Basket Case

This was another of those moments when I had to leave Kiernan alone for a couple seconds. It was right after a diaper change, and I was disposing of the evidence. In those scant seconds, he took off across the room and climbed into the laundry basket.

I'm ready for my fabric softener, Mr. DeMille.

Book Smarts

After dinner things can get difficult. Especially if only one of us parents is at home. Cleaning up from dinner and getting Kiernan ready for bed is a dizzying process. He is so quick now; he can disappear in a moment. And he's too curious and good at climbing to let him get out of our sight for too long. I think he understands our trepidation in this regard, for often as soon as he does get out of sight, he goes silent, like a submarine. I wish there was some kind of parental sonar available for moments like that.

The other night I had to get the bath ready after dinner on a night when Wendy has to teach late. Kiernan had just been released from his seat at the dinner table and was ready to play. (The basic fact any parent of a toddler knows is that as the toddler gets more tired, he gets more active, more wound up. Meanwhile his parents are asleep on their feet.)

I sprinted into the bathroom to start the bath process, figuring I would do all the little tasks--rinsing out the tub, putting down fresh towels, getting a clean diaper and pajamas for afterward--in bursts. I'd run into the bathroom, get his bath toys out, then run back into the family room to make sure Kiernan had not climbed up onto the window sill. Then I'd dash back in, rinse the tub, and hurry back out to make sure he wasn't drawing on the walls. Every second Kiernan is out of my sight when we're alone is like the speed round on some game show. A huge digital timer pops up in my mind and wackily ominous music plays in my ears. I know I'd better get back out to him before that timer reaches thirty seconds or I'll be gonged out as a parent.

On this night, Kiernan made my job easy. He climbed up onto the reading chair and opened a book. He's been doing this more and more lately. Most of the time he still wants us to read to him, but time to time, especially when we are about another task, he will go and open a book and page through it himself. These are wonderful moments, so wonderful that they can become counterproductive. There are times I'm trying to do the dishes and he will just be sitting in his room, reading a book. All I want to do is watch him from outside the room, spy on his little moment of beautiful independence.

He's such a clever little guy. A budding intellectual, I'm sure of it.

Oh...I suppose I should mention what happened right after this picture. As I prepared to fill the tub, he followed me into the bathroom and tossed the book he had been reading into the tub.

Intellectual. Indeed.

The Picnic Lizard

A couple weeks ago we went to a local park for a picnic. We stopped at KFC after Kiernan's nap and picked up some stuff for lunch, then headed up to Chatsworth to the park. Wendy had just discovered the place the day before when she and Kiernan attended a birthday party for a friend of his.

Our first order of business, while Wendy unpacked and set up the food, was to throw the balls Kiernan had brought along up into the air over and over again. Much of our days are taken up with this activity. Whereas a few months ago we were predominately concerned with spraying water on everything in the world, these days we have to throw balls up into the air as high as we can. For hours on end. Kiernan is getting really good this, which I find interesting because it reminds me of one of the many games I came up with when I was growing up to amuse myself, particularly when we lived in Texas, and then later in Colorado. I was far removed from friends in both locales much of the time, so I came up with various single player games, including throwing footballs to myself.

Thing is, Kiernan does not view this game as a solo activity. If we try to sit down while he is throwing the balls up in the air, he stops, points at the grass, and says, "Daddy! Grass! Play!"

He's also getting very good at using the imperative.

After throwing the balls we ate our lunch. As we cleaned up our lunch, I noticed some movement on the blanket. It was a lizard. The little guy scurried up onto Kiernan's diaper bag and hung out for awhile. Then he took off and Kiernan followed him onto the grass until he lost him. A few minutes later the lizard returned and hung out with us for awhile longer.

Eventually he took off for good and we all went over to the play area. Wendy wanted to show me Kiernan's new skills on the slide. Up until this point I had only seen him go down the slide with help. Now he can do it himself. It's cool to see him do this at school now. He climbs the steps up into the little play structure, toddles over the slide, carefully sits down, and says "Ready. Set. Go!" And then he slides down. Often he is in cahoots with one of his classmates. One day it was a little girl named Bella. Another day it was a boy named Cameron (whose name Kiernan pronounces, "Cram-on"). He is just as insistent that his accomplice continue sliding with him as he is that we continue throwing balls in the air with him at home. Bella tried running off to find her twin sister at the swing, and Kiernan refused to continue playing without her. "Bella go? Bella go? Bella go?"

After sliding for awhile we packed up our stuff and went for a hike. Upon reentering the park, Kiernan saw another family having a picnic. More to the point, he saw their big blue soccer ball. He made a beeline for the ball, saying, over and over again, "Kiernan turn! Kiernan turn! Kiernan turn!" Wendy kicked into high gear, attempting to head him off at the pass. Luckily the little boy in the family was interested in sharing. He got up from his meal and brought the ball to Kiernan, letting him play with it. It was nice, especially since we'd had a rather ugly encounter with some other children before the hike. We played with the soccer ball for a bit before giving it back, at which time Kiernan practiced a few Spanish words with the family.

He's such a cool little boy.

Happy Chalk, Keep Chalkin' Happy Chalk

This is how Kiernan looks when his mommy gets home from work.

On this day we all ended up in the front of the house, chalking up the sidewalk. Cathryn and Keirnan had been playing Hopscotch, and after we walked her out to her car at the end of her day with him, Kiernan wanted to stay outside and draw improvements into the Hopscotch squares. Wendy drove up as we were doing this, and he went nuts, as he always does when she gets home.

She immediately joined us on the sidewalk and helped with the chalking project. A nice little bit of family time.