Looking Up

This past month has been running hot and cold... some very busy weeks and some very ordinary. We took the kids on a fairly long road trip to Montreal this past weekend to visit family there. They travelled well but we had made an effort to travel mostly at night. (For future reference, 550km / 5.5 hours direct by 401, 620km / 6 hours by a detour to visit other relatives in Carleton Place). It was fun to see their faces as we pointed out the rising sun - I don't believe they've seen one other than on TV before.

Kenshin figured out how to crawl this weekend and has been scooting along with more and more confidence in the past three days. It's amazing really - before this past Sunday (November 18th) I'd say he was about 10-20% of the way to crawling as well as any toddler his age. Now he's about 70-80% a scarce four days later. Incredible learning rate, these humans.

Kenshin has also cut his primary left maxillary central incisor (the one beside the first one) and the tips of the matching top two teeth can been seen just under the surface of the upper gums. It seems that Kenshin, much as Daigoro did at his age, will be cutting all of his teeth in a hurry.

On a relatively unrelated note, I was thinking today about the question oft-asked of me, "what do you think are the differences between the boys?" It came to me rather randomly today that Kenshin has a very noticeable tendency to look up and around. Now, this seems like a relatively minor difference, I know, but as much as Daigoro was/is a very observant child, he didn't seem to look up as often as Kenshin does. This gives Kenshin a sort of dreamy, star-gazing quality at times, especially in the evening and early morning when he looks up at the lights and the small starfield ceiling pattern I've mounted over his bed. It's quite nice, really. Some people have observed that Kenshin seems to be more of a "watcher" (compared to the "doer" that Daigoro is at times); I'll agree that Kenshin is more patient and observant.

Daigoro continues to surprise me with his memory and comprehension. He'll often remember the location of objects or something that we did together several months later, without having seen the object or done the activity since.

For example, I bought a picture frame from Goodwill almost eight months ago which contained a picture of a Lamborghini Countach mounted on a cardboard backing. I only needed the picture frame, not the picture - but the picture itself was mounted on some heavy cardstock which I figured I could use some other time, so I kept it. I had shown the picture to Daigoro once or twice; we used it for a few evenings as a door to play with in a "fort" we made under the kitchen table. Eventually he tired of the game, so I tucked it behind a piece of furniture in our dining room and haven't touched it since. Last week, out of the blue, he tapped the piece of furniture I had stored it behind and asked to see the "picture of a car". I had actually forgotten it was there but, once I figured it out, I pulled it out for him and he was very pleased, behaving as if he knew that's where I had been hiding it all along.

He's also developing some unsavoury whiny traits that seem fairly common to toddlers (especially two-year olds) that we had hoping to avoid - demanding treats when none are forthcoming, throwing tantrums when asked to go to bed, etc.

He's still, by and large, a fairly easy going kid, but it's... disappointing? Frustrating? - I don't know the best word to use in this case - to see that he can be just as annoying as anyone else's kid. I suppose most parents think this way; they hope/think that their child isn't the one who pushes or shoves or throw tantrums or won't eat his supper. Someone has to be "that kid". I guess you just don't expect it to be you, especially when you put so much effort into discipline and loving and setting boundaries and yadda, yadda, yadda.

In any case, he's two and a half. I don't expect him to be perfect. Just blowing off some steam.