Lately I’ve been focusing on Alex, who continues to add to the docket of memories and memorable moments on a daily basis. He’s taken to imitating my mannerisms, to killing effect (take that however you want). Yesterday in the car, he started a monologue about how he hasn’t grown up to be Superman yet. “Why am I not Superman yet?” he demanded. “This is driving me CRAZY! I’ve had it with this!”
“What?” I said, squirming as I recognized my own words, once aimed at him, bouncing back at me.
“Why haven’t I become Superman yet?” he demanded.
I stumbled around and finally managed to come up with something along the lines of, “It takes a long time to grow up.” And all the while I was resolving—yet again—that I have got to be more patient with the kids.
But it is so hard, especially from 5 to 5:20 p.m.—what my friend and sometime-commenter on this blog, Molly, calls “the witching hour,” when Alex is bored and cranky and Julianna is hungry and cranky, and I’m making everyone wait for Daddy to get home so we can have dinner, and I can’t pay attention to either of them because I’m making dinner. That’s the time of day when Alex is demanding that I build Lego or put on the good guys’ music, or whatever, while Julianna whines over the top (can you imagine the 20-month-old outdoing the 3 ½ year old?), just to make sure I don’t forget that she’s unhappy.
Sigh.
Julianna, the munchkin of the household (and the Queen, for the next 5 months or so), has been on a gross motor kick for months, at the expense of fine motor and speech development. It turns out that’s normal for every child, but in her case it’s more pronounced. So, while she’s been making progress on communications and play skills, it is movement where she has made the most progress. Until about two weeks ago, when she began to show some significant language comprehension.
The last week or so, she has been resistant to PT progress. She doesn’t want to stand independently. She loves to stand supported, pull up, walk with someone holding onto her, but if she finds herself unsupported, she simply plops to the ground. It really started to bother me two days ago, until I realized that she’s switched focus points. This morning, she was thrilled to put circles in the shape sorter—without help. She wanted to take turns with me, throwing Mega blocks in the tub. She wanted to play ball. And she’s been signing for two weeks, and getting more proficient with spoon and fork.
It would have been nice if she would have learned to walk first—she’s so close, if she only would choose to fight for balance—but I’m not going to complain. It’s fun to see her spreading her wings in a new direction.
Kathleen M. Basi 