Mac-tooties

I deciphered something Nick's been telling me!

For months now, every once in a while, Nick says, "Mac-tooties! Mac-tooties! I want mac-tooties!"

Often he is pulling on some kind of box that I can't associate with anything he would want. I have just been confused and never gave him his request when he asked for the mysterious mac-tooties.

Today I told him I had a sort-and-match activity for him and he said, "Yes! Yay! Mac-tooty!"

Slowly, it dawned on me. "Do you mean learning activity? Is that mac-tooty?"

He said, "Yes!"

We were both so pleased.

Middle of the Night

So Nick got sick and miserable two nights ago and decided he would learn how to get out of his bed. And he did. A bunch of times. The first night a child learns to get out of a crib and bedroom is a bad one for parents, who may begin to feel like they will be standing holding a door knob for the rest of eternity.

I was exhausted. It was the middle of the night. Nick had ibuprofen and water in his system. I laid down on his toddler bed (which he doesn't want to use yet) and eventually went to sleep. Nick was playing with dinosaurs in the living room. Terrible, I know. I decided I would have a better plan the next night and would brew a pot of coffee in the wee hours if that's what it took, but Nick was tuckered out after the previous night and stayed in bed sleeping for 13 hours. It would have been longer if we didn't have to take Xander to school.

Especially with our second child, I am No Good at middle-of-the-night care. I simply fall asleep. If I had a mug of coffee during that time, I'd wreck my chances to get any more sleep but I'd be cheerful and competent. Probably a worthwhile trade-off for those really bad nights. This calls to mind a time when I was about four or five years old, traveling with my parents, and they stayed up with me for quite a long while, walking me around the house, giving me coffee and juice and sympathy and other things...because I had a bad case of constipation. Thank you, Mom and Dad!

I wanted to put a picture of Nick in or near his bed at the top of this post, but after browsing my photos I realized almost all of the pictures I have of Nick are him eating or pushing the wheelbarrow. :)

We got to Skype with Erik this afternoon, which was fun and, strangely, a relief. It's been five days and will be five more before we see him in person. Nick and Erik had a game of catch via the computer: Erik would say, "Throw it, throw it!" and Nick would throw his ball, grin, run after it, look back at Erik, and bring it to the screen. They did this for a long time. Nick got a little upset later when Daddy wouldn't take the water squirter through the computer so they could play squirt gun.

I've been looking back at previous posts. I think Xander looks older even since Christmas! See?

 

Here are more pictures from this month:

Strawberry Surprise Salad for the kids

Our broccoli sprouts, which are growing beautifully

Nick made seed balls at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

And we've planted them at home!

Digging for plastic bugs was a big hit there, too

In our back yard

He looooooooves that wheelbarrow

He uses it in unconventional ways, like dumping mud from it onto his head

Not so happy

Happy

Here, we made those Gingerbread "Corndogs" that Xander thought up

The finished result, though heavy for popsicle sticks, was dipped in frosting

It wasn't quite what he envisioned, but it was a very nice snack for the whole family

Later, we all watched Tron and had homemade popcorn and M&M mix. (Or, as Nick calls it, popcorn and treat.) I wasn't prepared for how inappropriate Tron was: I thought it was better for middle-school-age. But there was no blood (people died or were "repurposed" by shattering) and no swearing that I can remember. The big surprise for me was that both kids loved it and were not at all disturbed or scared by it. After all, Nick gets upset sometimes at "The Remarkable Runaway Riderless Tricycle" when the tricycle is in danger of being pursued by a police car!

Then it dawned on me that in one case, with the tricycle, he can understand that there is danger, and in the other case, it's all foreign. Probably what they liked were the fluorescent-lighted vehicles and suits in Tron.

Having Fun Is on Our List

Nick asked for graham crackers today. I told him we didn't have any but we could put it on the grocery list to get this week.

He said, "Yes. Go-shee list gam cackers putting on."

He continued, "Have fun, go-shee list putting on."

I said, "You want me to put having fun on the grocery list this week?"

"Yes."

Awesome.

This month at Xander's school is Loyalty month, and the school newsletter recommended Charlotte's Web as a good book about loyalty. I love that book, so I decided to borrow it from the library and try it out with Xander. Our read-aloud time is in the early morning during breakfast, when he and I are usually alone. I picked up the book, but he had an immediate negative reaction. He really didn't want to read this book. Eventually, he told me he didn't like the spider on the cover, but I'm not sure if that was the real reason.

A week later, I picked it up at breakfast and said I was just going to read it to myself. I did, for about a chapter.

Xander said, "Mom? I think I'm ready to listen to that story now."

So we are reading Charlotte's Web together. He identifies with the love that Fern has for Wilbur - I knew he would.

Yesterday, I helped with an activity in his classroom while Nick played at the YMCA Child Watch. The children did well, especially since it was a very long, involved activity about counting to 100 by 10s. (I love that his teacher was willing to do this activity with the kids even though it was extra work.) It's interesting to see your child's behavior in class. I noticed that at times Xander was one of the slowest in getting his work done, as his teacher has told me and as we are working on at home and at school, but he was also extremely attentive even with all the shenanigans around him. Unfortunately, it only takes one or two to be disruptive, and his class (probably most classes) has three or four off-task children at any given time. Xander seems to remember every single thing his teacher says, verbatim, and I could see why. He sat still, looked at her, and listened quietly. This made him one of the best-behaved kids in the classroom. :)

Even though Xander does not take very special care of his appearance (wearing his pants backward as often as forward, and not being embarrassed by it), I could tell he was excited about the care I took with him and his outfit this morning. Today is....Picture Day. In the pictures, he is likely to have a goofy grin, his eyes closed, and hairs sticking up from the natural progression of the school day, but we did put a nice red dinosaur sweater on him that should show up well in a group picture. School is fun!

Put that on the grocery list, too.

January Photos

Here is what we've been up to so far this year:

Coloring with crayons and painting with cotton balls

Family movie time: Turtle The Incredible Journey

Xander loved this breakfast so much he wanted me to take a picture of it

Traffic jam

A hawk on our back fence, with prey!

Another breakfast made by me and Xander that he wanted memorialized in photo

And above is a little video of Nick's reaction to the keyboard I just picked up from Goodwill.

They Know Everything

Sometimes Nick says things I have no idea he ever heard in his lifetime. Just now, he put on Xander's knight helmet and ran away, singing his version of "na-na na-na boo-boo": "Onny a boo boo, I gun catch you!"

Two mispronunciations of his that I love:

1. mabana for banana
2. mamato for tomato

Xander has his own misconceptions. Two of his current ones have to do with the Disney company. Good for them. They and Lego have obviously worked out how to rule the world.

For Xander, any character is a Disney character, as in, "Wags the Dog isn't real, so he's a Disney character."

Also, Disney is his idea of a compound word, with an emphatic head nod on each syllable to show that they are two words put together: "Dis (nod) knee (nod)! See? It's a compound word!"

I usually limit myself to one or two disagreements or corrections, and then let him believe what he wants, to save time.

Getting Better

Nick is finally back to himself. Yesterday he wondered if Bailey and Foster could come over after school. They were so caring about him, too, when they were here and he was sick, barely saying a single word.

Now that he is feeling well, he is back to drinking from a regular cup, eating well, saying please, and talking to us about his thoughts and what he wants from us. He has had several, several time-outs in the process but it is nice that he is healthy enough to have consequences and learn from them.
Nick went outside just now and came back in telling me he picked flowers for me. I exclaimed over them and said, "What nice flowers!" He said, "Nice flowers," and watched me put them in our vase set aside specifically for the "flowers" the kids bring in for me. Poor dads. They don't usually get flowers.

Xander misses having Bailey and Foster around. It is not the same being on his own at bedtime. We will have to get them together again as soon as we feasibly can.