Tales from the Crib

Not ready yet

Toddlers have their own way of expressing themselves before they can really talk, and my son is no different.

However, he’s been entertaining when it comes to potty talk.

It used to be that when Nolan had to – for lack of a better term – go number two, he’d run to a corner of the kitchen.
We’d know right away it was time for a diaper change.

More recently, he’s developed a new warning technique.

After a weekend with my parents, my brother taught Nolan how to make a gesture for “stinky feet.” It consisted of Nolan waving a hand by his face and hissing ‘S’ for stinky.

And it was after that, when I asked him once if I needed to change his bum, he repeated the gesture – only this time he was referring to his stinky diaper. I’m surprised he even made the connection.

That communication method has continued for the past few months. But since he’s turned 20 months old, people are in a hurry to potty train him.

He got a cute little potty for Christmas, which plays a song if it’s used for its intended purpose.
The first time I sat him on it, he did pee and I thought we were ready to turn a corner.

Turns out, it was just a fluke. He’s sat on it a few more times, but doesn’t really have any interest in putting on a show.
At least for me.

As I dropped him off at day-care the other day, he paused while playing, and I asked him if he was stinky. A quick sniff told me no, but the day-care provider asked him if he wanted to try the potty.

“Paw,” said Nolan, confirming his interest.

She hiked him up onto the real toilet with a potty seat. And so he sat there with a calm face, and clasped his hands like he does when he’s nervous. The poor little guy didn’t know what to do, but he wasn’t upset by the moment.

I applauded his attempt and listened to hear anything, but I couldn’t hang around for the conclusion.
I had to leave him there and head off to work.

In the car, I almost started welling up with tears at the image of my son sitting there with his legs dangling, waiting for a special moment in time.

I don’t know if I’m ready to have him take that next step of independence.
It’s not that I enjoy changing diapers. It’s just one more confirmation that he’s not my wee baby anymore, and he needs me less and less as he grows.

Mommydada

My son has created a new word – mommydada.

And now he knows it’s applicable in different situations, he seems to use it quite frequently.
It’s the word he uses when he first wakes up in the morning, because he knows one of us will have to respond to pick him up out of his crib.

He uses when he’s looking for a hug after banging his head, or when he wants up on the kitchen counter to play with something there.

He also uses it as a question, when my husband isn’t around. It’s phrased more like mommy – dada?
I can’t remember other kids using both names together. Usually mommy.

It wasn’t that long ago when Nolan wouldn’t call me mama, or mommy. Everything was dada. Remember, the monkey got called mama before I did.

Well, what a difference a month makes. He’s figured out that by saying mommy now, he gets what he wants.

Mama the Monkey

Nolan’s first semblance of a word was “nana.”
Next came “dada” and finally I heard the sweet word – “mama.” For the next few weeks, everything was mama but that soon changed. He just stopped saying it.

I thought by now he’d know to call me mamma, but for whatever reason, it didn’t stick. Now I’m “yaya.”
I was OK with that, until we had a playtime this week.

We have a monkey puppet that we’ve started using to interact with Nolan, and he loves it.

The “game” we made up starts with me taking a plastic cookie from his kitchen set, and having the money “eat” it. While he’s eating, he spits it out. Nolan howls with laughter when this happens.

I then wave a finger and tell the monkey that’s “not nice,” which is then copied by my little monkey of a son. He too waves a finger and says “na, na” to the monkey – his version of not nice.

Next, since the monkey was being “not nice,” I decided to put him into a time-out. Nolan thought this was even better.
Now he grabs the monkey from my hand and wants to put it into time-out himself.

That’s just great. While other little kids are having tea parties with their stuffed animals, my son’s learning about corporal punishment.

Anyway, back to my point.
I was talking to him about the monkey soon after, when he uttered the word “mama.” He was, of course, referring to the monkey, not me.

Even if his mom is a bit of a monkey now and then, I can’t help but chuckle that he’s given the title of mama to a stuffed animal.

Mom's cooking

Just when I thought all I’d have to blog about the Christmas holidays was how Nolan got into the spirit of unwrapping gifts, he pulled a stunt just before I came back to work.

It was Sunday morning, and the little rascal decided to repeat a bit of an embarrassing procedure.

First, he dragged a kitchen chair into the hallway.

I thought it was to play with the light switch, which he has done in the past. But this time, he climbed onto the chair, stood up and started waving his hands towards the hall. I flicked the lights on and off, but he didn’t want anything to do with that.

I must’ve looked confused because he proceeded to get down from the chair and walk towards the stove. He grabbed a dishtowel off the handle, then walked back and got up on the chair again.

Towel in hand, he started waving it towards the hall.

It was then that I got his point.

Nolan was standing under our smoke detector.

Once, maybe twice during the holidays, our smoke detector went off because some crumbs were burning in the bottom of the oven. To clear the air, my husband took a dishtowel and waved it under the detector.

I guess Nolan was paying close attention to this and decided he wanted to copy the motion in a game.

It was just strange to me that he did it so out of the blue.

That night and again the next we had guests over, and Nolan just had to show them his new trick, as mom hid behind her hands.

My cooking has improved a bit, but the old joke is that you know my dinner is done when the smoke detector starts going off.

Ready for the bus

My life flashed before my eyes as we were getting ready to go to daycare recently. For the past six months, I’ve taken Nolan to a wonderful woman who does lots of crafts and fun stuff with her charges.

But every once in awhile, Nolan gets a bit stir crazy inside the house in the morning before we leave, so we head outside to play for 15 minutes or so.

Just a few houses up the road is a school bus stop, and Nolan likes the bus’s flashing lights and watching the kids get on board.

Now that there’s snow on the ground, a good distraction is pushing the snow shovel around.

Well, this one morning he’d had enough of shoveling and watched as a kid walked past us to get to the bus stop.

As I put the shovel back into the garage, Nolan started following the kid.

He looked back to look at me as if to say “mommy, I’m going with him, OK?”

“OK, bye-bye – you’re going on the bus,” I said with a wave.

To my surprise, Nolan turned back and continued to follow the kid.

Wow. Guess he’s all grown up. It made me think about what it’ll be like the first time he steps onto the bus.

When I realized he wasn’t straying from his goal, I caught up with him – just as the bus pulled up.

We waved goodbye to the bus as we normally do. I think we’ll save the real bus ride for later.

 

 

Don’t take me literally

Once again, my son has outsmarted me. Funny how such a little person can teach me a thing or two about the English language.

I was getting Nolan’s breakfast ready the other morning. “Do you want some food?” I asked. “Go get in your chair and you can have some food.”

Normally, Nolan will head towards our kitchen table and try to pull himself up onto one of the chairs. From there, I lift him into his high chair and slide on his plastic tray.

As I sliced the English muffin and popped it into the toaster, Nolan headed in another direction.

“Get in your chair if you want some food,” said I.

Nolan walked into our family room, and started lugging out this little foam chair we have for him to watch television.

Dumfounded, I watch as he plopped it down in the middle of the kitchen floor and then sat in it.

Oh boy, I thought.

He was right.

That is his chair and he’s sitting in it.

I praised him for his effort, then lifted him into my arms and carried him over to his high chair for his breakfast.

Silly mommy, I’m going to have to be careful about what I say to the little man.

 

And the answer is…

Yep, Nolan cried when he saw Santa. My prediction was right.

Unfortunately, I didn’t capture that expression on film, because Santa didn’t want to hold a screaming toddler.

I thought Nolan might be OK, because when we first walked up to Santa and the Mrs., Nolan gave him a high five.

It wasn’t until I put him down on Santa’s lap that Nolan started to cry.

It took me awhile to calm him down, and then Santa had an idea.

The Mrs. and he both got off the ‘sleigh’ and let Nolan and me sit down. 

Mrs. Claus and the photographer distracted Nolan and just before the picture, Santa slid in beside me. Guess mommy’s going to be in the picture this year.

Nolan was playing with his hands nervously, but aside from that, it’s not really a bad picture.

Apparently I was having fun, because everyone has commented on my smile.

Dog mauling

A recent visit with my in-laws has produced a new habit for Nolan. This time, it’s not so bad.

My father-in-law has a big, black lab, and my year-and-a-half old son is at the perfect height for her to grab a few snacks.

Not only does Abby get any crumbs that happen to fall when he’s actually seated at the table but when Nolan’s running around with something in his hand, it’s quickly sniffed or scarfed up by the dog.

With all of these extra snacks, Abby feels particularly fond of Nolan. And so she’s been quite generous with her doggy kisses, licking Nolan’s hands and face.

After a weekend of these doggy kisses, Nolan decided it was time for him to return the favour.

Pulling his soother out of his mouth, Nolan gave Abby a big, open-mouthed kiss back. On her nose.

Then on her foot, her back and her ear.

Keep in mind Nolan’s still young so there’s no pucker, it’s just an open mouth up against dog hair. There might be a bit of tongue in there, too.

So with that under his belt, we then encouraged Nolan to give other people kisses too. My step-mom-in-law started making the ‘mmmm’ noise before the kiss, so my son gave that a try.

Now it’s a new hobby.

My day-care lady also happens to have a dog and, as soon as I dropped Nolan off on Monday, he began kissing him. On his head, and his body. Now this dog isn’t a touchy-feely kind of dog, so Nolan had to back off.

But it was funny all the same that he now associates dogs with giving kisses.

At least it’s better than biting.

I Betcha

My employer, Metroland North Media, has just launched a Scary Santa Memories photo contest for Simcoe County residents. They want people to send in their funny ‘sitting on Santa’s lap’ pictures where the kids are crying in terror.

It got me to thinking about what will happen when I take my son to get his Santa picture this year. Do you want to bet that he cries? I’m convinced it’ll happen.

Last year’s picture was pretty good. I went in November, when he was only five months old and he didn’t really care too much about whose lap he was sitting on.

I carefully picked out his outfit. Even with his fine hair standing up, he still looked spiffy. It’s now been scrapbooked, to be enjoyed for years to come.

But, while we’re on the topic of Santa pictures, there’s actually a funny family story that goes along with last year’s picture.

My sister-in-law told me to get it done at the Kozlov Centre because it’s where both Santa and Mrs. Claus pose for a picture.

So I did, as did she.

The trouble came when my nephew saw Nolan’s picture, and was confused.

“That’s not Mrs. Santa,” he said with authority. “Mommy, who is that?”

I didn’t have a quick answer, but like a pro and without hesitation, my sister-in-law said matter-of-factly, “that’s Santa’s mom.”

I felt so sorry for the poor woman who volunteered her time to pose with children. She’s now been aged a few decades just to please my nephew.

I should be thankful that it was the same Santa posing that day.

Hopefully, I get just as lucky this year – and I’ll let you know if I win my own bet.

Our Little Dirt Devil

Christmas came early in the Ramsay household, as friends of ours gave my son a hand-me-down toy vacuum recently.

Now a week into this new addition, Nolan still gets excited when he sees it.

It is somewhat strange that he enjoys the vacuum as a toy. After all, whenever we’ve had to use the real vacuum to clean the house, he’s always been nervous of it.

This new toy came about while visiting with friends of ours. Nolan actually grabbed the main part of their real vacuum to play with, when my friend suddenly remembered her kid version. She searched through her toy box to find the little Dirt Devil model.

It’s actually really neat. It comes with a detachable hose and a dust buster feature that makes it quite a versatile toy. It broke just before we got it home, so it’s already got some duct tape on it, but Nolan doesn’t mind.

Add to the fact that we installed a few batteries, to give it an annoying buzzing sound, and it certainly gets a lot of use in our household. Our own vacuum hose attachment even fits on the end of his play hose, and Nolan has been mimicking daddy’s cleaning all week.

I knew it was a hit when, that first morning, the groggy little mister diverted his eyes towards the vacuum instead of his bottle. It almost seemed that he sucked back the bottle faster in order to get to vacuuming.

I watched as he moved a basket full of books out from under a side table to vacuum, just like daddy does. He then put the attachment on the end of the hose and proceeded to wave it on the first few steps of our staircase, just like daddy does.

Little did I realize our own “dirt devil” was paying such close attention when my husband cleans. If only it had more powerful suction, so that he could be responsible for cleaning up all of his fluff and crumbs that land on the floor.