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.