More belated thanks...

We're home after a comfy weekend in Vermont with Kiki (Catherine) and Auntie Lipa (Filipa). Nothing is more fun than leftover pie with people you love. 

Well, maybe a spoiling trip to the local toy store is more fun, and Graham made some excellent scores for his upcoming second birthday. The buying spree ended with a temper tantrum: imagine G yelling, " I want THAT zebra" as we try to hustle him out of the store.  Although it is enlightening to understand what he is enraged about ("I want that [car] door open!!"), it's a little embarrassing when it happens in public. And also hilarious. 

In other news, Graham is sick, again. We are on day three of a chest cold here, readers, and can I just mention that I curse whoever passed this little gem of an illness on to us. Especially since the Big Birthday is this weekend, we hope G's recovery is on the quick side. After all, I have a guitar cake to bake!

 

This year, we're thankful for having two Wilson brothers living close by. Graham worships them, and I think they like him quite a bit, too. 

We lost our friend Aimee to cancer last Wednesday. This poem always, even when we were young grad students with nothing but future ahead of us, reminded me of her. Now it just makes me cry. 

--

When you are old and gray and full of sleep

And nodding by the fire, take down this book, 

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace, 

And loved your beauty with love false and true;

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, 

And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars, 

Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead, 

And his his face amid a crowd of stars. 

-- W.B. Yeats

Graham has been a real pain in the ass lately. His favorite activities including the following: hitting (others, himself, objects), screeching (in delight or anger), making a big f-ing mess (upending cups, containers, etc), and waking up at the unholy hour of 5am, which adds insult to injury. Our main respite, many hours of outside time, is increasingly limited by the colder weather (and I am deranged enough presently to hope for a little global warming). Anyway, here are some shots of what we did Sunday morning: puddle stomp. 

Parenting Advice: be less neurotic than me



So, Graham was a late talker. He didn't even really babble until he was 18 months old, and didn't say anything regularly until this summer. The fact that he was way behind most of his friends in this respect had me in a full blown tizzy, especially because many of our girl toddler friends were essentially brokering real estate deals by the same age. It seemed only slightly less fun for Graham, who went through a few months when the fact that we couldn't understand his wants (uh, his demands) resulted in tears every day. Ok, several times a day. We had him evaluated and started receiving services through Early Intervention.

It was when we started attending a playgroup at our EI center that I began to wonder if I had jumped the gun. Many of these kids had been premature, or have more obvious cognitive disabilities, or show signs of being Autistic. Their moms had known each other for a long time and they chatted about progress and specialists. We knew that Graham seemed to understand a lot; he just didn't respond at all (and then, not understandably).

Then, just a few weeks ago, Graham found his tongue. In a big way. He went from linking two words together (which is a big developmental gold star) to speaking in full sentences, to repeating everything last thing we say (there goes the swearing, I promise). Because this whole evolution has been ramped up, we are still AMAZED every time the process works the way it should. He asks for the song about marching dinosaurs and we play it. He asks for peanut butter toast and I make it. No more frustration on either end (except I am now officially a toddler lackey).

I have the following to add to any conversations that have been going on among our friends about developmental issues. Timetables suck. We KNEW this- have known it since Graham outpaced the growth chart at 6 months, but I still got caught up in the hysteria. My other big failing? To compare my kid to every other child we know. We've seen our little band of merry toddlers change so much in the past year, and they are all awesome, and they are ALL doing it on their own schedule. It makes me realize that my desires amounted to a need for Graham to be at least average, when he is actually much more than that. They all are.

Graham on Obama.

Graham can sing! We've celebrated 2 birthdays this week, and by today G was an old pro at the whole thing.