April 23rd, 2010 §
I bought Caspar a puppet today, three dollars in the chuck-out bin at our little supermarket. It is just a little hand puppet – a monkey – with soft tan fur and two pink felt flowers sewn on. Caspar decided it was a girl and named her Silly. Silly Monkey.
I have wonderful conversations with Caspar, and we often have pretend conversations with each other when we play with his toys, but it is so interesting seeing how he interacts with her in a completely different way.
I love the complete suspension of disbelief, how his gaze never drifts from her while I speak. He laughs when “she” claps her hands or scratches her head as though she is thinking. He speaks to her like a best friend, so it is almost like a little voyeuristic insight into the workings of his mind.
He is still rather shy sometimes with the other children in our lives, and most we either don’t see often enough or they are not at similar enough stages of development for him to really have that comfortable camaraderie. With new children he often stands waiting for the other child to talk to him and you can see him just… wanting. But not knowing yet how to start.
And the problem is especially obvious with familiar children who have different personalities, whose interactions are more highly dependent on activity, who like to constantly be doing and for whom companionship is simply having someone else doing too. Caspar likes that as well of course, but he tires of it sooner and longs for more conversation. There is a rich imagination in there, and a strong social desire, which hasn’t yet found its peers.
He will love kinder next year, and will love school. (Hell, he’s been asking when he can start school since he turned two.) It still might take him some time to find his “friends” – it took me a long time – but for the moment, Silly Monkey and I will try to help fill in the gaps and I can enjoy seeing him express that side of himself which hasn’t yet found its space.
I feel a little bad sometimes that I can’t provide this for him now but even with lots of activities, a like-mind for him is not something I can pull out of thin air.
He’s such a joyous, happy, thought-filled boy. I’m looking forward to him having someone to share that with.
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September 1st, 2008 §
I know that Monday’s Child is usually a photo, but to catch everyone up on Caspar, words are required, not a picture.
He is talking. A lot.
And very well considering.
Now is the time that I am supposed to be taking him to see a speech pathologist (which is another thing on my current to-do list) for an assessment and, because of his cleft palate, speech therapy was something that I expected to be part of our lives for quite some time. Now, I’m not so sure. The way he is going I can’t imagine that he will require anything more than a little monitoring.
To my untrained ears there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of a lisp or a nasal quality – common difficulties with a cleft – or any indication that his language skills have been affected by those first nine months of hearing difficulties before he had his surgery. (Seeing the audiologist for a checkup is another job on my list but he knows there is an aeroplane nearby before I do, so I think his hearing is better than mine.)
The clarity and intelligibility of his speech is better than some older children I know. (Of course, that could be because he’s mine so the speech pathologist gets to give her educated opinion.) His vocabulary is good too, well and truly in the triple figures and increasing every day. That, however, is somewhat sobering because occasionally I talk like Magneto Bold Too writes (I blame working in hospitality – Gordon Ramsey is not an anomaly) and on Thursday, one of those new words was “Fuck”. My friend and I managed not to laugh and I, sarcastically innocently, said, “I have no idea where he picked that up”.
And last week he brought me his Schleich (I love Schleich!) velociraptor and when he handed it to me he said, “Raptosaurus”. I thought that was genius. For him to be unsure of the exact word, but to categorise the figurine correctly and to choose an appropriate word ending…
In all seriousness, the way humans acquire language is a beautiful and amazing thing.
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April 14th, 2008 §
I’ve been shite lately. Obviously. I don’t even want to look at the date of my last post. I haven’t been reading my friends blogs. I haven’t even been reading my emails much. I think there are a gazillion people online that I haven’t thanked for various things. And a few offline as well. At some stage, things just got “all too much” and I left my computer off, zealously, and buried my head in sand (aka Sci-Fi DVDs). And when you feel like everything things all too much and so ignore them, it actually makes you feel worse.
So here I am, back again and feeling somewhat miserable and stressed, but I’ll probably feel better by the time I finish this post. There are so many things I have to do right now. I can’t even begin to enumerate them. I know people say to break it down into small parts, and to write lists and tick them off so you feel like you’re getting somewhere, but when the task of writing such a list is overwhelming, I think you’re pretty much screwed.
So I’m starting my baby steps – again – here. And apologising to all those people who deserve much attention and haven’t been getting it from me. I can’t promise you’ll be getting it any time soon, but now at least you know that I am thinking about you.
Sometimes, I am the life of the party. And sometimes I am a very antisocial creature. My real life friends are mostly aware of that, and don’t worry when they don’t hear from me for months on end. That’s just me. I think internet relationships are more tenuous. They don’t, for me at least, have the strength of years. So I feel more guilty when I don’t “water” those friendships. Which, again, makes me want to bury my head in the sand.
I’ve been slack at taking photos too, so I have no picture of “Monday’s Child” (I don’t want to cheat and use an old one) but I can promise that he is still as gorgeous as ever. And we started toilet training a couple of weeks ago.
Caspar will be 18 months in 2 days, which is apparently on the early side for toilet training these days, especially for boys. (Yes, I scanned a couple of pieces of the child rearing literature before ignoring it and Skyping my mother.) He’d been showing signs of readiness for a while, and I had a potty on hand but decided that trying to get him to use the potty when he was interested in the toilet was a stupid idea. So I looked around for a toilet seat for him. I didn’t think that would be so hard.
I just wanted one of those seat and step combined folding things. I thought they were pretty standard. But no, I couldn’t find one anywhere. Just seats and separate steps which were too low. And ridiculously high tech things which convert into Lear jets or some such and had a similar price point. After a couple of weeks searching for simplicity, I gave up and just bought a padded seat because he didn’t want to wait any longer, and holding him over the bowl was not fun for my back.
(I also shopped around for some plain undies – without crazy patterns or “licensed” characters. I loathe “licensed” characters on everything. It was worth the extra pennies not to have to look at them 10 times a day.)
Of course, the standard seat didn’t fit on our toilet, so out came the hacksaw to remove some excess plastic and we were off.
One other issue is that Cas still doesn’t speak so has no way of telling me that he needs to go so I’ve had to be a little vigilant about keeping an eye on when he’s fidgeting. Kelley from Magneto Bold Too and Leechbabe from Stuff With Thing (I think – it was a while ago) both gave me a couple of handsigns I could use so I taught him one of those as a way to say “toilet”. He learned that pretty much instantaneously. Of course, learning it and using it are two different things.
Overall, it’s been a simple change. To be honest, throwing a couple of pairs of undies in the washing machine is easier than laundering nappies. And he gets it. There have been a few accidents, obviously, but also a few days accident free. We’ve even gone out a couple of times without a nappy. And he’s actually really great at weeing on the loo. He doesn’t even need rewards. He’s happy just to get a piece of toilet paper when he’s done and to wave bye-bye. The pooing, though? Not so much.
In the couple of weeks, we’ve only had half a poo in the loo. But he’ll get there. Toilet training is not as bad as I thought. Maybe because I decided not to stress about that, at least. It helps to have a Mum that says it takes longer than they say it does, and to not be a sucker for the Potty-Train-Your-Toddler-In-A-Day Brigade. If he’s fully toilet trained in six months, that’s good enough for me. Although, after seeing how well he’s doing, I doubt that it will take that long.
So there you go. I wrote a blog post. That’s one thing I can cross off my gargantuan non-existent list. And I feel a bit better.
Although still a crappy person for not, figuratively, returning my friends’ calls.
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January 31st, 2008 §
Cas obeys many things. He puts stuff in the bin, he sits down, he turns the telly off. He dances, jumps, spins around, and “goes upside down.”
But he doesn’t “come here”.
While it is very amusing to watch him do the silly things I tell him to, I’m pretty sure that for his safety and well-being “Come here” is important. And to teach him? I’ve found myself saying, One… Two… Three…
This must be one of those subconscious motherese type things because, really, it makes no sense. He just looks at me, his head cocked to one side, and when I hit 3, I go and get him. Surely the only thing that teaches him is that if he doesn’t come to me, I will come to him when I’ve finished counting? Why do I do that?
Then again, why do I now speak in the 3rd person? Why do I speak in a higher pitch? Why do I lapse into Yoda-like grammar? Yup. Motherhood changes you.
Anyway, as I’ve come to understand that 123 is a ridiculous instinct, and possibly counterproductive, I’ve been trying to figure out how to teach him to come when I call. My solution isn’t highbrow, but if it’s okay for domestic pets it should be okay for kids, right?
My solution is treats. More specifically, chocolate freckles.
Like I said, its kind of low. But it seems to be working.
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January 29th, 2008 §
He has understood Yes and No for quite a while so I’m not sure why he has taken so long to use it. I ask him questions a lot.
Do you want to go for a walk?
Are you ready for a bottle?
Would you like a story?
Do you want to draw?
Are you clever?
He nods when the answer is yes, but just stares when he isn’t that interested. Until recently. Now I’m getting the shaking of the head every now and then. A picture of things to come, I’m sure. At the moment, however, this appears to be less of an emphatic statement and more of a joke. He seems to think it is funny to shake no when he means yes, the same way he likes to hold things out to me and then snatch them back.
Now when I put him to bed and say, Lie down on your pillow, he gets all snuggly and tucked in and then shakes his head at me with a big grin on his face as though he doesn’t want to go to sleep even though he is obviously happy and looking forward to his bottle.
He’s a comedian, my Cas.
I wonder how long it will be before No no longer amuses me?
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January 14th, 2008 Comments Off
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December 19th, 2007 §
Okay. So picture this…
Big Sis is making coffee. She gets the milk out of the fridge. Caspar points at it then walks over to the microwave. She calls out to me that she thinks Caspar might want a bottle. I go into the kitchen and kneel down and say, Are you ready for bed? He nods, then waves at Big Sis and me and says something that sounds a lot like, Bye, before turning around and walking towards the bedroom.
I say, Wait, we have to change your nappy, which I do and then he sits and reads a book while I get his bottle ready. When I’m done, he comes and gets it and toddles off again to wait by the cot so I can lift him in. He waves bye-bye before I’ve even tucked him in.
Is that kid normal? He’s only 14 months old.
I don’t have a lot to compare him to because it’s been a while since I’ve had children his age around me but seriously? I’m pretty sure he’s smarter than the average bear, but he’s more mature than I am!
Definitely a changeling.
Now about those other items listed in the title… At the moment I have a cold; the burning throat, leaky nose, ache and fever kind. Cas does as well. It’s his first one, which I think is fairly impressive. He must have a good immune system and he wasn’t even breast fed.
Also, at the moment I feel swamped. (Or lazy. I’m not sure which.) I haven’t posted any brilliant writing for a while and with Christmas coming (which I’m still not ready for) and a few other responsibilities, I just don’t think it is going to happen. I’m horribly behind on heaps of things, and certainly haven’t been giving the bloggers I love the attention they deserve, so I’m officially announcing that I’m taking a blog break until January 1st.
It’s possible that I’ll be inspired to write something in the meantime, but that can’t be counted on so I’ll just take this opportunity to say thank you to all the people I have encountered through this blog. To all my friends.
You make my world brighter and I really can’t find the words to express my gratitude. You can tell I’m not at full strength by the use of those two clichés in a row, but I mean it sincerely regardless of the phrasing.
So Thank You, and have a wonderfully Merry Christmas. I’ll see you in 2008.
(Seriously… Caspar must be a changeling.)
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