Nearing four months home, and all I can really say is: I love this kid, this Little Boy as we call him. As he becomes acclimated to us, and us to him, and as he begins to trust us, I can see his personality emerging — happy, playful, curious, cunning, thoughtful, deliberate. He has a precise memory and an almost-troubling attention to detail. He loves trains, cars, airplanes, boats, horseplay, his tricycle, digging, drumming, tickling, building. His favorite part of Make Way for Ducklings is when a boy speeds past the Mommy and Daddy Duck on his bicycle, nearly knocking them over. He is pure Little Boy.
The past two weeks of full-time day care have changed our domestic dynamics. I was worried that spending 40 hours/week under someone else’s care would weaken his attachment to us, but in some ways, it has strengthened it. He seems to have a new appreciation for being at home with us; when I pick him up at the end of the day, he shows spontaneous affection for me, hugging me and saying “Mommy good!” When we’re at home, I’m no longer stressing out about work (at least not palpably) and can devote nearly all my attention to him. I like asking him about his day: Did you sleep? Did you eat? Did you play with D. and N.? He comes home with art projects that I express amazement over: The sun with the upside-down sunglasses…
… the painting that, according to his teacher’s annotations, has something to do with giraffe-playing, although it looks more like whale slaughtering to me…
…and the worm. Oh yes, all the other kids made cats, dogs, lions, and fish, but my Little Boy made… a worm.
Breakfast is still his meds mixed in with a dab of yogurt (he has no clue about the antibiotics). He is more-readily ingesting it, although it still takes about 15 minutes during which we watch YouTube videos of Sesame Street, Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story (he calls him “Buzz Light”), and recently, old episodes of the Smurfs, which is jarring to me because I actually remember some of them and think “I watched this shit?” Little Boy prefers to eat his yogurt with Daddy, although he’ll sit with me if necessary. Soon after the yogurt is finished, we get in the car and drive 25 minutes to Concord. He likes to listen to the radio, and complains if he cannot hear it. He likes reggae (“Mommy, this music is good!!”) and 80s alternative (he was dancing to the Divinyls “I Touch Myself” yesterday while I winced); he’s not so hot on 90s alternative, rejecting everything from Pearl Jam to Pavement. His daycare is right down the street from my office, and we arrive at 8:30. Although Little Boy loves his school, he has trouble separating from me in the morning, and one of the teachers always has to pick him up to stop him from clinging to me and following me out the door. Which I secretly love.
The day care provides two snacks and a hot lunch (pasta, hamburgers, sandwiches with a veggie and pudding), and his teachers say he generally eats the lunch and ignores the snacks, which are things like dry cereal, crackers, and pretzels (he hates crunchy things, even cookies). The first thing he says to me when we get in the car is “Meat, pasta, dabbo!”(“Dabbo” being bread, and one of the few of “his words” that we continue to use, the others being bathroom words, “machina” for car, and “gobez” for wonderful, good boy. We used to use “tenny” for sleep but he stopped using it.) He’s ravenous when we arrive at home at 6pm, so he gets a big bowl of meat with hidden veggies, pasta, sauce, and bread. Man, this kid loves Dabbo. He also adores eggs, and can eat three hard-boiled eggs at once, dipping them in ketchup and mayo. He likes bread smeared with goat cheese and smoked salmon. He still refuses all fruits and vegetables in their natural form, and Mr. P is planning to crack down on this refusal in the near future (good luck with that, husband dear).
After he eats dinner, if the weather is nice we’ll go to the local playground. It’s a kick to see him begin to interact with other kids. Last week, he played very sweetly with a slightly-older boy with Down Syndrome. He shares his cars with other kids, and yesterday he played tag with two African-American siblings who live nearby (our town has a very small Black population, but luckily most of it is very close to us). The girl is 4, lively and hilarious; she loves to chase Little Boy, and he screams with delight when he sees her in pursuit. The boy is 2 and developmentally slow, and looks at Little Boy with such awe and admiration. Their mother and I sat together and laughed at all of their antics. Finally, I am not my son’s playmate of choice.
When we get home, Mr. P usually plays with or lightly supervises Little Boy while I cook dinner. He eats a little something with us (cheese or yogurt, and if we can coax him, applesauce), although he is usually distracted by the prospect of post-dinner television. We watch PBS or a nature video, although those can be troubling (who knew that hyenas ate elephants, or that a cobra would rapidly execute three baby lions?) Every night, we take turns who reads him a book/puts him to bed. We have a huge library of children’s books thanks to my company, who threw me a baby shower and requested that everyone bring a book. Little Boy is still not at the point where we can read all the words to him and he’ll listen. Instead, we’ll tell the story by using words he knows and pointing at the pictures. He doesn’t always get the precise meaning, but he understands that there’s a story being told, and he likes it, especially if it involves animals, trains, or bicycles (this encompasses pretty much 98% of children’s books).
Little Boy has developed a nasty habit of waking up 2, 3, or even 4 times a night and coming to our bed. Mr. P blames day care, where he takes a 90 minute nap and, according to the teachers, sleep for every minute of it. At first we allowed him to crawl in between us because it was easier than taking him back to his bed, but this was ultimately disruptive to our sleep as he likes to toss and turn and talk (Mr. P heard him talking about meat the other night), so now one of us takes him back to his room and lays with him until he falls asleep, which isn’t usually very long, but sometimes he’ll fake it and be back in our bed in 2 minutes. To try and circumvent the inevitable carrying back to his bed, Little Boy has started to get very sneaky. He used to run over to our room so we were awoken by that unmistakeable toddler trot against the hard-wood floors, but now he creeps. Unfortunately for him, it is very hard for him to discretely pull himself up on our bed. The other night I awoke to feel little hands grasping my toes and pulling, twisting fiercely. I scooped him up and walked/stumbled to his bed, where we laid down and he took my hand and pulled it across his chest. I watched him in the dim light filtering past the curtains, his peaceful face with his eyes lightly closed, and we both sighed with contentment.
