Bigger Every Day

We seem to be wading through a fairly large transition - Daniel's mental shift towards seeing himself as a "big boy" capable of handling more responsibility. This shift has resulted in a lot of changes in the way daily life happens... there is more interaction, more freedom of choice, and more flexibility.

There is more responsibility all around, too - for us, we are realizing what a critical phase this is for helping Daniel form the basis of a strong character. And for Daniel, chores have become a reality. We have slowly added to the amount of household work we've been assigning him. He now responds well to complex requests: "Daniel, please take off your shoes, open the closet, put the shoes inside, close the door and come back over here."

He demands independence when it isn't offered, even in the mundane routines. He wants the option to pick between items (snacks, books, toys) - but often withholds declaring his selection, just because he can. What's interesting is in these cases, he will revert to intentional gibberish as a way to not say his answer. He is answering - but defiantly. In a way that he knows we can't understand.

He absorbs more information than we gave him credit for. His memory is amazing, especially for his age. Weeks after seeing Ice Age 3, his first full movie in a theater, he asked us randomly, "Mommy, Daddy... remember the big elephants running? And remember the tiger on the ground? And remember Sid finding the three eggs?"

A recent "too good to be true" moment occurred when spontaneously, Daniel pointed to the piano and asked to play it. We climbed up onto the piano bench together, opened the cover and began playing around on first the black then the white keys. I started in on the chord progression from Heart & Soul (Daniel's recent favorite bedtime song) and he recognized it immediately. I started singing it while playing, and Daniel banged keys enthusiastically while singing loudly to the parts he knew... smiling broadly up at me in between verses. It was one of those magical moments I could live happily in forever.

He loves to wrestle. He screams if you tickle him, but if you stop, he lifts his shirt and says "more?!" He invents games. If you invent a game, he memorized it and repeats it until you wish you hadn't invented it. He dances to songs. He laughs at everything and says "that's funny". He knows his friends by name, and can tell you who he played with that day. He loves eating and is constantly hungry. He loves being chased, and chasing us: "I'm gonna get you...!" He is very affectionate with us - more so than he's ever been. He understands "tomorrow" and "yesterday". He is very quickly mastering the alphabet too, but out of memory, can "read" us many of his books, verbatim. He finds animal shapes in the clouds, pointing out alligators and rhinos at random times.

The differences between having a baby and a toddler are big... but the differences between a toddler and this new "man child" phase are mind-numbing. Sometimes I look at Daniel and don't recognize him - seemingly overnight, a lanky, tall chatterbox replaced my tragically cherubic baby.

Luckily, I don't have time to feel sad. I'm too busy having fun with the new Daniel :)