Bedtime for Bonzo

They say you know that your toddler is ready to transition from a crib to a bed when he starts climbing out of the crib. Well, with Owen... not so much. He doesn't always want to go in it, but once he's there, he doesn't like to leave the crib, either. He hasn't shown any signs of seriously trying to escape. He has, however, perfected the art of using super-gravity to refuse to get up under any circumstances. For us, that was the sign that he needed a bed. We were hesitant to make the transition, though, out of fear that he'd be up wandering around all night.

Two weeks ago we went to Ikea, where he climbed into a bed and refused to leave it. So we bought it. The same bed, the same mattress, the same sheets - we didn't want to leave anything to chance. We set it up and let him spend a few days getting used to having it in his room. Then he started asking to be put in the bed, not the crib at night. The first few nights we listened outside his door and it was obvious that he was running around the room having a party, so we'd have to go in and put him in the crib for the night. Then yesterday at naptime, he stayed quiet, so we let him be. When it was time to wake him, we found him fast asleep. Not in the bed, but on the futon, with his head on the wooden armrest, his towels tucked behind him, and his little hand clutching his rocking chair.



He looked very sweet, but he was NOT happy about it when he woke up. Then last night he asked to get in the bed again. We had a long talk about how important it was to stay in the bed. And he did. I listened at the door, but far from having a party, he was singing quietly to himself. The song was his own creation, "Gentle, gentle, I love you," to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. This morning we went in and there he was, fast asleep on his big boy bed:





It's a big day.

Saturday in the park

Piano man

The Ray Charles jokes are just too obvious, so I won't even bother. (Did you think I didn't mean it when I said he was obsessed with sunglasses?)

Round and round

There are girls Owen's age that try desperately to get his attention. An almost two year-old classmate of his, who clearly adores him, told him last week, "Owen, I think you are beautiful." But he doesn't really notice them. It's kind of sad to watch.

I just tell the parents of these poor girls, "It's not her fault she doesn't have wheels." Because if there were a girl with wheels, he would be smitten. Owen loves wheels. He has loved pushing things with wheels since before he could walk. One of his first "words" was "ra ra ra" for bus - as in, "the wheels on the bus go ra ra ra." For a while he would ride in his stroller with his head stuck out the side so he could watch the wheels go round.

Now that it's spring, Owen pushes his stroller home from daycare almost every day. This is not as straightforward as it might sound. For one, it's very hard for him to see where he's going. He has to stick his head around the side to do that, but that makes it hard to push it straight. So sometimes he just opts to push it blindly. This causes great amusement for people walking towards us. If he can't see them, they can't see him. About 50% of them laugh and remark that they thought the stroller was pushing itself.

The daycare is due East of our apartment - straight into the low sun in the morning and evening. Owen does not like direct sunlight. The bloglet regulars among you might note that his sunglass addiction could come in handy for this problem, and it does to some extent. He has now gotten the hang of wearing them right side up and leaving them on for a minute or two at a time. But then he has to stop to take them on and off a few times. You can watch him stop and think about how he's going to do that and push the stroller at the same time. His hands go back and forth from the glasses to the stroller. He tries one hand on each, then realizes he needs both hands to push the stroller. He puts the glasses on the ground, then pushes the stroller one step, and realizes that they're not coming with him. He picks them back up, then realizes that he doesn't have any hands left for the stroller. He repeats this several times and then eventually he gives up, puts them back on and walks some more.


Until the terrain under his feet changes from sidewalk to black top to red bricks, or sewer grating. Then he has to stop and announce the name of the new terrain. (No, he doesn't say sewer grating. He either names the shape of it, or calls out the letters on it.) Then he'll walk for a while, until we get to a bench, where he'll stop and yell, "Owen sit on the bench!" and climb up onto the bench to sit for a moment. And then, from time to time, if he sees a tree, he has to stop and hug it. I'm not kidding. He hugs trees.

He wears his sunglasses at night

Owen absolutely loves sunglasses. He loves folding them and unfolding them, putting them on his face, under his chin, on his head. He loves telling you when you're wearing them (and then grabbing them off your face and playing with them himself). This has been going on for as long as I can remember - at least since last summer. It has been a challenge for him to learn to be gentle with sunglasses. He has destroyed several pairs of mine and of his own. It is heartbreaking to hear him cry "Mommy fix the broken glasses!"


At school they try really hard to not have any items that "belong" to one child or another, but they've basically made an exception for Owen and a particularly fetching pair of purple sunglasses with white dots. If the other children take them, everyone gets very tense until they hand them back over to Owen. Fortunately his friends seem to understand the importance of the purple glasses in Owen's life. All weekend he asks for the purple glasses and we talk about how he'll get to have them again when he goes back to school on Monday.

With spring and summer on the way (someday), I thought that perhaps I'd like to wear sunglasses again sometime soon, and for that to happen, Owen would have to become attached to a pair of his own. So I went online and picked out four pairs for him. He immediately fell in love with a green pair with colorful dots. Last night I let him go to sleep with them on (the things you never think you'll do before you have a 2-year old). Then, rather predictably, in the middle of the night I woke to him screaming at the top of his lungs "GREEN GLASSES! GREEN GLASSES!" because they had fallen on the floor. I didn't go in - I couldn't justify giving in to a 3 am cry for sunglasses, of all things - but I wanted to.

Portrait of a two-year old, Part II

(We're still here, we're just insanely busy - taking turns traveling and interviewing, trying to get Owen to stop throwing his food. Good thing he's so cute!)

Portrait of a two-year old

WMOM - all requests, all the time

Owen has always loved to be sung to. Now he requests the songs he wants to hear by name. And he does it all. the. time. It is useful at night when I'm putting him to sleep. Instead of trying a dozen songs only to have him yell "no song!", now he just says "Sing Uff Magic Ragon song," or "Sing Hit the Road - Jack." Tonight he said "How about Jingle Bells?" and we sang it about a hundred times. It's not so much fun, after I've left the room, when he starts yelling "Moooommmyyyyyyy! Sing! Alleluiaaaaa!" (which is Owenspeak for "Michael row the boat ashore.") It is lots of fun in the morning, when he is generally in a good mood. This morning he asked me to "Sing E I E I O song!" So I sang Old MacDonald and let him fill in the animals. To my great surprise, it turns out that Old MacDonald has a farm filled with chickens, cows, pigs, and triangles!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Owen!

Bravery

Owen has been going to the "ear doctor" ever since his first ear infection when he was just 4 months old. Fortunately he doesn't get ear infections too often, but they still want to monitor him, since even between infections his ears don't clear properly. What this means is that every few months we go to 2 appointments, one with an audiologist and one with an ENT. And Owen hates it. He typically screams at the top of his lungs the entire time, from the moment we walk in the room (he recognizes it right away). He thrashes and refuses to stay still, and I have to hold him as tight as I can so the doctors can do everything they need to without puncturing his eardrums. It is extraordinarily exhausting, both physically and emotionally.

He had his most recent appointments on Monday. I tried to prepare him in advance by telling him we were going to see the doctor, and that the doctor was going to want to check his ears. When we got there this time, he took one look at the doctor and said "no doctor! no ears!" and clung to me and was about to cry. And then the most amazing thing happened. I held him and explained again that the doctor just wanted to put the telephone in his ear and see what Owen heard. And I lied a little bit, and said that maybe his grandparents would be on the phone. And then I watched him be so brave. He didn't protest. He didn't cry. He leaned in against me, his eyes big and his lips quivering, and sat quietly through multiple tests. By the end he even cooperated by pointing to various body parts when the doctor asked him to in quieter and quieter voices. Then later in the afternoon, we went back to the ENT, and he was scared again, and he was brave again. The whole experience was remarkable, not just for his cooperation, but for how clear it was that he was cooperating despite his obvious fear and uneasiness. He has self-control. He can be brave. He is growing up.

Oh, and his ears? Not great, but good enough for now. We'll go back in May for the next round of tests.