scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

2.3.09

seventeen months

You just finished off a bowl of rice with a spoon, independently. Or mostly finished and then decided you were done and squished a few handfuls of rice in your fists - it makes a lovely squishy sound and maybe the squishyness is nice in your hands? Are you going to be a very filthy toddler when the weather is nicer and we go to the park more often? We are starting to go, just starting, because nine times out of ten it's really windy or it looks like it is about to rain or it is actually raining, or snowing, still, and it is rainy often enough that the grass is almost never dry. And the Austrian moms must think i am insane to not put you in snow pants every day - it has been above freezing for a little while now most of the time but so many of the Austrian babies are still bundled up all the way for winter, with long underwear inside insulated pants and sweaters inside hoodies inside fluffy winter coats with hats and scarves and neckerchiefs and mittens all inside another blanket in a lambswool wrapped in a stroller blanket. And here's the thing: i am actually not exaggerating. But the pediatrician says he has to tell all the Austrians to not wrap up their bundles so much and they never listen, that we're doing it just exactly right.

You can build with very little assistance a narrow tower of Legos using both your Duplos and Quattros that will reach your shoulders, or sometimes your chin. And you can build a shorter tower using just Duplos or just Quattros without any assistance at all. You like reading all your books - there are sixty-four, or sixty-six, i always forget if i have included the fabric ones or not - but everyone always asks if there are times when you are reading your books, and i am reading my book, and there aren't because whatever i am reading is vastly more interesting, even if it has very small print and no pictures, all you want to do is read mommy's book. So sometimes you sit and read, or more often you sort through your books and pull them all off the shelf and stack them back up again and pull them back down, but we don't really both sit and read, yet.

We can cooperatively color with your markers: your first pictures were almost exclusively back-and-forth scribbles, arcs of color, all exactly parallel: you were just moving your elbow. Now you have started moving your shoulder, too, as well as your wrist, so now you can make big circles and loops and lines that go all the way across a page. I draw sometimes while you are drawing and it is so incredibly gratifying that you always figure out what i have drawn: i have enough artistic talent to make recognizable cats and lions and giraffes and dogs for a small person to make the animal noises. I am prouder of you than of me, but it's a nice validation.

We are still breastfeeding but are down finally to only once a day. I think when M is done with his german class - it'll be another five or six weeks, i forget - Daddy will put you to bed for a week or two and we'll be really done. It is definitely mama-led weaning but it seems like you are ready, because you don't usually put up a huge fuss at having bottles of cow milk instead of nursing. I have been successfully nursing on just one side now for seven or eight months, i think, and it took months for the bad side to really heal all the way and now i am ready for the other side to heal, too. When we were cutting down to three, and then two, and then one, i could tell you that there's no nursemilk right now, it hurts mommy, and you would look very serious and nod and then take a bottle. (And forget and ask again in five minutes, but then again accept the situation.)

And we are getting ready for spring! We have a street tricycle for you with a long handle for mommy and a basket in front and a little dump-bucket in back and a seatbelt to keep you from running into the street. We have a shiny new pair of bicycles and mommy's has a nice comfy kid seat on the back and you have a big, highly adjustable, bright pink with butterflies toddler bike helmet. We got bike parking spaces in the garage a half block away and every day this week you have been very good about carefully carrying your bright pink bike helmet home in one hand and tightly holding my hand with the other hand and not ever letting go on the street and stopping when we cross the road to look for cars. Already the people in the garage are your friends, too, along with all the people in the dog zone and the women at the grocery store and the girl in the video rental place. I think as the weather gets nicer we will see many of the same people in the playground over and over again, too.

I have started working four days a week just in the morning, now, instead of two days a week the whole day, so you're at the tagesmutter's every morning until the end of your nap. I think it is an arrangement that is going to work well for us. We like the tagesmutter's instead of the kindergartens that you are now old enough for, even if they are cheaper and possibly "educational" (though, seriously, you are learning German from the woman and i bet that is more educational than whatever Montessori is doing with that many more munchkins per minder) you really like to go there and it would be sad to switch you, and you see the same couple kids every day like a little family that you know really well, and it's a daycare but a little daycare, so you get daycare germs but not as many, and you get to learn from the larger kids how to do things (since you love to watch bigger kids do stuff) and show things to the smaller one (since you are infatuated with other babies), and you get to play with the cat and the dog, and she's still subject to all the checks and education that she gets as a unionized childminder (and we get to know about her paid vacation time and she has the same health insurance we do, exactly), and she has the flexibility that she can let you nap when you need to nap, and there are few enough kids that she knows exactly what each of you has done and eaten and everything. I really like working part time and having time with you; i won't have a gap on my resume, i can keep doing things that are relevant to the larger world, i can keep advancing my skills, i can go and be paid to do something that i enjoy and that is meaningful to everyone, and then i can come home and be with you and we can dance and color and kick the Christopher Robin ball against the wall to the bedroom (and, soon, outside) and i can tickle you and nibble your toes and show you how to peel oranges and fix squeaky hinges and toss maple keys so they helicopter down like rain.

I never know how precarious the balance is, though.

Labels: milestones, toddler

scrawled @ 19:31