And now back to Tater

So while I've been ranting about other life events, my baby turned into a toddler and then a 2.5-year-old little boy. Today he took a shower for the first time by himself. Supervised, of course, but how did this happen? His speech has jumped right into sentences, colors, counting to ten (one, two, three, four, five, eightnineten). He even does a Sesame Street Count laugh at the end...AH ha ha. He knows a few shapes and an occasional letter. My favorite of his color words are yellow (yeddow) and purple (purtle). Adorable. Tate still has a ball obsession. We like to talk about ball, play ball, read books with balls in them, draw pictures of balls... Brad is taking him to a park district basketball class on Saturdays. We missed a lot of the session since we were out of town, but he got to go back today and was over the moon. Next session is T ball, which I know he is going to love.


He also is expressing more complex ideas, and I've had to realize that he has gone from being a pretty chill kid who didn't much seem to care what was going on to a boy who is aware of his surroundings. I have to remember to let him know what we're doing, where we are going, etc. ahead of time.

He also (for a while now) has a crazy good memory. We'll be on the bus and passing a street where we've gone to the park and he'll start yelling about wanting to go to the park. Or once we got off the bus to go the dr. and he cried because it was the zoo stop and we were't going there. You know that movie "Baby's Day Out" where the baby escapes a kidnapping attempt and then goes all over the city visiting places he remembers from his favorite book? Totally Tate. I'm pretty sure if he ever got out he'd be grabbing my fare card out of my wallet and taking the brown line to Lincoln Park and then the Armitage bus to the zoo.

He also has strong opinions. I ask him if he wants lunch (NOOOOOOOOOOOooo!), to get his diaper changed (NOOOOOOOOOO!), or to go outside (NOOOOOOOO!). Lately when I've asked him if he wants a tissue for his nose he says (NO! Eat nose!). So you know that kid you still remember from elementary school because he ate his boogers? That's my son. And when I ask him if he wants a diaper changed he says "No, sit poo poo." So since he prefers to sit in his own excrement, potty training might be tricky. And he never wants to stop playing to do anything. He just says "NO...pay!!" . Remember when you had all day to play? Just hours and hours and how awesome it was? I miss that. The constant struggle does wear on me, though. I remember telling our former pediatrician that I was having trouble changing Tate's diaper. He looked puzzled and indicated that since I was bigger than Tate I should just do it. Ha! Just wait until he has kids of his own and realizes that a protesting toddler is like those dudes jacked up on PCP on "COPS". He has superhuman strength, and it's going to take five guys and two tasers to bring him down. I wish I were exaggerating.