17 Months

I went to war this weekend against our basement playroom, armed with little more than a new EXPEDIT bookcase and a half dozen BRANÄS baskets. Plus some thumbtacks and zero reservations about throwing my children's toys out while they slept. Sorry, kids! All your torn stuffed animals and deflated balls and Crappy Meal toys wandered out into the street and got hit by cars. You probably should have stayed awake to keep an eye on them. 

Pictures of that (thrilling) finished project to come. For today, this is the best my soupy brain can do:

He's 17 months old today. 

Miraculously, I have not completely chewed his face off yet.

 

Some days, though.

 

SOME DAYS. CHOMP. GRR. NOM.

He still loves his stroller, and wanders around the house going "WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA" like that little mechanical lint roller robot from WALL*E. 

When he's thirsty, he drags his index finger from his mouth to his chin. When he's REALLY thirsty, he does the same sign, only he starts at his forehead.

When he does something naughty, he wags his finger at me and says "NO NO NO." Just so I know that he knows. He's not stopping, or anything, but he knows.

He likes to watch the mailman drive away and blow kisses after the truck. (Which he calls a Beep Beep, for the record.)

He loves to play hide-and-seek with Noah, though he always chooses the same hiding place: in a not-at-a-all concealed corner next to a kitchen cabinet, with his hands over his eyes. 

 

He's got a tremendously fiery little temper, switching from joy to tears in seconds, whenever he feels that his will has been thwarted. And it gets thwarted a lot, since he really has no idea that he is only 17 months old, and isn't allowed to do everything his big brother does or open the refrigerator to prepare his own scrambled eggs, and that there's a bit more to walking down the stairs than simply approaching the top step and hurling oneself off of it.

 Seriously. DRAMZ. ALL THE TIME.

 

He gets over it just as quickly, though. 

And immediately moves on to the next thing he's not supposed to do or touch or have or eat, maybe with a really big hug and slobbery kiss sandwiched in there somewhere. So wonderfully delicious, this boy. 

Mad Skillz

Social skills are still a struggle for Noah. "Social skills" being probably the most vague and imprecise bucket of Early Intervention nonsense we have come across so far. People hear "social skill problems" and immediately assume that Noah hits or bites or plays roughly or...I don't. Spits and hisses, like he's spent his life locked in a closet. So when those people meet him, all charming and bubbly and eager to please, they wonder what in sam hill we're talking about. "Social skill problems. My ass. That I just farted out of. Loudly. In an elevator. NOW who's got 'SOCIAL SKILL PROBLEMS'?"

So...yeah, it's not exactly something that makes a lot of sense the first time you meet Noah. Especially if you're an adult. It's subtle. It's more of an inability to connect with peers. Other children. (Someone once sent me a link to a blog entry they wrote about dyspraxia being a "social planning disorder" in addition to motor planning and it was absolutely perfect and I cannot for the life of me find the link now.) Noah likes the IDEA of other kids, but not much else. Mostly he just wants to go to their houses and play with their toys. Over here, by himself. You go over there and do something else, preferably something that will allow him to keep 10 feet of personal space at all times. Independent or parallel play, but no cooperative play. No turn-taking, no engagement, blah dee bleep bloop blah go the assessments. Questions like "what is your name?" or "how old are you?" are not things he knows to ask -- hell, getting him to answer those questions is still a crapshoot. He gets anxious and unnerved around groups, easily annoyed by any inadvertent bumping or touching, tantrums when another child wants things done slightly different from him, is apt to wander away mid-conversation and avoid eye contact and generally just seems painfully aware of how painfully awkward the whole thing is. 

But oh, he's definitely improving. The private school, in particular, has been AMAZING at helping us with the more vague big-picture sort stuff like this. (The public school basically classifies social skills as "HITS, IS TROUBLE" or "DOESN'T HIT, THEREFORE FINE.") I've seen the improvements. I've written about the improvements!

Here is another improvement:

There's a slightly older boy who lives next door. I don't really know how old he is -- they're a diplomat family, the mother doesn't speak very much English and/or seems terrifyingly shy. Every morning she takes her son to the main bus stop around the corner where all the kids from the public elementary school get picked up, and most mornings she's just returning as Noah's bus picks him up right at our door before taking him to the exact same school. She wonders what's up with that, I can tell, but she doesn't ask. Her son is probably first or second grade, at least.

Sometimes the boy comes outside and joins Noah on his scooter. He's got a bigger, faster one, but slows down to indulge Noah's attempts to keep up with him. Noah refused to ask his name at first, but instead shrieked "LITTLE BOY! COME BACK HERE LITTLE BOY!" after him until I finally asked him myself.

"Noah talks funny," he said to Jason a few days ago, but he didn't seem too bothered by it.

Yesterday, after school, I was unloading Noah and Ezra from the car and told Noah he could play outside for a bit, since the weather was so nice. "Maybe your  friend will come out and join you," I suggested, gesturing at their front door.

Noah had a better idea. He walked up to their house and knocked on the door. Then he turned back to me, terrified. What had he done? What was he supposed to do now? He looked like he was about to turn and flee when the little boy came to door and opened it.

Noah stood there, completelysilent, while I watched from back on the sidewalk, wondering how much coaching I was supposed to provide. After what felt like hours but was probably seconds, Noah pointed at the boy's scooter parked in their foyer, then back at himself.

"Okay," the little boy said. "Let me ask my mom."

He emerged with his helmet on a few minutes later and they were off. He attempted to teach Noah how to play tag but goodnaturedly let it drop when it was clear Noah didn't understand how to play. They took a break and sat side by side on the curb for awhile, chatting about something I couldn't quite hear. 

Ezra was hungry, so we came inside and I kept poking my head out the door or window, chewing on my fingers and generally not really knowing whether it was okay to let Noah be so...free and unsupervised, just out there on the sidewalk. I started to head back outside when I heard Noah ask the question:

"Do you want to come to my house and play?"

"Okay," the little boy said. "Let me ask my mom."

She arrived a minute or so later, struggling to explain that she needed to go pick up her husband, so actually if he could stay with us for 20 minutes or so, that would be really helpful. I assured her that it was fine.

Fine! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? DOES HE WANT DINNER? PIZZA? I COULD MAKE CUPCAKES. WHATEVER. NO BIG THING, EXCEPT OH MY GOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

The boys marched down to the basement and Noah stopped on the stairs and looked back at me. "You keep Ezra up there. Not down here. This is my friend." 

I know, Noah. I know!

Consumer Reporting

Dear Crayola,

Hi! How are you? I'm fine. I mean, I could be drunker, but for now I'm pretty good. Anyway, I would like to bring a possible design flaw to your attention, re: my recent purchase of a set of Crayola Beginnings Washable TaDoodles Crayon Buddies, which holy hell, that's a lot of words about crayons, but I appreciate that you guys probably get pretty excited about crayons. CRAYONS! TADOODLES! I'm imagining a lot of jazz hands happen around your office. Please don't shatter my illusions.

What? Oh. Right. My problem. See, I've got a toddler who is a bit of a mimic. The monkey-see, monkey-do variety. Perform an action once in his presence and he will repeat it, over and over again. This is the very trait that led me to purchase the Crayola Beginnings Washable TaDoodles Crayon Buddies for him, since he very much wants to color alongside his older brother. Adorable! I know! You could already die just picturing it.  Feel free to contact me about having them appear in a commercial or something. They're kind of uncooperative little shits sometimes, but you guys have a budget for CGI, right? 

What? Dammit! Right. The point. Which is, that to my toddler, THIS:

Is awfully damn similar to THIS:

I trust I do not need to elaborate any further. Do with this information what you will.

Sincerely,

Amy

PS. Although if you could tell me (approximately) how much longer my child will continue to sneeze and snorf out primary-colored snot, I'd appreciate that as well.

Imitative Play FTW

I believe I have mentioned once or twice or seventeen dozen times that Ezra is not a big fan of "toys," particularly toys that are generally labeled as such or come from the toy store or contain no choking hazards or are anything that he did not retrieve himself from the garbage. So he's more or less content to wander around the house with empty paper towel tubes, Chinese food takeout receipts, and electrical outlet covers from God-knows-what outlet, but I bet it's one near some forks. Last week he carried around a Victoria's Secret coupon mailer that featured a woman's polka-dot-panty-clad ass for three days straight.

All that changed this weekend.

 

You know you have to special order blue or gender-neutral doll strollers? And pay twice as much for privilege? Or you can just grab the nearest $9.99 Pepto Bismol version at Target and watch your son lose his damn mind over it?

For hours. HOURS. "Bye!" he says cheerfully before heading off into the nearest wall with tremendous purpose.

He is not overly concerned with his baby's comfort, body placement, or species.

 

And sometimes whether they stay in the stroller for the entire ride is a meaningless detail. To his credit, though, if you point out that the stroller is empty he will run back through the house, shrieking "BABY! BABY!" before finding it in the dining room and roughly shoving it back in the stroller by its eyeballs.

 

Other passengers have included a variety of grimy naked baby dolls, a sippy cup, one of my shoes, and that aforementioned asstastic Victoria's Secret coupon mailer. I allow it. He's pretty damn attached.

The Frantic "Wait! Don't Go! I Have Thoughts!" Friday Round-Up

I had a photo essay planned for today, but my memory card reader decided to eat all the photos. NOM. POOF. Gone. No photos and no photo essay.

So now I'm facing the White Space Of Creative Terror with less than 20 minutes before I have to go pick up Noah from school. What should I talk about? AHMAHGAD.

I could talk about our roof, which you may remember started leaking in the wake of Snoverkill 2010: The Reckoning: Inconvenience Unleashed: the insurance guy came by yesterday to assess the damage.

Good news! There's only $650 in damage.
Bad news! Your deductible is $1,000. So. Good luck with your repairs.

Good news! Your roof wasn't damaged by the snow or ice.
Bad news! Your roof IS damaged, thanks to a certain snow removal guy who decided to get up there with a GODDAMN HAMMER. So. Good luck with THAT.

The insurance guy was really nice, so I felt bad for being a little "goddamn...I'll...hammer...fucking...getonyourroof seehowyoulikeit" at the end of his visit. Then Noah asked him if he was the Cowardly Lion. That was probably a little more awkward.

I could talk about Ezra and all the funny stuff he does, classic mommyblog style, like "Oh! He goes to the front door and says 'BYE' when he wants to go somewhere! He loves school buses and paper towel tubes! When I ordered some Indian food the other night he ran to his high chair and shrieked like a deranged howler monkey because he somehow knew there was food in the bag and I don't know if that means he's smart or I eat too much Indian food."

We're also trying to work on that whole "hands are not for hitting" thing, which is going only sort of okay. We've at least redirected his pint-sized rage away from living things and aimed at inanimate objects. I remember Noah went through a similar phase, at around...18 months? I want to say, though it is entirely likely that I am making that up. (If only I had a blog to write these things down! Or at least the energy and patience to search through that blog's archives!) It's kind of strange that two children who are never hit or spend time around people who hit still manage to pick up smacking as a default reaction to injustice. Inherent violence and aggression in humankind? Eh. Whatever. I'll tell you this: watching a toddler bitchslap a wall that he's just bumped into is HILARIOUS.

(INTERLUDE OF OH SHIT, I HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO GET TO THE SCHOOL THAT'S 20 MINUTES AWAY OH FUCK)

I could talk about the drive home from preschool, when Noah heard Bob Dylan for the first time. I was digging around in our basement for something the other day -- a stapler, I think, the one I swiped from my old office -- and came across a box full of Dylan CDs. At one point I must have boxed them up separately to denote their very specialness to me, and then promptly forgot completely about them. I've been busy. Buying a lot of Glee MP3s. 

Anyway! I ripped a bunch of them and put them on the iPod, and today "Lily, Rosemary & the Jack of Hearts" came up, and Noah snapped to attention in the backseat and attempted to hum the harmonica and bounced his legs and just had this LOOK that he gets when he hears music that he really likes. 

I asked him what color the song was. "I don't know!" he exclaimed. "It doesn't have a color!"

I played a couple other Dylan songs and the verdict was the same: He didn't know what color they were. So...I have no idea what that means, from a music or synesthesia theory point of view, but there you go: Bob Dylan songs don't have colors, but Noah sure likes them anyway. 

(INTERLUDE OF SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION)

Big things a'going on at Mamapop this week: we launched SparkleMotion, a community blog/discussion/Tumblr/Twitter/repository of many awesome things...uh, THING. It's really fun. You can join and post whatever you want or check out the funny photos/videos/links that Mamapop writers and readers post, and my goodness, does that sentence have enough slashes? SparkleMotion: the original model/actress, bitches. 

Also at Mamapop Proper, we're hosting our annual Oscars open thread this Sunday. It is an EXCELLENT party, considering you don't have to leave your living room and can say all the bitchy things about peoples' clothing that earn you the stinkeye from your more enlightened significant other. It starts at 7 pm ET. 

Uh. I think that's all I have to talk about today. Hooray for posting at 4:50 pm on a Friday! Ten minutes until quittin' time. (Which around here actually means: 10 minutes until Sesame Street is over.)

FINALLY

Oh, so hey. Remember when we went on that awesome vacation? Way over a month ago? Yes, that. I finally went through our photos and uploaded 100 or so of my favorites to Flickr. We took 700 photos, by the way. Each frolic on the beach or dip in the pool necessitated at least 150 near-identical shots of the children, apparently. It's like we planned to create an Our Vacation Flip Book when we got back, lest we forget a single precious arm movement.

Anyway, you can view the set here. Don't everybody rush over at once.

Also, if you're thinking about taking a trip to Bluefields, here's the deal: 15% rate reduction with $100 spa credit for new full-week reservations with rental dates between now and November 1, 2010. Code is AMALAH. Go to their reservations page, or call (202) 232-4010 or vacations@bluefieldsvillas.com. Yay!

Two Roads Diverged in a Suburban Parking Lot

Noah's private school is around the corner from my old office. On Mondays I drop him off and then hang out at the shopping center across the street, poaching WiFi from the sandwich place where I used to get lunch. The parking lot is still a pain in the ass, the chicken salad is still too dry, but that's where the nostalgia ends.

I've been coming here since last summer, when I brought a very, very different little boy to the school's summer camp, and yet I have never once bumped into anyone I know. I drove by the office every day for months without noticing that the company name was no longer on the building -- they'd moved a couple blocks away, to another building that I drove by every day, but the name on that building is different too. The company was sold awhile back, then renamed and rebranded. I had no idea until I joined LinkedIn and tried searching for coworkers. Most of them are still there, though there were quite a few layoffs in the wake of the stock market crash.

I still can't listen to stock market reports without thinking about my job -- if the Dow or NASDAQ closed up or down a certain number of points, I had to stay late and send out one last update. When I started, the updates were recorded over the phone. Subscribers would call and listen to a pre-recorded message from their investment adviser about the day's action. When we started sending the updates out via email, I had to call the phone number over and over again to transcribe the messages, because some of the advisers didn't like typing it out first, but preferred to just call and ramble on for awhile about whatever they felt like. One guy was downright epic -- he'd talk for 15 minutes about everything from the Presidential election cycle to the auto industry to the Olympics to the yuan to the bulls and the bears and lagging indicators and buy some blue chips and short the dollar and by the way I'm recording this message from my yacht, have a nice weekend, folks. He always got a few ticker symbols wrong, and to this day I still know a good 200 of them by heart.

It's not my job anymore -- and that particular bit of drudgework hadn't been my job for awhile, as I lobbed it off on assistants and interns as soon as I could -- but I still call it my job. When a former boss sent out an employment posting on LinkedIn for a managing editor with an eerily familiar set of duties, I forwarded it to Jason and said something like, oh how funny, I could get my job back. I don't want it back, but still.

I was so terrified when I quit my job. That job. Whatever job.

The title and responsibilities sound the same, but not much else would be. The new building has cubicles instead of window offices and I hear the formal dress code has been relaxed. It's all very Internet-y now and I have no idea if they still do any actual publishing. Like on paper. Which was a thing, back then. Way back in, you know, 2006.

I imagine, if I hadn't quit outright, I probably would have dropped down to part-time by now, what with the realities of two babies in daycare, twice the cost and quadruple the sick days. Being away from Ezra for 40 hours a week sounds about as attractive as dropping off a couple of my limbs. And who would drive Noah to evaluations and therapy and private school in the afternoon? So maybe I'd be freelancing or contracting. Maybe copywriting, or handling the after-hours grudgework that nobody else wanted. Maybe I would have been laid off already.

I think all of this over just about every Monday, as I stare out the window at the building that the company I no longer work for no longer occupies. I wonder about that life for awhile, like it's the alternate reality B-plot from Lost. Then I get back in the car to go pick up the first of the two greatest decisions I ever made.