26-Aug-08 - All Grown Up

Well, not really. But I feel like I don't have a baby anymore. Last Thursday, he weaned himself. Just like that.

He has not really wanted mo-juice for a while, but when he goes to bed, he feels like he has rights he has to exercise and maintain. So he would go through the motions: "Can I have mo-juice?" "Yes," I would sigh, knowing that this is going to end shortly and preferring to let him be the one to terminate it.

But Thursday, after literally two seconds, he said, "Switch sides!" Then after two more seconds he pulled away and looked at me like, "Well, so now what?" So now we just read before we go to bed and he doesn't even ask for m-j anymore. Except in the occasional offhand reference; as in, "Can I pee, and brush teeth, and have a story, and have mo-juice and go to bed?" But when it comes down to actualities, the m-j never gets factored in.

Oh, and the other night he asked to not have a diaper at night. Since he has been keeping them consistently dry, I said sure. He stayed beautifully dry for three or four nights. Then last night he wet the bed. Hardly surprising, really, considering that Liam did not even day train until he was older than Parker is now, and it took Liam a full year before we began to try to motivate him to night train. And we're talking eleven or twelve straight hours without waking up.

Fortunately, Parker is young enough that it does not hurt his feelings (or his ego) to go back to diapers. When I put one on him tonight, he did not even comment. It does not bother me for him to keep wearing them. We still have a bunch left, so we may as well use them... and he has plenty of time to finish growing up!

*****

The boys love to play racquetball. Not being allowed any balls in the house, they have to pretend with plain old air and the make-do racquets of the day (lately they have chosen the little wooden apple trees from their Christmas train set). They reach into their ottoman "basket" and pull out an air "ball," then swing the little "racquet" at it and yell "bigGANG," which Liam says is the sound the ball makes when it bounces off the wall.

The other day I heard Liam saying over and over, "I'm warming!" He has yet to notice that when other sportsmen say it they always include that strange, useless little preposition: warming up.

"I'm warming!" Liam states. Parker replies, "I'm hotting... It's ready!" You can see the wheels turning as Liam tries to figure out what to do with this. "Well," he says to Parker, "right now we're just starting, so we're just warming. In the middle of the game you can say that."