happy everyone

Weekend at brother's place for Labor Day! We came up on Friday afternoon as usual. It was originally going to be a babysitting trip; brother & his wife were planning a weekend getaway for their anniversary. Then brother came down with a bad flu at the last minute. RIP. It still wound up mostly a babysitting trip. We played happily with BB while they slept much of the weekend (one sick parent, one exhausted parent). Maybe sleep is genuinely the vacation they needed.

Ever since March I’ve been scrutinizing BB like “word explosion now? how about now?” but here at 27 months it has well and truly come. Little guy has so many words and chatters constantly (not always intelligibly). A small sampling: He still keeps tabs on everyone’s movements, and if he notices Dad has slipped off downstairs he’ll be like “Papa down there! Papa come!” He has a small slide in the living room, and after going down he says, “Papa whee! Ah-do whee!” (“Whee” is his verb for going down the slide, and is being used in the imperative—he wants us to go down the slide too. It’s important for all his people to join him in every activity.) On Saturday night, as he was going to bed, his mom asked him if he had a good day, and he said: “Happy Gamma. Happy Ah-do. Happy everyone.”

Other notable additions to the lexicon:

• “caterpatter”: caterpillar is a big word for a little guy! his Very Hungry Caterpillar plushie was Toy of the Weekend and mimed eating all the fruits Dad brought, which is the first imaginative play I’ve seen from him
• “too heavy”: spoken about the watermelons Dad brought, possibly accompanied by an exaggerated “oooof!!” while trying to lift one
• “warm nai-nai” (milk) and “cold nai-nai”: this guy can specify how he wants his milk
• “wheel wheel wheel” (pronounced “wee-ooo-wee-ooo-wee-ooo” very fast): his name for his favorite youtube vid, Simple Songs for Kids with a bunch of vehicle-related songs. also used descriptively for a hubcap sales brochure he picked up at the store
• “one more time”: this is pro kid tech. for a long time, he just used sign language for more and was reluctant to say the word. now that he says it so nicely, all us adults want to reinforce the behavior…so we give him one more of whatever he wants

We went to the park twice on Saturday (living the life, etc.). Previously, park visits were all about BIRDS and SLIDES. This time, birds and slides were kinda mid, though we did see a flock of flying geese which was cool. The exciting things were sticks, pine cones, acorns, etc. BB needed a stick at all times, which meant everyone else needed a stick too (remember, everyone must take part in every activity). Then he picked up SIX acorns (three in each hand) and insisted on carrying them for a long time, which made climbing playground equipment difficult. Eventually Mom persuaded him to place them in the wagon. The acorns came home with us and joined his immense collection of toys. Two were missing by Monday morning. Then we went to the park again and brought back like eight more acorns. A year from now they’ll have oak trees sprouting all over their house.

By now, BB can read most (all?) numbers and uppercase letters. At the park, we came across a sign saying SIDEWALK CLOSED and he read each letter with great gusto. I wondered if this is common at his age, so I went to google. One source said 20% of children recognize some letters by age 3. (Can that be right? It’s so low.) On the other hand, I saw a topic on r/toddlers full of parents of little geniuses who knew all their letters at 17-20 months. Well, it’s fine. BB’s doing great.

Not sure if he understands that writing = words. This is a conceptual leap entirely separate from recognizing individual letters. He may be catching on, based on the Costco logo. This kid loves Costco. He can recognize the building with the logo on the side. Last time, I pulled up the logo on my phone (just the logo, devoid of context) and he could recognize that. This time, I wrote “COSTCO” on his paper pad in red, underlined three times in blue. “Hey BB, what’s this?” “Cocco.” He gets it!