Reflections
I’ve been spending my free time lately drawing, cleaning, and organizing my video collection of Leon. I’ve worked the past two evenings and renamed/filed 188 videos, but I still have 1,011 to go. It’s slightly overwhelming…but absolutely necessary.
On another note, Leon’s doing great. He speaks in crude sentences, he’s back to being generally pretty happy when he wakes up, and he hasn’t had a potty accident in who-knows-how-long. He’s down to one diaper a day, and I honestly just really haven’t had the desire to wake myself up in the middle of the night so we haven’t attempted night training. But he understands that diapers are now just for nighttime, and he even gets a big gray sticker on it (AKA duct tape, which we’ve used keep him from pulling off his diaper and throwing it across his bedroom, which he has been known to do since he realized he doesn’t like the feeling of a diaper anymore).
Three years ago yesterday, I found out I was going to be a mom. It’s cliché to say, but I had no way of knowing then how my life would change — but it’s so much more fun. Sure, I have less free time, and sometimes I have to negotiate with a creature who’s literally half my size. And I still don’t know how I ever made it through those first few months. But 2-year-old Leon is so funny and silly and full of joy. Don’t get me wrong — he has strong opinions about taking a nap, turning off Sesame Street, and Reese walking too closely to him (how dare she, right?). But moments like this afternoon, when a big box was delivered to the house, he thought Minh hauling it in was literally the funniest thing he’d ever seen; he couldn’t stop laughing. When’s the last time you laughed over a big box?
He’s getting quite the vocabulary, too. Every week my dad and my friend Amanda comment about how much more articulate he is from the week before. When he told me my favorite cardigan looked like a “pink towel,” all I could do was laugh — because doesn’t it though? Or when he sees his reflection in a storefront and makes sure to tell me, “I see Leon shadow, mommy!” Or my favorite, which never fails to make me chuckle: “Uh-oh — I farted!” I couldn’t have imagined these goofy little Leon-isms three years ago.
His favorite things are climbing on Minh, watching Sesame Street (oh, how he loves Elmo), reading books, and eating. He can count to 20 in English (with a couple numbers missing, but who needs 14 and 15 anyway?) and eight in Spanish. He knows all his ABCs, plus a ton of other kids’ songs, like Wheels on the Bus. He knows his shapes, including hexagon and octagon. He’ll do anything for food or a sticker. We’re working on days of the week, and thanks to a chart on the refrigerator, he’s starting to grasp that weekdays are for Ms Brittany (his beloved teacher at daycare), and weekends are for Sesame Street.
His chores are putting his plate up to the counter, wiping down his seat at the table, and cleaning up his toys. Occasionally he’ll feed Reese and walk with me to get the mail. If he makes a mess, he’s expected to get a towel and clean it up by himself, and if he needs a tissue, he’s expected to get one by himself and then throw it away (although we had an issue today where he took baby wipes and flushed them down the toilet, and the kept flushing when it wouldn’t go down, but I digress…)
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. More soon!