Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Not so much blogging these days, eh? I'm a bit swamped and stressed.

I believe I forgot to post Monito's 18 month stats; one drawback of blogging on my blackberry is that it isn't easy to go back and check old blog posts. Lord knows my memory isn't going to be much help. Chronic sleep deprivation makes it hard to separate intention from actual action.

We went to the new doc, who is still working out just fine. Monito has a little PTSD surrounding medical procedures. Between his sister's blood draws for lead checks, her recent fingers-crushed-in-doorway scream fest and ensuing x-rays, and his own painful venipuncture for lead testing with accompanying crying, he is understandably wary. He tolerates well visits by sitting on my lap as the doc checks him over, but starts crying as soon as he sees vaccination syringes. He is running about dead even with his 8 month older sister, and at 31 lbs and 35" tall he is firmly 95th percentile for his age.

Monito's fun fast-cycling phase is easing up a bit. We go a full hour sometimes without a meltdown. H-Mama and I realized recently that we are regularly expecting too much of him, mostly because of his sheer size and physicality. When we observe him alongside another kid who is 19 months, differences are apparent. He has gotten so much from his older sister and totally keeps up, but the age difference is profound when watching him NOT play nicely and quietly with small motor skills. He is a bashing, crashing, whacking, loud, whiny, mischievous, sweet snuggly boy. He would rather take everything apart, throw it all on the floor, destroy block towers instead of building it up. He is, in a nutshell, a 19 month old boy. He is able to count to 3, sing a version of the alphabet song, carefully pour water or lentils from one pitcher to another. He can turn on the DVD player by himself (we're so proud), dismantle most child-safety locks, and tell a whole involved story in fairly understandable vocabulary mixed with funny pantomime.

It doesn't matter how annoying he gets. His Mama and I are head over heels amazed by him.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's true that monito is leaps and bounds beyond other toddlers his age. Although his speech is slurred by the soothie, I can almost always figure out what he says. There is clear intention to every interaction. He likes to tell jokes and make me laugh. He also really likes to play rough, and be hugged really really tightly, much tighter than pequita prefers. All around, he's a total delight (when he's not melting down and pouring water on me). <3 kiko