Okay. I swore that my Uncle K would be the only person ever allowed to call Caspar that, and he is only allowed to because nothing would stop him (and I adore him), but it makes for a catchier title than “Caspar update”.
Why Spooky Joh? Caspar’s middle name is Johannes, in honour of my Opa (my mother’s father), and the spooky connection seems fairly obvious. I was very aware that when I chose his name (or it chose me) that I would have to deal with “friendly ghost” jokes. Please resist the temptation to make one and remind yourself that that lovable, floaty cartoon character’s name was CaspEr, not CaspAr. And, yes, I was also aware that I would be spending the next 20 years correcting everyone’s spelling.
I hate nicknames. My sister has called Cas numerous ridiculous things and each time I object, but my Uncle K is not my sister. He’s special. So he gets to call Cas Spooky Joh, and the terrible thing about it is that it’s terribly catchy. Why, oh why, did I write it here? I refuse to give my permission for anyone else to use it.
Anyway, I am rambling. Update. That’s what I’m supposed to be writing. An update.
I wish I had some brand new pictures to go with it, but I’ve been slack with the camera lately so I’m going to post some slightly older ones in the hope that no one will notice. 11 months old or 13 months old, he is still insanely gorgeous.
Apart from his overwhelming interest all in things that do things, he now performs many important tasks on command. He dances, he spins, he points to his belly button and sticks out his tongue. He “goes upside down”, which is downward facing dog if we’re talking yoga positions. He sits down. He gets his ball or his shoes. He “reads” his books. He runs away so I can catch him. And today, he decided he was ready to jump.
I don’t know at what age children normally learn to jump, but whenever they do, it is seriously funny. Such a gargantuan effort, with a tennis-player grunt, and he only manages to get enough lift to stand on tiptoe. Before falling on his butt. He, of course, soon realised we found this funny so being the puppeteer comedian he is, he began to simply go through the motions, bending his knees then straightening up, sticking out his chest and throwing his head back. This, of course, made us laugh more so I am afraid that we will be doomed to that performance for some time to come, much like the fake laugh he developed which still rears its head on occasion, usually just long enough to leave us in tears.
Yes. My son has a fake laugh. I have been told on occasion that my laugh sounds fake, which is really not a nice thing to hear but Caspar’s fake laugh? It’s irresistible. It began in the emergency room while we waited for Big Sis to be seen. He went, He He, and we laughed. He did it again. And we laughed. So he did it again and again until our sides ached and we were sliding from our chairs, crying. They were the best tears we shed that awful week.
Are fake laughing and fake jumping considered milestones?
Oh, there is one other thing he does on command which boggles my mind. I know they say that children learn by example but if so, I can honestly say that he didn’t get this from me. “Put it away” and “Put it back“. I never put things away. He loves to put things away. As teaching Caspar thus far has appeared to go more along the lines of me working out what he already knows rather than me showing him something he can repeat, I thought I’d test the breadth of his understanding. I told him to get his shoes, which I had, of course, left scattered on the living room floor. Then I told him to put them away. He carried them from the living room then walked down the hall and into our bedroom where he placed them neatly on the shelf of his wardrobe. Yes. Neatly.
He did not get that from me.
Not only is he tidy, he does things comfortably in an orderly fashion. If I hand him his bottle in the kitchen, he takes it and ambles off to our bedroom to wait beside his cot for me to lift him in for his nap. (Admittedly, he occasionally tosses his head and sighs as he does this, but he still does it. Without prompting.) And when I change him into his pajamas, he goes and gets a book or two then climbs onto the couch waiting for me to read to him before he happily goes to bed. Seriously, where did he pick up that kind of behaviour? Where? I think he must be a changeling. I know I’ve said that I got the beginner’s model, but I think it’s more than that. I got the training model.
I think I’ve gone on for a while now, but there is only one more new thing to tell you. He has a trike. Just one of those walking ones, no peddles. But he isn’t tall enough for it. My Mum bought it for him when she was here in July so that I could give it to him for his birthday. She was careful to pick one that wasn’t too high or too wide but at that stage he was at the top end of those ubiquitous percentile charts. Then he went in for his surgery and he just stopped growing. Okay, he’s grown some but if percentiles were like grades, he would now be failing.
So after his birthday we tried it a few times but with his little legs all he could do was get his heels stuck under the back wheels. After a few attempts (and a face planted in the concrete driveway after flipping himself over the handle bars) I gave up and it has been sitting in a corner ever since. A couple of days ago though, he decided that he wanted to play with his trike and if he couldn’t ride it, he would walk it. For an hour and a half he criss-crossed the lounge with it, struggling to pick it up to turn it around each time he needed to change direction. (Steering isn’t a skill he has acquired yet.)
An hour and a half!
Honestly, does this boy need me for anything, other than clapping?
God, I love him.
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