Three-year-old of a Different Sort

Today has been a different day for us here in the Lee house. I'm not sure what changed, but Daniel is being different today. It all started when I came downstairs to get coffee at 6:30 am, and Daniel politely insisted that he needed oatmeal right then. I agreed, but then had to leave him to wait for it to cool off to eat to deliver coffee to Matt. Several minutes later Daniel came upstairs to announce that he was all done with his oatmeal. There was not a speck on him, so I assumed that all was fine. He returned downstairs alone which is pretty unusual for him. He always wants company. Well, he came back upstairs with a face and hand full of chocolate cupcake crumbs. I guess he was still hungry and was fed up with looking at the container of cupcakes that were still around since Saturday, so he decided to do something about it.

The next unusual happening was that he chose to have baby carrots for his morning snack and also insisted on carrying the rest of the bag around in his pocket from 10 am until he finished off the last few at 12:30 pm. What a goose! I guess I can't complain about having a kid that eats a bunch of carrots.

So while Daniel was upstairs 'napping,' he was very quiet for 35 minutes or so, and then I started hearing him go back and forth between his room and the bathroom and the water was occasionally running in the bathroom.  I usually force him to come downstairs before I'll go up and chat with him, but today I decided to go up and give it a look. Well, the water was from a toy octapus that squirts water. Ok, no big deal, but then I went in his room and the chair was directly underneath the ceiling fan, suspicious to say the least.

Next Daniel announces in a voice as matter of face and serious as he has ever been, "Mom, I'm doing an experiment." Me, "really?" Daniel, "Yes, I am going to put the towels up there (gestures to the fan) and the I'm going to do this (puts book over his head)." I can only assume that the book was protection from the falling objects.

After this announcement he asks me if I can get the fan pull out of the glass shade for the bulbs where it was caught so he can continue his experiment. At ths point, I removed the fan pull, shook my head, made some mild direction of the "fan pulls are for grownups" sort and left. I was unable to come up with more specific or strong correction because my mind was flooded with visions of my sister and I putting things on the fan blades in our room and seeing what happened when we turned the fan on. This event happened on several occasions. What goes around comes around I guess. Hopefully he will move on to the next experiment soon.

This kid has a mind for science. Yesterday he was asking me for a magnifying glass so that he could see which feet were on the Cootie in the picture on the box.

It is wonderful to see him trying to figure out his world and coming up with the words to describe what he wants/sees/thinks. Finding the words and patience to go step by step is extremly furstrating for Daniel which makes it frusterating for us, too. I love these moments when I get a glimpse of what is going on inside his head.

Strange Milk Buying Neuroses Developing

It dawned on me today that I'm developing some very odd milk purchasing neuroses when I returned to my desk at work from picking up lunch with a gallon of milk in tow. This on top of ending our anniversary date on Sunday with a trip to Target to browse and I purchased a gallon of milk just in case. Our family's consumption of milk has reached a new level. I'm not sure if the consumption is actually up or if it is just magnified since we are all drinking the same kind of milk now. It's changed enough that I'm always a little worried that we are going to run out of milk. I can't imagine what happens when the kids are teenagers or if we have more children. I bet that is the day that I come home with several gallons of milk and an extra refridgerator to hold all the milk.

Conversations with Christopher

More than once last week, this was my first conversation with Christopher. Me, "Good Morning Christopher!"
Christopher, "I want Daddy to open my door. I have dreams Mommy."
Me, "I'm sorry Daddy didn't open your door today. What did you dream about?"
Christopher, "Babies. I dream about babies, Mommy."


Then today on the way home from school Christopher announces:
"Mommy, I want to go to the dentist. Yes, I go to the dentist first. I go to the doctor, too, Mommy."
Me, "Really, Christopher, you want to go to the dentist and the doctor."
"Yes, Mommy, I go to the dentist first, and the doctor, too, Mommy."
"Why do you want to go to the dentist?"
"My mouth hurts Mommy. I hurt my mouth on the big friends side, Mommy." (there was no apparent injury)

If you have not noticed, Christopher says most things twice and punctuates almost every sentence with the name of the person he is addressing.

Not all conversations are this pleasant. For instance, yesterday there was a brief break in the action, so I hopped up in the tree to remove the Christmas lights. It was somewhat timely as the tree trimmers were working in the backyard at the time and they needed to get the tree with lights as well. Anyway, the boys decided to come watch, so we got all bundled up, but Daniel did not want to wear his mittens. We were only going to be outside for a few minutes, so I figured the consequences would become obvious to him rather quickly. For several minutes the boys were pushing and yelling at each other on the porch and creating a rather noisy scene, but they were not getting too overly adjitated. Well, when I finished I asked them what they were arguing about and Christopher announced that, "Daniel needs his mittens on," and Daniel whined that, "Christopher was telling me to put my mittens on." Seriously, Daniel got totally worked up because Christohper told him to put his mittens on. Christopher seems to have a good grasp on how to get under Daniel's skin. I see some interesting conversations coming my way.