PB & J

For a boy who's not seen a speck of TV, he has a pretty convincing 2-year-old's imitation of Brian as a banana (this is for the Family Guy fans out there. I lovingly blame his father.)

Goodnight

The joy of reading

From the very beginning, we made reading an integral part of Calvin's daily routine. These days he has many "scheduled" book sessions—when he wakes up, just before nap, and just before bed—and he adores every minute of them. But there are also many "unscheduled" sessions, the times when he picks up a book of his own accord for the sheer pleasure of it, and those are the moments we treasure most. It is in these times when we see just how much attention Calvin has paid to the books as he retells the stories out loud, all by himself, page by page.

Calvin has become aware of the video camera these days, so we have to be more stealthy about capturing his spontaneous moments. Forgive the slight hidden camera approach as we present Calvin's interpretations of two current favorites: My Big Boy Potty by Joanna Cole and Moose Tracks by Karma Wilson. We've used subtitles to show the actual texts, but Calvin's version is pretty darn close!

Let the conversation begin.

A child's first words are a coveted moment, that turning point when the family's video library stops resembling a collection of Rudolph Valentino clips and enters the era of talkies.  And as with all childhood milestones, those first forays into speech are often surrounded by controversy.  In our case the incessant, pressure creating queries started coming before the first year was even up, and only increased in frequency thereafter:  Is he talking?  Has he started talking yet?  Isn't he talking yet?  Nevermind the fact that he started walking three months earlier than the norm, or the fact that he was communicating with over 30 appropriate hand signs with an efficiency that probably surpassed anything early speech could have provided.  In fact, as time passed the most inappropriately forward of people at church felt it their responsibility to ask such questions as "do you think teaching sign was a bad idea?" and our all time favorite, "are you worried about autism?"  No.  Our wonderful pediatrician was very encouraging.  His son, he told us, did not say a word until he was upwards of two years old.  So we settled in for the long wait, and were greatly surprised, therefore, when in October, Calvin suddenly started repeating animal sounds.  He could moo, quack, woof, meow, and even sound like a siren. 

December, 2007
And then during the gap between Christmas and New Years we were delighted by a sudden flourish of new words.  Like a ship taking on water, Calvin's vocabulary increased exponentially right before our eyes.  He mimicked every word he heard and quickly tucked it away in his mind's dictionary, and this trend has continued.  And after what had seemed like an excruciating wait under the caring yet disparaging eyes of our church community, I'm sure you can imagine our vexation when, just the other day, we were told "he is such a good talker for a boy his age!  You must be so proud!"  Yes, in fact, we are.

January, 2008

When is a chore not really a chore?

When it's a fun, of course.  We've started including Calvin in several chores around the house:  aside from picking up his toys he also helps us load the dryer, carry dirty clothing to the laundry room, and unload the dishwasher, among other things.  We're not fooling ourselves here - we know this will only last until he realizes that these things are "chores," but we figured it couldn't hurt to introduce the idea of helping early.  His favorite chore, though, is one that he just picked up on his own - feeding the dogs.  At the mere mention of feeding time he dutifully picks up Moose's mini-dog dish, trots over to the garage door for one of us to fill it, then marches right back and plops it down, after which he invariably seems to get disappointed that the dog is eating his hard work.  We enjoy it every time.