one watermelon, two spinach, three berries

We spent an extra day at BB's place because, hey, birthday weekend. Around lunchtime on Monday, we went to Costco. As Mom got into the car, she recited a short shopping list: watermelon, spinach, berries.

“We need three things,” I repeated to BB in the back, holding up fingers for emphasis. “One: watermelon. Two: spinach. Three: berries.”

So we drove to Costco and had a leisurely lunch in the food court, plus ice cream for dessert. (Mom, looking at BB’s huge ice cream: “Grandma’s going to eat this too.” “NO, NOO”) (But it was too much for him to finish and Mom wound up getting some anyway.) Afterwards, we went to shop, and I asked BB, “What three things do we need?” He rattled them off immediately. He’s so cool.

Shopping with a toddler is the best, provided you have no time constraints and ideally have companions in charge of getting the actual groceries. Everything is so interesting! Imagine being able to see the world with such eyes again. We passed by a display of flowers. “So many flowers,” I said. Then he started pretending to be a bee. “I want flowers,” he said, so I held out a pretend bouquet of flowers to him, and he ate them with great gusto (apparently that is what bees do).

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BB's enthusiastically diving into pre-reading. If you say a word and ask “What letter does that start with?” he can usually sound it out. He’s also starting to learn a few words by rote. I wrote out the word “bus” and asked him, “What’s this?”

“Your name?” he guessed.

So I read out the letters. “B-U-S!”

“Bus!” he said.

Then it was like a cool magic trick I could trot out for the rest of the weekend. “Hey, check this out. BB, what’s b-u-s?” “Bus!!”

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Other BB things:

• He is very much into playing pretend. Some examples:
• We would put the balloons in the study, where they were sleeping. Then we would say things like “They’re sleeping. Let’s not bother them.” or “Is it time for the balloons to wake up?” “Yes, let’s bother them. (throws open study door) Good morning, balloons!”
• We pretended the pantry was an elevator and pressed the buttons (the screws on the light switch) to go to floor 100.
• He would get stuck in quicksand in the sandbox. Sometimes he was the only one stuck, and I would pull him out. Sometimes we would both get stuck and would yell for Grandpa to save us. Then Grandpa would approach, but actually that’s a bit scary so BB would run screaming out of the quicksand, and it would turn into a game of chase.
• When we were about to leave for Costco, BB declared we were both birds. So we flew to Costco. As the car pulled out of the driveway, we were both like: “Fly fly. Fly fly.” (etc.) and again when we reached the Costco parking lot.
• We also played pretend via drawing. He drew a couple of “ghosts,” and then scribbled over them in black. “They’re stuck in the thunder forever,” he said. We took turns yelling at the ghosts that they were stuck forever. BB then scribbled over a drawing of a waffle that was on the same page. “The ghosts can eat the waffle,” I suggested. “No,” he told me, “it’s dirty.” So we yelled at the ghosts not to eat the dirty waffle.
• He’s starting to get possessive about things. “MINE” is very important. When he was smaller, he didn’t care. In fact, giving things to people was a fun way to affect the game state. At six months, he’d pick up a Cheerio and put it in his mouth. Then he’d pick up another Cheerio, but his mouth would still be full, so instead he’d put it in your mouth. Those days are long over. If you try and take his food, “NO! MINE!” even if it’s too much for him.
• (Mom does this thing where she keeps asking and/or disregards his answer, which I think is bad form. For instance, on Sunday, we went to Culver’s, and BB was the only one who got fries with his meal. Mom asked, “Will you share your fries?” He said “NO.” Mom kept badgering him and eventually surreptitiously just handed out fries to Dad and me. I think if you ask someone a question, you should respect their answer. I still ate the fries though. As the meal was winding down, the subject of ice cream came up, and BB was willing to give us the rest of his fries because he had his eyes on a new prize. A happy ending.)
• (In retrospect, the conflict-avoiding play was to frame the situation differently from the start. Even though the fries technically came with BB’s kids meal, if you put them in the middle of the table as “everyone’s fries” instead of “BB’s fries,” there’s nothing to be possessive about.)
• He gets frustrated easily when he can’t do physical tasks right, such as fitting puzzle pieces together or stacking up four scoops of ice cream without knocking over the cone. He starts whimpering/crying. This is new. When he was younger, he would just do stuff, or not do stuff, and have fun either way. But I think now he’s more willful/aware that he wants things a certain way and they should go that way.