Dos Pears

6:15am
The puppy wants to eat. Click clack of nails on wood floor wakes up Grant, our light morning sleeper. "Me up! Me out! Dadda, Open door!" Matt opens the door, and Grant stumbles out of his room into our room. Me, sleepy, "Hey buddy, wanna climb in bed?" Grant, awake, "No me go eat." Me "OK, whatever, go grab some cereal."

6:30am
Sound of cabinet doors slamming. Grant appears at my bedside bearing a huge bag of cheese puffs and a plastic bowl. "Me want eat puffs. Me get bowl." I sleepily protest that cheese puffs are not for breakfast. Grant disagrees, pours himself a bowl of puffs, and happily eats them inches from my face as I try to fall back asleep. After he finishes the puffs, he climbs into bed with us, monopolizes half the space of a queen size bed despite being 3 feet tall, and we all back asleep- or so I think.

7:15am
Sound of fridge door closing. Grant appears at my bedside again, and two cold hard things land on my pillow right next to my face. I jolt awake. "Me get dos pears. Momma you go cut pears. Me eat pears."

7:20am
I finally get out of bed. Grant has kindly placed a butter knife next to one of the pears on a cutting board. "Mamma cut pear, me eat pear table."

And so begins a morning around here lately. Grant is a morning person, while the other three of us are not. I blame my sister.

30.5

I win!

Closest without going over

Matt is betting Grant weighs 33 lbs, and I'm betting 30 lbs. Let's see who wins! Grant has his 2 year old well child visit tomorrow- and the winner takes all.

Kitty fur

We were in the ski shop today while I tried on some new ski boots, and I was joking with the salesman (Brian, a good friend of ours) about the slightly ridiculous trend this year of big poofy fake fur liners in the boots. One was white, the other was a shiny mid-tone gray.

Me: I don't know which I like better- the ones made from polar bears, or the ones made from kittens.
Brian: (laughing) The kitten ones are especially soft, although polar bears are well suited to cold weather.
Cooper: THOSE ARE MADE FROM KITTENS? (lip quiver)
Brian and Me: OH no no no we were just kidding! Just being silly. Not really made from kittens, buddy. Not kittens at all. Not even polar bears.

About 15 minutes later, while we were still trying on more boots, Cooper came back over and calmly asked, "Brian, how do the get the fur off the kittens into the boots?"

Remind me to NEVER make jokes about skinning cats, ever again.

Things that rhyme with snake

Cooper's classroom is doing a unit on rhyming this week, which was helpful to know when Cooper randomly said...

C: Mom, You know what?
Me: What?
C: I like to wake and bake.
Me: (stifling a giggle) Those do rhyme, that's cool.
C: And Snake!

When we got to Grant's daycare, I shared this tidbit with the daycare manager and she laughed and immediately told me a hilarious story about a conversation with her five year old on Halloween, when he was having trouble figuring out a clasp on an odd piece of costume jewelry.

Son: I need a hooker.
Mom: Excuse me?
Son: I need to get this hooker on me.
Mom: You know, uhhh, that's not called a hooker. It is more like... hmmm... that's more like a joint on that bracelet. And could you ask your Dad for help, I'm kinda busy.
Son: OK! Hey Dad! I need a joint!

And we're back

I got a reminder the other day that I've been neglecting the blog. I figure I'll get back on the horse starting now.

The new house is great, but feeling a little like a money pit. Our old place had really past the money pit stage quite a few years ago, and I guess I had forgotten what it is like to not even want to make a to-do list, because that list is so long you don't want to face it. But it is OK. We won't go broke. We have a plan, I swear. It just feels like a lot.

Cooper is thriving in his new school and his teachers seem to really enjoy his company. He doesn't apparently participate very actively in most things, which doesn't surprise me, but he loves to talk about all the things they do at school so I'm sure he'll figure it out when he's ready. He does some cool drawings, so that's a start.

They had a firefighter visit the school last week and Cooper was really impressed. We talked about the firefighter all the way home, about how he had a truck with a bucket that collected rain (I don't think this was actually the case) and a cool hat (probably true) and a special jacket (totally true) and he put out fires. And then we talked about it all again, maybe three or four iterations. After all that, I asked Cooper if he wanted to be a firefighter. He pondered and then said, "When I get to be big, like really really big, after I grow up to be super bigger taller than Daddy, I think I want to be a super tall Mommy."

Nothing makes me happier than to envision an adult version of Cooper as a "mommy," truly. I picture him as a tall thin handsome young man holding an adorable blond baby. Sounds utterly perfect to me. I figure it is like when he's a daddy, except maybe he's wearing an apron or something (in his mind).

Grant's vocabulary is probably off the charts by now, or at least I've lost count of what he can say. He's also starting to say some words in Spanish, because his new daycare is "Spanish immersion" which basically means the staff all speak Spanish to the kids. He's getting good at "adios!" as an alternative to "bye bye." He's getting good at stringing his words together in meaningful ways, like "More chips please" and so forth.

It is totally worth mentioning that right now, Grant's favorite words are "No!" and "Mine!" This was never the case with Cooper. I don't actually recall him ever learning the word "mine" in the stereotypical way that toddlers use it. And Cooper was never a "No!" kinda kid. He just cried instead (ugh). So that's pretty interesting to me.

Speaking of the kids, Grant is waking up from his nap. Adios!

Crazy busy

We've been maniacs around here lately, in a good way. We're selling our house, buying another house, and thus moving. We've got work trips and trips for fun and my parents just visited, too. And of course, Cooper and Grant are moving on up. Cooper starts school in about three weeks, and he's very excited about that. Grant is switching to a new daycare that is near the new house, and we are very happy with how it looks. Naturally, Grant is clueless, but Cooper has been trying to prep him. "You're going to a new daycare. There will be a new Shane and a new Autumn and new kids."

The two of them continue to grow up faster than we can keep up. Cooper tried to carry Grant piggyback today (I helped) and it was one of the cutest, funniest things I've ever seen. "Don't worry Grant, I'm holding your bottom. You hold tight with your hands and I carry you piggyback!" Meanwhile, I'm holding Grant under the armpits as he clings fiercely to Cooper's back, legs splayed like a professional, both of them teetering and giggling crazily.

Grant is learning to say words at quite the clip. His vocabulary now includes just about all the important words in toddler life- Dada, Mama, Brother, Doggie, Chicken, Ball, Down, Up, More, Please, Book, Shoes, Juice, Milk, Yay, Ouch, and then a huge variety of imitation words and miscellaneous sounds.

Tonight, as Cooper was settling in to try to sleep, he came out of his room.

Cooper: Mom, I can't go to sleep.
Me: What's up?
Cooper: Grant left toys all over my room. We need to clean them up before I can sleep.

I hadn't even noticed, but he was right. Grant had strewn three toddler puzzle's worth of little animals all over the floor of Cooper's room. Cooper and I gathered them all up and put them all where they belonged.

Me: I hope that's better, kiddo.
Cooper: Yeah, that's so much better. Thanks for helping, Mom. I love you.

When he's cute and courteous like that, it practically hurts me.

That's such a nice place

For some reason, the death of the lead saxophonist for the E Street band is a big conversation topic around here. Right before bed, Cooper and I had a deep discussion about it.

Cooper: The guy that played the saxophone died?
Me: Yeah, he died.
Cooper: What's he doing now?
Me: He's not doing anything. He's dead. Once you are dead, you don't do anything.
Cooper: Oh. People die. That guy died. That's very sad.
Me: Yes, but, people are saying nice things about him, so that makes it a little better.
Cooper: He's dead. So where did he go?
Me: Uhhh... well... when people die, usually they get buried deep under some dirt.
Cooper: Oh! That's such a nice place to be when you're dead!

A transcription

Matt is currently out biking with his friends. Cooper is in his room, fighting naptime, talking on his toy phone. I am on the other side of the door... right now. This is an actual transcription.

"Oh, you're there? I hear you. So you're going to be home after naptime. Good for you! I want to take a nap and after that you are gonna be here, OK Daddy? I'm gonna buy stuff for you with all these numbers and you hear that? You're gonna be home after naptime. OK sound good like a plan? Bye." (phone snaps shut)

"Oh hi. Yeah you're gonna be home after naptime. I have my naptime stickers and I'm gonna sleep with my new pillow. Are you biking with Ian? Ian is my friend too. He's very nice. After naptime you're gonna be home and play with me. Are you there? I hear you. OK bye." (phone snaps shut)

"Are you there? No? OK I'll see you later." (phone snaps shut)

"Hi Daddy. I'm gonna take a nap and then you need to be home after naptime so we can go play outside. Bye I taking a nap now." (phone snaps shut)

The end.

Grant's vocabulary

Grant is falling into the typical pattern for second child, in that he's mostly letting Cooper do the work of talking for him. He's remarkably adept at expressing his needs to Cooper, somehow. Big brother babble translator Cooper nails it on the head as much as I do, I think. Cooper often will be talking with Grant and then turn to me and say, "Grant says he wants a banana." And sure enough, the darn kid wants a banana. Of course, that's kinda cheating, because Grant will eat up to six full size bananas a day if we let him (rest assured we only let him do that once). But still.

One of the things I love the most about this is that Cooper is totally undaunted by Grant's five word vocabulary. You'd think it would be frustrating to live with someone that communicates exclusively by clapping, nodding, screeching, Doggie, Dada, Chicken, Blankey and You're Welcome, but somehow it works. Cooper holds complete conversations with Grant, including all sorts of input from Grant that may or may not actually be occurring in reality. I guess if you can engage a stuffed animal for two hours, an animate and babbling baby brother is a comparably delightful companion.

Our favorite part of the day, some days, is the early morning. On mornings when Cooper and Grant both wake up in a good mood, they'll chat with each other for easily 30 minutes, with Cooper handing various toys to Grant in his crib, laughing together, and being extremely cute. We often hear Cooper chiding Grant calmly about something in his big brother voice, "No Grant, we don't hit people," or "No Grant, we don't grab," which is always impressive. And recently, one morning, Grant got very agitated really quickly for some odd reason, and Cooper said, "Don't worry Grant! I'll get mama and she'll make you feel better!" and then he came up the stairs, told me that Grant needed my help, took my hand and forcibly dragged me out of bed to go get his brother. When we got there, Cooper announced, "See Grant? I got Mama and now you gonna feel so much better."

The sad kids

In the car, on the way home from daycare.

Cooper: Where is daddy?
Me: He's at work until after dinner.
Cooper: What does he do at work?
Me: Uh... well... uh... he helps kids that are feeling sad get better.
Cooper: How does he do that?
Me: I think mostly he talks to them.
Cooper: Oh, OK. That's great.

About 45 minutes later, out of the blue.

Cooper: Daddy helps the sad kids feel better by talkin' to them.
Me: That's right. Daddy helps them feel better.
Cooper: What does Daddy say to the sad kids?
Me: I don't know. What do you think he says?
Cooper: I know what he says. He says, "Hey guys, what's goin' on? What's happening over here that makes you feel so sad?"
Me: Then after that, what do the kids say?
Cooper: They feel better. And then they say "Thank you."

I told Matt about this and he said that essentially, Cooper is right. The only part that was kinda wrong was that teenagers basically never say "Thank you."

Hero worship

Grant looks up to Cooper like a god. We've seen some very funny results of this in the last few months, now that Grant is more or less able to imitate what Cooper is doing.

This weekend, we were all playing outside and Cooper decided he wanted to pee on one of the lilac trees. I told him to go ahead, so he pulled down his pants, grabbed the tree trunk so that he was leaning over appropriately to keep his pants dry, and peed. No problem- very well executed. Moments after Cooper had wandered away, Grant walked up to the same spot, pulled his pants up (from the ankle) to just above his knees, grabbed the tree, leaned over, and giggled loudly. He was so proud of himself. Look at me! I'm doing what Cooper was doing!

So proud

Another quote that had me stifling laughter this week happened as I was having lunch with Grant and Cooper. I was chatting with Grant and he kept reaching for my sandwich. After he reached for it a couple of times, I said, "Sure Grant, you can have a little piece if you want," tore off a small section, and handed it to Grant. Cooper looked at me and said, "Mom, I am so proud of you for sharing your shammish with Grant. That's what good mommies do."

I think we've probably said, "Cooper, I'm so proud of you for sharing your toys with Grant. That's what good big brothers do," about a thousand times. Apparently, it was heard loud and clear.

Two quotes

Cooper has said some gems since I got home from DC on Tuesday.

Over dinner yesterday...
Me: Do you want some string beans?
Cooper: Well mom, you've got two options. You can put string beans on my plate, or you can put string beans right here on the table.
Me: OK, uh (stifling laughter), I think I prefer the plate.
Cooper: That's great, mom. I'll have the string beans on the plate then.

This morning as I was helping Cooper get dressed.
Cooper: OUCH that hurts me!
Me: What? What hurt?
Cooper: Your hands are terribly icy. Please don't touch me with your hands. I don't like it.

Imaginary... friend?

Cooper sort of has an imaginary friend, except that instead he has an imaginary truck. His blue truck. Don't remind him it is pretend- he'll get really mad at you.

Cooper tells all sorts of funny and cute everyday narratives about his blue truck, each of which has its own set of ever-changing details. On a typical day, Cooper might tell us he's going to drive it to school with his lunch box that has fruit in it. And then later he'll inform us that he is going to drive the blue truck to daycare with Grant in his car seat and with the special daycare bags. Or he might pronounce, apropos of nothing, that he's taking his blue truck to the store to buy more brown ice cream and new pears.

I like to think of his blue truck as his sidekick, like a little person that is actually a truck. Almost like a pet. He very much treats his blue truck in the way that a good imaginary friend might be treated- it is the main actor in things that Cooper wants to do but can't quite figure out how to do all by himself.

"When I'm a big boy I'm gonna go to school in my blue truck to see my friends and write letters on paper and play on the slide."

Or my favorite, an exchange that happens in this pattern (although the details always change) nearly every day...

Cooper: I want a cookie for lunch.
Me: We don't have any cookies right now, buddy.
Cooper: Don't worry!! I will drive my blue truck to the store and buy some for you!

Our house

I'm entering our house in a contest and need a public link to a picture of our house. So if you want to see what our house looks like today on a cloudy afternoon, here you go!

Rollerskating?

"This little piggie went to market,
This little piggie had money,
This little piggie had rollerskates,
and this little piggie had money,
and this little piggie went weeee weeeee weeeee......."

Close, kiddo. Close.

Buttons

Cooper was cheerfully singing a little song to himself quietly at the breakfast table, while eating a bowl of cereal. I smiled and said, "Cooper, you are just cute as a button."

Cooper said, angrily, "I AM NOT A BUTTON."

The starling misses his daddy

Cooper loves Matt dearly. Very dearly. And having Matt gone for (gasp!) five days is hard on Cooper. Cooper's ability to tell us what is going on in his head is a huge asset here, even when sometimes it is underneath a layer of toddler brain.

Like yesterday, when Cooper heard a starling squeaking up on a telephone line.

Cooper: Do you hear that?
Me: Yup. It is the starling on the wire (points).
Cooper: I SEE IT! That's a birdy. He's squeaking.
Me: That is called a starling. They are pretty squeaky.
Cooper: The starling is squeaking because he misses his daddy. He's a sad starling. He needs to find his daddy and get a hug.
Me: Oh... (thinking extra hard) OK... Hmm... maybe the starling could get a hug from his mommy later to help him feel better?
Cooper: He misses his daddy. But mommy helps him feel better.
Me: That sounds good.

Or today, at a little friend's party.

Cooper: I WANT ANOTHER CUPCAKE
Me: Each kid gets one cupcake.
Cooper: I WANT ANOTHER ONE. I WANT ANOTHER OOOOOOONE.
Me: Just one. You already ate one. No more for Cooper. All done.
Cooper: NOOOOO I WANT ANOTHER CUPCAKE. I WANT ANOTHER ONE. I WANT MY DADDY TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER.
Me: Let's go get some strawberries instead. That will help.
Cooper: I miss my daddy and that makes me sad. Momma I need a hug. I miss daddy.

On the bright side, strawberries did make it a little bit better, and Matt will be home on Monday.

Preschool thoughts

After some hand wringing and consideration, Cooper is attending a preschool this coming fall. He was eligible last fall for some programs because of his delightfully early potty training and mid-winter birthday, but given the convenience of having both the kids in the same daycare, we decided it wasn't in all of our best interest.

I picked the preschool because of several wrong reasons but also several right ones. We have a lot of friends that have kids (slightly older than ours, clearly) that go there, so that's one reason that is kinda ridiculous. I mean, c'mon, if every kid is different, and every set of parents is different, why would I pick a school because my friends sent their kids there? But hey, here we are.

Secondly, I picked this one because they have very little curriculum or formal learning in evidence. The day we visited the little kid classroom was building a fort with boxes, and the big kids were at an ice skating "gym" field trip. Their was a big vat of harvested (soggy) snow with all sorts of odd containers and food dyes next to it- clearly a fascinating science/art experiment. It looked a lot like a daycare without any diapers. And that appealed to me. Cooper is so particular, so careful, and so willing to follow directions and draw shapes and learn words that I feel like putting him in a preschool with a lot of formal instruction on writing, shapes, words, etc will be counterproductive. Do I really WANT him to be more inside his own head? No. No I do not. He's plenty good at that already.

And when we visited several of the other preschools, they were busily teaching things to the kids. How to write letters. The names of the planets. The words for different shapes. And the school administrators were EXCITED about things that I was sort of mildly horrified by. "We're teaching them the REAL names of shapes- like that this one isn't an egg, its an oval." Umm, lady, yes, it is an oval. But who cares? That's mindless vocab lessons- for energetic 3 year olds. Further, Cooper already knows its an oval, so it is worrisome to me that he'd be taught things that might bore him. He also knows squares, circles, rectangles, and triangles- and likes to find them in the landscape or painstakingly nibble them into his food for fun. "I bit this cheese into a triangle and a square, momma! Look at my cheese square!"

In the end, the schedule isn't the greatest at the preschool we chose, and it isn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination. But I think Cooper will benefit from it socially, and probably learn quite a bit around the edges.