Momma's Greatest Hits

Kiernan's Mom, Wendy, is out of town this week on business. She left before sunrise this morning for a consulting gig in West Virginia.

The normal Tuesday routine dictates that Kiernan and I go to school--his infant/toddler program--in the morning. Before that we usually go to breakfast together. After that he naps and then we have our usual day. The normal routine on a day when Wendy leaves on a business trip involves much more clinginess on Kiernan's part. Maybe on my part too. You'll have to wait until he can type to find out about that. At any rate, today was no exception. Even though she took a shuttle bus to the airport, and therefore he should not have been aware that she was out of town...somehow he knew. He always knows. He's like Cali--our cat--on the day I have to take her to the vet for her vaccinations. It's like he's privy to some toddler (or, in Cali's case, feline) newsletter that prints parental itineraries.

Anyway, he was much more high maintenance today. He was still great, just more demanding.

After our reading time, we give Kiernan his bottle and sing him to near-sleep. As he gets drowsy we put him in his crib, sing to him some more, and he falls asleep (I'm knocking on the wood panelling of my office as I type this). Tonight I read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, which merits its own post, so I won't comment on it here. We finished the book, the timer for the bottle warmer beeped as if on cue, and Kiernan, in his adorable Pavlovian way, gave me the hand sign for milk. We said "night-night" to every light in the house and I gave him his bottle.

Halfway through his bottle he gave me the "more" sign. We have come to recognize this instance of the "more" sign as meaning he wants us to sing to him. So I started singing my standard bed time songs: "Karma Chameleon" by Culture Club, and "When September Ends" by Green Day. Often these work out just fine. You'd be surprised what works. The music only, hummed version of "C is for Cookie" by Cookie Monster is great for naps, for instance. You'd think it would make him think of cookies, and then think about how stupid napping is when there are so many cookies to be eaten, but that's not the case.

Tonight my usual repertoire was no good. He was having none of it. He made this known by doing his version of the request.

As I sang, he took his bottle out of his mouth and started to do the "Go-Go-Go" chant. I knew he didn't want to hear the "Go-Go-Go" song. But I also knew that most of his mother's good night songs had the word "Go" in them. So I switched to one of her songs. He immediately calmed down and shut his eyes.

After a couple passes through that song, he opened his eyes and said, very clearly, "Baby". I know Wendy sometimes sings "Rockabye Baby" to him, so I switched to that, even though I find that song disturbing. Whenever I sing that song I find myself thinking of David Lynch and wondering whether he sings the song to his kids. Kiernan again closed his eyes and relaxed.

A few minutes later he opened his eyes again and did the "Go-Go-Go" hand motions, albeit much more sleepily. So I went to one I've heard Wendy use in dire circumstances, "Goodnight Sweetheart", which I'm embarrassed to say I only remember some dude named Bowser singing on the Sha Na Na tv show. It also has the word "Go" in it, which is dangerous since that word has been known to set Kiernan off on a "Go-Go-Go" chant tangent. This time, however, it worked like a charm.

Momma is out of town, but only her songs will do.

Brought to you by the letter 'K'...Part One

He's learning letters now.

I think Wendy and I are striking a pretty good balance as parents. She is really good at teaching Kiernan new things, at helping him focus his play time on learning letters and colors, for instance. I'm really good, on the other hand, at getting carried away building little sand castles for him to destroy and surreptitiously watching ESPN while he picks bits of the previous night's dinner off the floor and eats them.

So we both have our roles.

A couple of weeks ago Kiernan and I were kicking around the house in the middle of the afternoon. I was writing a few things into my planner, things I had not gotten to before his nap ended. Having a planner, for me, is like creating a time capsule. In the future I can look back at its pages and see all of the things I put off doing until later (which is to say, never). I have to look at it this way to keep myself from totally living in denial.

I put my planner and pencil down and Kiernan went nuts. He wanted the pencil. I had put it on the couch table, out of his reach. Finding places that qualify as "out of his reach" is becoming increasingly more difficult. He is getting taller by the minute and, on top of that, he is a real climber. Pretty soon I'm just going to fasten a bungee cord to the ceiling and hang the TiVo remote from it, because I'm running out of places to hide it and still keep it accessible. I wish they'd just make one that levitates. Those of you with a TiVo understand that its remote is the one remote a toddler could really do some damage with if he got his hands on it. You can delete programs off of your TiVo without even turning the television on, and no one would be the wiser. At least until Wendy realized her Smallville Season's Pass had disappeared and no one ever heard from Christien again. Hell hath no fury like a woman who has been denied her Tom Welling. Or as I like to call him, Beef Wellington.

It is impossible to hide things from Kiernan, as well. You can distract him, if you are clever, but you can't simply say, "Hey, look over there...cows!" and then hide whatever he's interested in behind your back. He'll just look back at you, roll his eyes, and go after whatever you hid. I didn't want him to have the pencil because I could see one of two things happening--no, strike that...I could see two of two things happening. First he would try to eat it. Then he would run with it. While trying to eat it. Didn't seem like the best combination.

He would not let up about the pencil though, and finally it dawned on me that maybe he just wanted to write with it. This type of epiphany is a weird phenomenon with me. I should know better. I should be able to imagine that he wants to explore new things. But I get stuck in what he is able to do at any particular stage, then when he can do more, it's a surprise. So I got out some paper and pulled up his little chair and handed over the pencil.

He went to town on that paper. It was exciting to see him discovering a new thing. I immediately texted Wendy the following message: "We need to buy some crayons, ASAP."

He now has all manner of crayons and loves to spend time drawing. The challenge now is confining his drawing to the paper. If you turn away for a second, he's off and headed for the couch with several crayons in hand. This challenge is fine with me though. He's learning and developing, and even more important, finding things he likes.

Anything to keep him away from my TiVo remote.

For next time...Attack of the Letter K.

One...two in a million.

The word "two" is one of Kiernan's newer words. A couple weeks ago, I held up two fingers in the car. I wasn't counting anything, and I wasn't celebrating "V-E Day". I think I was practicing my finger spelling. Our sign language class is on something of a haitus, so to keep myself sharp I work on my finger spelling at random moments. If I'm driving I spell names and titles and whatnots that come on the radio. I have started doing this on autopilot. Often I find myself doing this while watching television and I don't even really realize I'm doing it.

I'm guessing a commercial for V for Vendetta came on the radio and I had my hand draped over the passenger seat. Kiernan saw me do the sign for "V" and he shouted, happily, "Two!" I got pretty excited.

I have yet to reproduce this, so it may have just been a coincidence. That or maybe he has checked that task off his Toddler To Do list and is uninterested in going back to it. He will repeat the word "two" if you ask him to, from time to time.

As I said a few posts back, we have a policy of trying to give him choices when we do certain things. When it is reading time before bed, we ask him to choose which book he would like to read, holding up two choices. We have started doing the same thing with certain foods at meal times. Recently I read in some parenting magazine that toddlers, especially as they get older, like getting to make a choice, it makes them feel like they are in control. It is also useful to remember that they will often choose the second choice, because it is the last thing they heard. So if you're looking to steer their choices, making what you want them to choose the second option can work as a strategy.

The other night at dinner we had moved on to the fruit portion of the meal. I got out some berries. Kiernan is into berries now, especially strawberries and blueberries. Cantaloupe was king around here for a long time, but now it's mainly good for squeezing in his tiny fist so that the juices run down his arm. This is, I assume, very satisfying. Although not really the reason I bother to buy cantaloupe and carefully cut it up for his meals.

So Wendy offered Kiernan some blueberries, but on this occasion asked him, "Kiernan, do you want one blueberry, or two? One? Or two?" She held up her fingers to reinforce the point.

He replied with, "Two."

She gave him two berries and we smiled at each other in amazement at the little things he's picking up and figuring out. We are doing this more and more lately. It seems every day he does something he could not do the day before and surprises us, and we just look at each other with a mixture of surprise and satisfaction and pride.

I recalled the statement from the magazine about toddlers choosing the last thing said, and, being a smart alec, asked, "Kiernan, would you like one berry, or a million? One or a million?"

"Two," he said.

We cracked up. He had foiled me again. Until the next time I asked, when he responded with his own version of the word "million". This further cracked us up.

As it turns out, "million" is now one of the words he likes to pull out to use on his own. Wendy demonstrated this for me this morning at breakfast. She said, "Kiernan, let's show Daddy how you like to say Daddy's new word." She then held up two of something or other he was eating and asked, "Kiernan, would you like one, or two?"

"Million," he said.

I figured some day someone would come along to tame my goofy, sarcastic sense of humor. I never thought it would be my own sixteen month old son.

I can't wait until he's old enough to start editing this blog. "That's not the way it happened, Dad." Given his rate of development, and his mother's will, I give it two more months.

He can't be a dog, he wears a hat and drives a car...

Kiernan and I were waiting for the Playhouse Disney show while Wendy did a little shopping. She came sprinting back when she found Goofy hanging around without a mile-long line of parents and kids waiting to meet him. He was gracious and a real gentleman, as you would expect.

Sadly, we never found Ariel (the Little Mermaid, for those of you who don't know) for a picture. That would have made Kiernan's day, I'm sure of it. Kiernan's day, I said. Not mine. I don't care about Ariel. Not one little bit.

A Banded, Bulbous, Snarfblatt

Kiernan went to Disney Land for the first time last Friday, March 31. This day was also, incidentally, Wendy's birthday. Kiernan's godmother Renee (Nee Nee), who works for The Mouse, suggested that we all take the day off and celebrate Wendy's birthday by taking Kiernan to Disney Land. Wendy jumped at the idea since her favorite thing to do on a birthday is to go off and do a fun experiential thingy. My suggestion that we watch all of the Star Wars films back to back did not qualify, somehow.

We got to the park sometime around noon. Thanks to the snail's pace on the 5 Freeway Kiernan was well rested; he napped for most of the two-hour drive, waking right on cue when we got to the parking structure at Disney. [On a side note, according to Renee this parking structure is the largest in the world...or was when they built it anyway. As parking structures go, it is incredibly well designed, with ramps that go right to whatever floor you're parking on so you don't have to do that spiral-drive all the way up and down.]

When we got into the park, Kiernan was raring to go, just incredibly excited to be there. In the picture to the right, he is doing a song/chant that we learned at school. The song/chant goes, "Go, go, go, go, gooooooo---STOP!" You roll your hands during the "go" part, then do the sign for "stop" at the "stop" part. He just kept chanting the "go-go-go" part over and over again while doing the hand roll. Hilarious.

As we made our way to our first ride--the carousel pictured at the top--we discovered that the place was packed. We had thought we were being clever by hitting the place on a week day. Not so much. Apparently it is spring break somewhere, because there were kids everywhere this day. So many people, and a virtual armada of strollers. Actually, one of the interesting things about my first trip to Disney Land as a parent was seeing how baby strollers are managed. People just park them and leave them outside of the rides. At the "It's a Small World" attraction there is an entire area set aside for stroller parking. Nobody guards this area. People just roll their strollers into the area and leave them there. It was weird. And kind of cool. This honor system in the middle of an amusement park. I'm sure it has always been done this way, I just never noticed it before I was in charge of a stroller.

Even though the park was busier than we thought it would be, it was still a great day. The temperature was mild and the sky was just overcast enough to make being outside constantly pleasant. The threat of rain probably kept more people away too, which was nice.

Kiernan was amazing all day long. We kept our options for the day open, basing how long we were going to stay at Disney on how well he was doing. If he had been done after a couple of hours, we would have packed up and gone back home. But he was totally cool for the day, and mainly enthralled by all the sights and sounds and people. He was not crazy, of course, about standing in line. In spite of the crowds, however, there was only one ride that required us to keep him in a long line. That was the Dumbo flying ride. That line was not fun. Even so, he's such a good kid that I really have no right to complain. Renee and I took him on that ride together, leaving Wendy to look after the stroller. This was our second ride of the day and we weren't yet hip to the whole Stroller Honor System yet.

I say I have no right to complain about the Dumbo line...fact is, I wouldn't even bring it up if it weren't for one little incident that happened while we were in line. The back of the line curled way around the ride, keeping us out of sight of Wendy and the stroller. After a good half an hour or so of creeping forward, I managed to finally catch a glimpse of Wendy through the ascending and descending flying elephants. She was easy to pick out of the crowd, even from my distant vantage point, as she was eating an ice cream sandwich the size of a hubcap. Renee and I are wrangling the toddler in a dog-years-long line and she's getting an early start on the treats. Nice. Oh well, it was her birthday.

I wasn't sure how Kiernan would take the ride, flying around in the air as it does, but he loved it. We stood in line forever and it was worth it because he had such a good time. Sadly the ride lasted for about ten seconds, and, as many of you would guess, when it pulled to a stop he immediately gave the "more" hand sign.

Next we went on the "It's a Small World" ride. If I never hear that song again in my life, that will be fine with me. Given how much Kiernan, and his mother, enjoyed the trip to Disney Land, however, I doubt that's gonna happen. Oh well. My feelings for the song notwithstanding, watching Kiernan during the ride made the moment for me. He was just amazed. This picture doesn't quite do the moment justice, since he looks more dazed than amazed here, but you get the idea. It was so cool to experience all of this through his eyes.

Later in the day, Nee Nee took us to see the live Playhouse Disney show at California Adventure. That was another wonderful thing to watch him experience. Singing and dancing and puppets and a giant bear. At the end of the show, bubbles came drifting down from the rafters. Great stuff. Plus I got to experience a character named Stanley for the first time. Stanley stars on a show on Playhouse Disney called...um..."Stanley". I can't wait until we start showing Kiernan more tv, because this looks like a great show. I know I'll run into a lot of kids' shows that are insipid, but I do look forward to finding the good stuff for Kiernan to watch. Thankfully, in Renee I've got somebody who can vet most of the programming and steer me to the best stuff, since she has to watch all of these shows for her job. Better her than me.

We kicked around California Adventure for awhile, taking Kiernan on a couple more rides in the Bug's Life area of the park. Aside from that area, California Adventure is kind of dopey. It has this cheapo, almost carnival-like feel that would be okay if you hadn't just been to Disney Land. And if the designers hadn't lost their nerve and slapped Disney characters onto some of the rides as a branding afterthought. Also, a Cannery Row ride for toddlers would have been nice. In general, more John Steinbeck rides would have been nice. I think his books really lend themselves to amusement park rides.

At the end of the day, our friends Heather and Joe and their son Sam met us in Downtown Disney for Wendy's birthday dinner. Her first choices for dinner--an Italian place and The Rainforest Cafe--were both booked solid, so Renee got us reservations at this Spanish restaurant called Catal. Very cool place with pretty good food. Dinner was late, and still Kiernan was awesome. He didn't care for the macaroni and cheese as it was not from a box or from KFC, but he ate some bread and then, when our food arrived, basically conked out right there on the table. No fussing. No major crash. He just put his head down and went to sleep. It was adorable.

Here's a picture of Wendy holding him after he fell asleep. Don't worry, I cut up her steak for her so she could eat.


Also, those of you who know how Wendy would react to the idea of having a birthday meal at a Spanish restaurant, don't worry about that either. Kiernan and I took her to Red Lobster a few days later. For the record, he didn't care for the macaroni and cheese there, either.