I better hurry up and publish this before another month goes by! In January, Oliver officially became 2 3/4, though when I tell him that, he yells back at me "No! 2 1/2!" Time to start explaining fractions, I guess. Family getting this via email: I have expanded/tweaked the entries on Alex, Lukas, and 7 month photos - click on the Adventures in Parenting link at the end to go the website and check out the additional stories.
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| the many faces of Oliver |
I realize everyone says this about their own kids, but we continue to be amazed by what a smarty-pants Oliver is, and I glow like a proud-mama when others tell me how impressed they are with Oliver's verbal skills... of course, I don't think I can take much credit for that, but I beam nonetheless.
Make-believe games have been taken to a new level and require a whole lot more work on our end. The newest game is that Adam or I construct something out of pillows and cushions in the basement (firetruck, boat, bus - they all look pretty similar) and then we play out a story. The last time I got to play (clear preference for playing in the basement with Daddy), I was instructed to drive the school bus while Oliver sat in the back. We made multiple stops (reading a lot of "Caillou and the School Bus" lately) and I had to tell him who we were picking up. The game was so long, I started running out of book/tv show characters to board the bus!
Actually, Oliver's advanced verbal skills backfired on us recently. Because he speaks like a 4-5 year old, we forget that he still has the brain of a 2-3 year old. Case in point: Last week, as I was making dinner and trying to keep Oliver entertained, I gave him a dry erase marker and showed him how he could draw on the windowpane. Adam & I repeatedly stressed that these were special markers and were not to be used on anything else. (See where this story is going?) As we were eating, I thought to myself that it would only be a matter of time before we found him drawing on the walls with magic markers. Little did I know that it would be a reality the very next day! When Julia went upstairs to change a baby's diaper, Oliver managed to get dry erase marker on: the molding, the garbage can, the diaper genie, the wall, the fridge, the dishwasher, the stove, the cabinets, the exersaucer, and the doorway jumper. It is as if someone was standing in front of him with a timer and said "You have 30 seconds to use marker on as many different surfaces as possible. Go!". Thankfully, I was able to get the marker off of everything except the caulking around the doorway easily.
Oliver has become a big helper around the house and will happily grab a bib, hand the baby a toy, or throw out a diaper for us. Though, one quiet morning when he, Alex, and I were sitting on the couch and Alex had the nerve to inadvertetly touch him, Oliver asked me "Mommy, can the babies go back to the hospital now". Sorry kiddo, we are stuck with them forever, and forever. Like a typical toddler, he's not as careful around them as we would like, and Adam and I worry that he may bounce one of the babies right off the bed when he is jumping around. But, he can be "babysitter" and knows to yell for one of us, if a baby has face planted while we are getting ready in the morning. There have been only limited instances of him hitting or acting out towards the babies, or trying to pick them up - I'm expecting this is still to come. The babies can reach for "Kermie" and his toys and he does not appreciate it one bit. Even if he's not playing with something, particularly the xylophone, he gets mad if one of the babies is playing with it. Once they are mobile, this is only going to get worse.
Oliver has become a greater eater and has been pleasantly surprising us with the food he is willing to not only try, but eat. He actually ate sloppy joes for dinner last night with Daddy! (Mommy wouldn't even touch the stuff). Fruit and veggies still reign supreme. I suspect there aren't too many houses where phrases like "please stop eating all of my red peppers" and "you can't eat your salad until you eat some more rice" are often uttered. No complaints here!
Potty Training? Nope! Still ZERO interest. He doesn't even care if he is walking around in a completely full diaper, regardless of what's in it. We'll be playing up the "At 3 you are a Big Boy" big-time as we launch a full-out potty training campaign once we get back from vacation.
Oliver also remains unwilling to learn how to dress/undress himself. The disinterest in undressing usually has to do with foot-dragging ahead of bedtime, but I haven't figured out why he doesn't like getting dressed in the morning.
Oliver is a pro at doorknobs, which is very convenient when he wakes up in the morning and can just come upstairs himself. The drawback was that he just realized that stuff is still going on in the house after he goes to bed, and since he doesn't want to miss out on any fun, bedtimes were a bit more challenging for a few weeks (still asleep by 9pm, so I'm not complaining).
Noises and lots of hub-bub continue to be challenges for Oliver. While he enjoys school, he tells us that there are "too many kids" and that "the kids too noisy". There are 4-6 kids in his class, so we know this is more related to him being hyper-sensitive to noise than anything else - seems he got Omi's "super-sonic hearing" as I call it. He doesn't "shush" us yet, thankfully! He covers his ears when he hears a horn, the blender, a vacuumn cleaner - I had hoped that this was just a phase and something he would grow out of, but its something we really need to look into, so we can help him cope better.
Oliver remains slow to warm when we are out in public and something we constantly need to be aware of (like planning where to host his birthday party, for example). At the indoor play gym Adam & I took the boys to last weekend, Oliver finally felt free to run around alone and seemed to be really enjoying himself, right when we were leaving -- after being there for 2 hours (and this wasn't the first time he had been there).
TV favorites lately are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (thanks to cousin Bentley), Berenstein Bears, and the dreaded Caillou (I pretend I don't know how to find it OnDemand, but I probably can't get away with that much longer).
Oliver is still big into hide & seek (and getting much better at it), arts & crafts projects, playing in the basement with Daddy, and standing on his stool in the kitchen and watching us cook.
