Three and a bit.
Suddenly, it’s all about independence. “I do it! I do it MYSELF!” is your new mantra. As you pull up a stool to turn on the lights, or to reach the apple in the uppermost fruit basket or tangle yourself up attempting to remove your shirt. And since monkey moved into his daytime monkey box, you now announce with pride “I put monkey back in his monkey box!”
In the morning your ritual has become to leave your room and come padding into ours to climb up into the big bed and cuddle until I get up. Then sometimes you stay in bed and sleep in with Dada, other days you get up with me and accompany me downstairs for something to eat. Sometimes I come downstairs to find the refrigerator doors wide open, as you attempt to help yourself.
We’re working on developing your understanding of patience, and of the relationship between now and future. One evening at a restaurant, after eating your fill of olives and bread and charcuterie, you grew tired and insisted that we go home now. But we weren’t finished eating and I still had half a glass of wine. So in exasperation I told you that if you sat quietly you could have some watermelon when we got home. I thought you’d forgotten – at least, I had – but as we left the restaurant and during the ride home, you began to repeat: “I be quiet…and sit…and be quiet…and watermelon when we get home. That sounds like a good plan!”
As you repeated your understanding of our arrangement, I considered whether I’d started something I would later regret (that is, bribing you to behave). Not that watermelon is a bad reward, but I don’t want to wire your brain to do things in anticipation of a reward.
But I later realized that I needn’t have worried, because your psychology seems to be most of all wired to please. This I discovered after scolding you for coloring on the table and pillow with your marker. You were proud of yourself for having “painted” the table and chair, which you came to tell me about. But when I saw what “painted” meant and scolded you, your feelings were hurt. I didn’t yell at you, but I made it clear I was displeased, and then took the pillowcase into the laundry room to try to clean it. I came out to find you crying in front of your art easel. After a hug we drew some more circles together, and then everything was fine. But a little while later you relayed your version of events which went something like: “can’t paint on table… only paint on board… can’t paint on table …Mama get mad… Ethan get sad… want everyone to be happy…”
So empathy is the latest developmental leap. And we witnessed this in relation to a gecko that you and Dada had found in the garden. You had it in your bug box, which Dada had set up with some leaves and fruit and a dish of water. You were very excited to show me when I got home. And the next morning as soon as you woke up you excitedly ran downstairs to see your gecko. But then you said that you wanted to let it go, because the gecko “misses its mama.” And so you and Dada took it back out to the garden and released it into the plants to go off and find its mama and dada and brothers and sisters.
In April we got a set out of outdoor lounge furniture, which you helped build. Helped, as in, sat next to me and watched and didn’t run off with all the pieces. You were very proud of yourself for having helped to build a couch, which you announced proudly to Dada when he got home.
And now that we have comfortable outdoor furniture, we’ve been spending more time outside in the evenings. And have begun hosting dinner/playdates with some of your neighborhood friends and their parents. You and the kids have a blast pulling out all of your toys, jumping on the furniture and pouring sand all over the house.
So now you have three sets of friends – your neighborhood friends (Ada and Theron and Wylie), your Starbright friends (Hugo and Peter and Lexi) and of course Rose.
At daycare Rose is often bossy with you, which mostly you don’t mind, but sometimes when she gets too bossy you respond by shutting down and going quiet. Causing Rose to insist, “Ethan please talk!” To which you reply simply, “I’m not talking right now.”
But at home, you talk practically nonstop these days. Repeating your version of events that took place during the day, or that we told you we’d do later. You like to rummage through drawers, pulling things out one by one and asking, “what’s this?” That’s a comb, I answer. “Ooh. A comb,” you repeat, knowingly. And then pull out another item. “What’s this? What’s this?”
When you’re not chattering, you’re singing. You love to sing made up songs to a few favorite melodies. “Cray, Cray, Cray, Crankie, Cray…” The A-B-C song, Twinkle Star, Happy Birthday and most recently Frere Jacque. But you don’t like for others to participate in your songs. Whenever Dada tries to join you, you shout “no! stop singing!”
You like to sit with your books and pretend to read them. You open them up and make up stories based on the pictures. And you do the same with adult books without pictures.
You also like to spend far too much time watching videos on the iPad. So we’ve instated the concept of a timer. When you’ve been too long glued to your screen, instead of fighting with you to put the iPad away, I simply say it’s time to set the timer. “Five minutes,” you say, holding up your hand with fingers splayed. And remarkably you willingly shut down the iPad when the timer goes off.
Fortunately your iPad addiction is balanced by your appetite for taking long walks. When we walk to the park now, you walk the entire way there and back without riding in the stroller. That’s two miles, when we go to the big park.
And you’ve embraced swimming wholeheartedly since finishing your last semester of lessons. Every evening when I get home from work you want to “take walk at swimming pool!” You jump off the side and can swim a good 10 seconds under water. You haven’t yet learned to paddle with your head up, but it won’t be long.
Black and Sun 