Thursday, July 8, 2010

Things I've learned about my son

Monday was Xander's second birthday, and in the course of his party on Sunday and our family day together on Monday I came to understand several things about him that I'd like to share with you. Many of these I've known for some time, but all of them were illustrated to me by various behaviors I saw on Sunday and Monday.

For instance, my son is pretty darn smart. I put on a monkey hand puppet, which he loved, and held out one of its little paws for a high five. He slapped it, just like he does with a human hand. As a hand puppet, this monkey didn't really have hands or fingers of its own. So I told Xander to "pound it," which he also does regularly. He bumped his fist into the monkey's paw (which was really just my pinkie). Then I asked him to "poke it," which is another hand gesture we do where we poke index fingers together. No problem. Lastly, I held up the monkey's paw in the air, and said "thumbs up." He didn't have any trouble with that one, either. I was impressed that he knew these from verbal cues, not from mimicking gestures.

Xander's also quite polite. As we sat in the living room opening gifts, we asked him to thank each gift giver as we went. I was surprised when we told him to say, "Thank you, Jess! Thank you, Doug!" and he actually looked at the people who had given him the gift. It's hard to tell sometimes how much of what he parrots back at us is actually understood and how much is just the repetition of heard sounds. Apparently, more of it sticks than we thought.

He can be rude, too. One of his friends is a 20-month-old girl named Lilah. We had his party at the park in our neighborhood, and he and Lilah were fighting over balls and badminton racquets and various other items most of the time.

On the other hand, he knows when he's misbehaving. He and Lilah both had their hands on a ball and when his mom looked at him and just said his name, he let go, looked ashamed, and moved on to another.

Xander is funny. And he's not afraid to try new jokes. He puts on hats sideways and toddles over with a goofy grin on his face. It's impossible not to laugh. As I was saying goodbye to him the other day, I asked for a kiss. Instead, he grabbed me by the hair and bit my lip. He knew what he was doing wasn't what I had asked him for - he had a smile of anticipation on his face, waiting for me to crack up laughing.

And above all, he loves me and his mom. He's started saying, "Hello, daddy!" when I walk in the house. If I ask him for a kiss, he won't always give me one (see above), but when I kiss mommy good-bye, if he's not too distracted to notice that I'm leaving, he'll come over and demand one, too. He's got an enormous heart. If another kid is hurt or upset, he'll offer things, like his toys or bottles, or try to comfort the injured party with a hug. I'm so proud of him for that, because it's not something we tried to teach him. He just loves others, and I hope that never goes away.

Thanks for stopping by, and Happy Birthday to my darling boy.

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