What a Brag

As warned, I hereby exercise my right to spout off about my kids. They are amazingly fucking awesome. Cute and snuggly. And, like this blog, they are mine mine mine.

Had an interesting time watching Iz play with her United States puzzle. Iz's handling of this toy (which I bought for Seymour out of horror when he and I first started dating and I realized he didn't know his States) was one of the first indicators that our girl had other things going on upstairs. It has a big stamp on it: "ages 5 and up."

Iz could put the whole thing together, by herself, at 27 months. She knew the states by shape, and had all their names memorized. She could tell you something funny or unique about each. "Mississippi?" "That's where Elvis was born!" "Iowa?" "That's where Captain Kirk is from!"

We haven't played with the puzzle in eons, so I pulled it today to see how much she remembers. And she remembers a lot--but because she can read, she can now also fudge. Because the puzzle frame, otherwise blank, has the states' capital cities printed on it, in the correct locations. So instead of wholly remembering what each state looks like, where it goes, and how it fits in, she looks for the matching word on the puzzle piece, and plops the piece in place. Sigh. At least she now knows more capital cities than she used to.

She wrote a good-bye letter to JM's daughter R. On it were several crossed-out drawings that our perfectionist girl considered sub-par. I guess Iz thought they might be distracting, so she put a note on the bottom: "Mistakes happen, to my recollecshun [sic]."

She keeps coming up and kissing my belly, "kissing the baby." She really is a sweet girl.

Leelo's been doing lots of good cool things. Remembering that this funny shape is called a parallelogram, and that that funny shape is called a quarter circle. Finally, for the first time every, successfully pulling his pants up over his big diapered bottom. Putting any requested object in the trash can--in the next room over. He might be doing that "get mommy a beer" run sooner than we thought! Though it'll be a ginger beer for the next while.

I felt very excited for both Seymour and Leelo tonight. Seymour gets the pointy short end of the stick where the boy is concerned, as Leelo's optimal interaction time falls during those hours when his dad is at work. Seymour usually comes home to a little boy who's been a performing A.B.A. monkey all day long and had no interest in talking to or complying with anyone. My dear partner rarely sees evidence of the "fabulous progress" the rest of us always crow about.

Tonight was different. Tonight, Leelo threw a steady stream of requests at Seymour, many of which we'd never heard before.

"I want to go outside! I want to go on the swing! Open the door!"
Done.

"I want to go on a walk!" (!?!?)
Done.

"I want to go in the kitchen!" (He knows the word kitchen? Since when?)
Done.

"I want to read a book! I want Max's Breakfast!" (He knows "read a book?" Since when?)
Done.

Obviously, we'd like him to get beyond "I want" proclamations. And it'd be nice if he could communicate by nodding, shaking his head, or waving. But Seymour felt good about this. I feel good that Seymour gets a feel-good moment.

---

Annoyed semi-non-sequitur: Why the fark can't I find a James Brown video clip on the Internet? Granted, I only looked for twenty minutes, but damn. You'd think there'd be something classic right on top. Guess it's time to see what the public library has to offer.