October 26, 2006

Hayes is starting to show his imagination. It started about August when he bit a peice of cheese into roughly the shape of a bus — or the equivelent for a 18 months 0ld — and announced, much to our surpise, that it was a bus. He proceeded to make car noises and drive it around the table.

His newest imagination created playmate was a robot. It was the first time I had ever heard him say “robot.” This time it was a peice of asparagus. At dinner, he picked it up — he had never had it before — called it a bean, taste tested it and put it back down. He then grabbed it by the mid point, so that it fell around his fingers to roughly resemble legs, held it do that each end was touching the table and exclaimed, “robot, dance!”

He then flopped the asparagus robot about the table humming a tune.

This is awesome. I really didn’t expect much in the way of an imagination from a 21 month old. But, never-the-less, here it is. And, better still, it’s another thing we have in common.

October 24, 2006

Hayes wants to poop. He says: “Poop with elmo! Poop with elmo! Mama, up!”

Mama picks him up and brings him to the bathroom. She removes his diaper and sits him on his elmo toilet seat, positioned to Hayes’ spec, on top of a the real toilet seat.

Hayes wants to read. He says: “Want to read, mama.”

He shrugs off all the usual go-to books. Hayes narrows it down to The New Yorker and a Flor catalogue.

Hayes pees. This is nothing new, Hayes has self-taught himself to pee on command so he can play with the toilet paper when he’s done.

Now he wants to read with dad.

“Read with dada! Mama, read with dada.”

Jen calls me into the bathroom and tells me Hayes wants to read with me. She leaves. Hayes has narrowed down his selection to the Flor catalogue, so he hands me The New Yorker. Nice pick, I haven’t read it yet.

“Dada, read!” Hayes insists.

I read. Hayes reads. Mama chuckles silently outside the door. This goes on for a few more minutes. Hayes is now done with reading and the potty. “All done,” he announces.

Jen returns and lifts him off the toilet. We peer in expecting nothing. Poop! Tons and tons of poop! The kind both of us were glad we didn’t have to change.

Hayes pooped while sitting on his potty!

Yes, a big Saturday in the Sagalyn household.

October 16, 2006

This weekend Hayes discovered one of the many joys of living in New England: apple picking.

We took a Saturday trip to Echo Hill Orchard near my parent’s house. No one was sure what Hayes would think of picking apples, but from doing it pre-Hayes I knew there was a tractor involved, so I figured at least we’d have that.

Turns out, he knew exactly what an apple was, despite the fact that he has yet to have one, and really, really wanted to eat one.

As you may know, we’ve been keeping Hayes away from fruit due to an unfortunate rash he develops… around… the… uhm, diaper area. But, what the heck, it was apple picking, so why not make an exception (or, better still find out for sure if apples are a cause).

Guess what? He loved em. And now problems. At first he ran around the orchard yelling “Apple!” Then, after the novelty of it all wore off, he contentedly ran around chewing his apple and pointing to other apples in hopes that my sister might hoist him up so he could get a better look.

Yes, it was good times. Tomorrow, I’ll give you a lowdown on the tractor part.

October 10, 2006

Hayes has started, albeit seemingly a bit prematurely, the “terrible twos.” Specifically, he’s mastered the art of the temper tantrum. For Hayes this goes down something like this:

1. Screaming: “no, no, no!”
2. Yelling: “More (fill in the blank)!”
3. Flopping on the ground if you try to move him
4. Rinse, repeat

So, we’re taking the tact of not giving in. We’re hoping that trying to change his focus, our outright ignoring his tantrum will nip the behavior in the bud. I know, I know, easier said then done — he’s so freaking cute, even whilst in the midst of a tantrum, that I really do want to give in… if only to see him smile and utter a teary, “Tank ou.” I’m a sap.

September 29, 2006

Hayes and I were watching Curious George yesterday, and before it began they had a “teaching” vignette with a woman and an animated chipmunk/rodent.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” the woman asked.

“I want to drive a red truck,” replied the rodent.

“Do you know what he wants to be?” the woman asked, looking at the viewer.

“A fireman!” I happily blurted and smiled proudly at Hayes. Damn straight I knew the answer!

“That’s right,” said the woman, “A firefighter!”

Firefighter? Oh, shit, right. Firefighter — a firefighter can be a man or woman. Do I need to remember these things? Is this like sitting “indian style” is now sitting “legs akimbo” (interestingly, akimbo is also used in the culinary work for what you do with the wings of a bird when prepping it to roast)? Sitting aside, in this situation, Hayes would be a fireman, right?

I don’t know.

Is this going to be one of those things that separates us from our kids if we don’t learn to non-sex our words? Is Hayes going to think of me as quaint when I talk about my buddy being a fireman and not a firefighter? Will he apologize to his friends for my sexist behavior? Maybe I’m thinking too much about this, but I suspect it’s in my best interest to choose more “politically acceptable” words.

What then would be a policeman? Right, a police officer. This is going to take some time.

September 19, 2006

Over the weekend, Hayes inexplicably stopped saying “Danku.” (That’s Hayes for “Thank you.”) Try as we may, we just can’t seem to get him to say it. He’s still got “Pees” (please and pees) but no thank you. And he seemed so well trained. Oh well, perhaps he’s taken it off the market until he gets a new and improved version?