Down the Street

One of the funniest stories from when Lisa (Charlie’s Mom) was on maternity leave, was a particular day when Charlie would not stop fussing. Lisa was at her wits end, and called to tell me that she was going to ‘take the baby down the street’. I could tell by the sound in her voice that I just needed to give her a moment of sanity and that it wasn’t the time to explain to her that I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. To this day, whenever I ask her, she has no clue what her sleep deprived self was talking about. Yesterday afternoon was the first moment that I understood, because I was about to take the baby down the street.

The morning started by realizing that something was wrong with the pooch’s tail. Her usually happily wagging tail just pointed motionlessly down at the floor. Some googling revealed that this can be caused by over-exertion (i read this as ‘too much happiness’) and that if this was the problem, it usually corrects itself with a few days of rest. So we brought her comfy bed downstairs for the day, and were letting her do just that. We had a nice day out with breakfast and shoe shopping, and when we got home the sugar doughnut that Daddy gave Brendan must have kicked in because our little man was on fire. First we had the meltdown when we took the golf clubs away at dinner time, then he threw his food around while he was video chatting with Grandma and Grandpa – then when we went up for bath time, he splashed so vigorously that by the end I swear there was more water on me than in the tub. Getting him diapered and into PJ’s required a small miracle, and then I took him downstairs to see if his frozen teething ring could help make things better. As he tried it out, we checked on the resting dog. Just as she picked her head up, Brendan threw the ring right into her bad eye. She flinched and rubbed her paw on the sore spot – and even though I knew he didn’t mean it, I also knew we had to get him out of the house for a bit and leave the pooch in peace. Daddy wasn’t home, so I piled Brendan into the little red car and off we went. We had been out walking five minutes or so and were making our way over to the playground when I looked behind me and saw Chelsea trotting up to meet us. On the one hand, thank goodness the only place she wanted to go when she escaped was to find her family – on the other hand, now I had to get Mister Squirmy home along with a dog who wasn’t thoughtful enough to bring her leash along.

As I relay this, it doesn’t sound as traumatic as it all felt in that moment when Daddy finally pulled back into the driveway, but lets just say it wasn’t the most relaxing afternoon.

Lets contrast that to a story Miss Gracie told me. The kids who are transitioning got to spend their first time in the play yard today, and apparently Brendan loved it. No big surprise there. But one little tiny peanut of a girl, Alice – who can’t even stand on her own, let alone walk, was not enjoying her time outside one bit. And who came to her rescue? My son. Even though she isn’t one of his usual crowd, Miss Gracie said that he stuck right with her, and even pushed her around in a little cart to try and cheer her up. I get emotional every time I picture it. That is all I could ever ask of my child – that he be sensitive to the moods and needs of those around him, and do what he can to help make things better.

Of course then Harper’s Mom told me another story… Harper is in a bit of a ‘hitting’ phase (according to her, I haven’t seen anything but hugs!). When Maria came to visit today, Harper thought Brendan was getting a little close to her Mommy, and gave him a whack on the head. She says “ow!” when she hits. Maria said it’s because they always tell her, “OW – no hitting!”, but I think it’s because she wants you to know it hurt. Either way, apparently Brendan just stared at the two of them confused, when Harper hit him again. Then she wandered off. Maria said Brendan pointed to Harper and then to his head and said, “Ow”. Maria told him that he was right, Harper hit him and that she was sorry. He continued to show her one more time before he wandered off to play – and then he came back to tell her one more time before she left. Of course I accused Maria of calling my son a tattler and promptly hit her over the head. No, no… I didn’t do that. I just sat there amazed that my son is doing some honest to goodness communication.

So it looks like this toddler phase is all about testing and learning and figuring out who and what everything is all about. As long as the sweet and kind side wins in the long run, he can splash and wiggle and meltdown over golf clubs whenever he needs too. But no more hitting the pooch in the face – I saw Brendan saying sorry in his own special way later that evening, and I know all is forgiven. In the same way that Brendan told me he had forgiven Harper when we talked about it this evening, “We all do things from time to time without thinking, but we don’t mean it – it’s just how we learn”, he said. I told you – he’s quite a communicator.
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I have no pictures to serve as evidence for any of these stories, but I have two videos to offer the Grandma’s.

The first one is a new use for his toy drum that he came up with all on his own:

And here is him flirting with an older woman at breakfast. Looks like he takes after his Dad (liking the older women, that is… not flirting with strangers at breakfast):