Nascar Chef

I think I've previously mentioned Bry's passion for his pots and pans and putting any manner of objects in them (rocks, dandelions, sand, blocks, wooden fish, bird seed, plastic rings, plastic shapes, dirt, and puzzle pieces to date). Given Bry's additional love of watching/helping Steve and I (mostly Steve) cook, we've started to joke about how Bry is certain to have a career in the culinary arts. However, some of Bry's behaviors have led to some uncertainty about this career path. Like his habit of putting black beans in his yogurt. I can't imagine that going over too well for anyone outside of, well, Bry. On the other hand, perhaps it's some kind of novel delicacy that will put Bry on the map as a culinary master. I'll probably never know because it grosses me out too much to try. There's also his practice of shoving copious quantities of food into his mouth, like bread, only to pick the half-chewed ball of dough out of his mouth when he realizes he won't be able to swallow the whole thing. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with his capacity to cook skillfully down the road. But if it speaks to his sanitary practices in the kitchen, you might want to send the bread pudding back when dining Chez Bry.

Bry's other current passion is transportation. Not necessarily getting from point A to point B, but rather, pointing out every possible mode of transportation that he sees. Trucks (pickup, dump, cement, SUVs), cars, buses (city and school), planes, bikes, motorcycles (which he also calls bikes), trains, wagons, segways, etc. OK, not segways, but only because we haven't come across any.

He is particularly fond of construction vehicles, which presents a particular problem for me, given that I have no idea what any of them are called. I could tell Bry about the "shovel thingy" and "big scooper/dumper," since that's what they look like to me, but I don't imagine that being too helpful to him down the line. Being lazy, I haven't actually looked any of these vehicles up, instead resorting to calling them all "construction trucks," which Bry seems happy with. He does know the word "crane," since I do know what those are, and they are omnipresent, what with all of the road/bridge construction we drive through on a daily basis.

Bry also seems to think that the sole purpose of computers is to look at pictures of vehicles. I might have started that misconception. There is a picture of our street on Steve's desktop, and Bry likes to point out the cars in the picture. One day, I asked Bry if he wanted to see some more cars, so I googled Volkswagen (are there any other kinds of cars?) and clicked on the images. Bry was tickled by the sheer number of cars he saw. He giggled and pointed and called out, "Tar! Tar!" (car). He paused for a second as if allowing his brain to assimilate the sheer awesomeness of all of the cars before pointing again and shouting, "More!" Now whenever I'm on the computer, Bry wants to see cars and trucks and planes and more cars and more trucks and more planes and...why did I ever show him those pictures?

Now, it might seem that being passionate about cooking and transportation might lead to some career conflicts, but I think I've finally come up with the perfect answer: Nascar chef.

Blue Is the New Black

Steve and I have been working on teaching Bry colors for about a month now. It seems that he's starting to get the concept that objects have attributes other than their names, but he's not 100% clear on which color name matches which set of pigments. Sitting down with Bry and trying to consider objects from his perspective opens up a world of complexity that I'm guessing I haven't appreciated since I first learned colors myself. Or at least since I got that physics degree and learned about all of the really crazy attributes about things that can't be seen. Looking at a truck brings up so many possible descriptors that it becomes hard to decide the best way to teach them all. Do you focus on the type of truck it is (pickup vs. dump)? Or its color (blue, red, arctic mist)? Or its different parts (wheels, windows)? Or do you notice that its wheels look like circles and its bed looks like a rectangle?

Hmm, tangential much? Back to colors.

Bry can differentiate red, yellow, green, orange, blue, pink, purple, and white objects with about 80% accuracy (a number I just totally made up). If we ask him "What color is the _____?" he often answers, "Boo" (blue), no matter what color the object actually is. But if we ask, "Where's the red car?" (out of a group of different colored cars) he usually picks out the red one. Other times, he'll randomly point out an object and say a color. More times than not he's right on this, although every now and then he'll say "yay-yo" (yellow) for orange, or "deen" (green) for blue, and so on.

We've been curious since Bry was born whether he is colorblind. His uncle Tim is, meaning I have a one in two chance of being a carrier, and Bry has a one in four chance of being colorblind. So far it seems that he's not, since he can distinguish pretty well between red and green and between blue and purple. Hopefully the fact that he's not colorblind will mean that he's better at picking out matching clothing combinations than his uncle. On the other hand, if his daddy's skills have any influence on him, I probably have a long road of teaching ahead of me.

KABOOM!

Did you hear that? I think it was the sound of Bry's recent language explosion rocking the rafters. I'm not sure exactly when the transition happened, but some time in the last month, he's started to talk. A lot. He loves to name things from the moment he wakes up until he drifts off to sleep. Tee! (tree), dar (car), boon (spoon), nana (banana), pate (plate). And so on.

Over the past week or so, he's also started to string multiple words together. For example, door, open, close. (Which actually sounds like this: Door, baben, bo.) Pot, sink, wash, dada (i.e., pot, ink, wa, dada). Or pot, stove (pot, dove). He seems to get some strings of words stuck in his head. A few days ago I offhandedly commented to Bry that it looked like our neighbor, Gregory, was moving his truck. Since then, he seems to say truck and move together (duck, moo) whenever he spots a truck. For a few days he got a kick out of running through all of the opposites he knew: up/down, hot/cold, open/close.

Granted, only Steve and I can understand most of what Bry's saying. Nevertheless, he's got more than 100 words at this point, or at least more than 100 consistent sounds that he uses to indicate particular objects, actions, or descriptors. He's dropped most of the baby signs that he previously used, though on occasion he will sign and speak at the same time.

It's hard to describe how exciting it's been to watch Bry's language develop. He adds new words everyday and has a keen ear for repeating the last words of sentences that Steve and I use (guess it's time to start being a little more cautious about what we say, huh?). It's as if each day we get another peak at what goes on inside Bry's head. We know what he's thinking about (usually pots and pans or going outside), at least some of the time, as he chatters on in his pure stream of consciousness. Everyone we know with older kids has told us that there will come a day when the longing to communicate with Bry and to hear his thoughts will transform into the fervent wish that he stop talking long enough so that we can hear our own thoughts. But for now, we're reveling in watching Bry grow up, even though it comes with the bittersweet realization that bit by bit, he is also growing away.

Who Designed This Mall, Anyways?

Since my job ended for the summer last week, I've been test driving being a stay-at-home mom for the first time since my maternity leave. Steve's school year doesn't end for another couple of weeks, so until then, it's just me and Bry. I've found that staying at home with him at 16 months is ten times easier than staying home with him at 6 weeks was. He can tell me, for the most part, what he needs; he naps regularly (and for a relatively long time); he can entertain himself while I take a shower; and probably most significantly, he doesn't cry for unknown reasons for hours a day. This is good.

I've been working to leave the house every morning before his nap, just to keep things interesting. This is admittedly mostly for my benefit. I'm convinced that Bry would be content if he could stay outside for 12 hours a day, collecting dandelions and distributing them among his several pots and pans. It's the first thing he asks to do in the morning (conveyed through a series of grunts, finger pointing, and sharp trills of "Pot! Pot!") and the last thing he wants to be pulled away from at night. I, on the other hand, get a little bored with this after about 10 minutes. But I soldier on, for the sake of his happiness and development of conservation skills (knowing that he has the same amount of stuff no matter what kind of container he puts it in) and whatnot.

So, anyways, I chose the Mall of America as our morning destination several days ago because I wanted to buy a pair of shoes and figured Bry could run around the old Camp Snoopy, which is now some Nickolodeon-themed monstrosity. The timing of our mornings has become pretty precise, such that we're ready to leave by 8:30. By which I mean I'm combing my hair and Bryson is whining and trying to drag me out the door. I figured the stores would open at 9:00 and we could just wander around until then.

When we arrived, I discovered that although the mall was open, the stores didn't actually open until 10:00. This was problematic, since Bry needed to be home for lunch at 10:30 (he's on the senior schedule). I didn't have any food for him with me, so I gave up on the idea of finding shoes and just took Bry to the amusement park in the middle of the mall. We watched the operators put all of the rides through their test runs. Bry was fascinated by the "vroom vroom" (roller coaster cars) and liked watching the merry-go-round "pin, pin" (spin). We found a toy ride-on "buh!" (bus) and Bry spent 10 minutes shifting between the front and back seats, spinning the wheel, and pushing all of the buttons.

When 10:00 approached, I decided I would go to Carter's to buy Bry some plain t-shirts. I figured I'd run in, buy the shirts, and then head home for lunch. We got to the store about 10 minutes before it opened, so I found a nearby bench, sat down, and got out Bry's pots and pans (which he likes to put in my bag whenever he knows we're going out). He had a blast filling up the pots for a few minutes, and then was distracted by the huge pink stuffed dog in the window of Victoria's Secret, which happened to be next door to Carter's. Good thinking, mall folks. Bry toddled over to the window, shouting "Neigh! Neigh!" because he believed the dog to be a horse. He apparently also believes construction vehicles to be horses since he belts out "Neigh!" every time we see one, but that's a story for another day. Bry smushed his face right up to the store window and giggled just as two older men walked by, on what they might have called their daily constitutional. I overheard one of them say, "That's right son, gotta get started early!" as they ambled by, but it didn't really register until they had already passed. There were actually no scantily clad underwear models in the store window, just the dog and some pajamas of the flannel variety. Nevertheless, I chased Bry away from the window. I'm not thinking he needs to get started, as it were, quite so early.

Babblin' with the Bry

Daddy here. Check out this video highlighting Bryson’s new verbal skills.

Underparenting

A brief anecdote:

Bry has developed a persistent diaper rash, caused, I believe by teething and his daycare not always being so good at changing him promptly. Several nights ago, after removing his diaper, I decided to let him "air out" for awhile before bundling up his bum again. He wandered around for a few minutes with his onesie flaps hanging down until he must have noticed the draft. He pulled up the front flap, looked down, then hightailed it for his room, shouting, "Da ba! Da ba!" (i.e., diaper). Bry reached up into the drawer, pulled out a diaper, and then yanked his pants off of the dresser where I had left them. Clutching the diaper in one hand and his pants in the other, he said, "On! On!" with a chastising look on his face, as if to say, "Come on people. Am I the only responsible one around here?"

A Letter

Dear Tooth Fairy,

I know you usually get involved when teeth have already fallen out, but could you maybe make an exception in this case and help to speed along the process of getting said teeth to come in a little faster? The swollen gums, cranky toddler, disrupted sleep, diaper rash, and fever are all getting to be a bit much.

Hopefully,

Bryson's parents