. Like clockwork. She is usually sick for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not puke-sick, mind you, but she gets a nasty cold. So now maybe I have a family full of holiday sick-o's. Ho ho hurl.