Sometimes I forget.
Until I catch someone looking at me, or I walk by a mirror. And then I remember, oh yes… I’m the adult wearing a Sesame Street shirt. Because it makes my toddler super happy. “My matching you!” he’ll say with a big smile on his face. Right now I’m the coolest person he knows, and I want to hold on to that feeling for as long as I can.
His new chant is “Mama FOREVER!!” which is mostly cute, but it occasionally morphs to “Mama RIGHT NOW forever” with the “right now” coming out as a demand, and the “forever” more a cry, and always happens when he wants me and needs to wait because I’m driving or busy or not there.
So when he requests to eat yet another meal from my lap, I let him. If he wants to “do cooking” with me for the fourth time that day, I’ll try to make it happen, even when I’m tired and we’ve already made everything I can possibly think of. There will be a day he doesn’t want me in the same room, let alone touching him. But right now, the thing that makes him happy is me. And he makes me pretty happy too.
Unfortunately, it also means that I can be the cause of his sadness if I’m not around. He’s starting to be able to recognize time, bits by bits as he gets older. Last Sunday night we were putting him to bed, and he started crying. He didn’t want to go to sleep, and was trying to delay bedtime. When I asked him why, he said it was because I wasn’t going to be there when he woke up, since I’d be working in the city. He was right, I do work in the office on Mondays. I hadn’t realized he knew the next day was Monday - we usually tell him if the next day is a daycare closed or open day, but we hadn’t done that yet. “No like mama work in city. Work at home ALL the days!” he told me.
It’s both sad and amazing that he’s starting to realize these things. When he was smaller, it was hard to tell if he noticed or cared if one of us was missing. Now he feels that absence and can express the sadness it causes. I’m constantly amazed by what he knows, or can say. Lately he’s been talking up a storm, and the things that come out of his mouth often make me laugh. They’re so random, and come from no where. Sometimes he’ll tell me about something we did 6 months ago, and I can’t believe he remembered it. Other times he’ll just say something out of left field, like the other night when we were getting ready for bed.
Me: “Can I brush your teeth?”
E: “No.”
Me: “Why?”
E: “Memaw, Pepaw”
Me: “What about them?”
E: “They’re sad.”
Me: “Memaw and Pepaw are sad? Why?”
E: “Cuz my no brush my teeth.”
Me: “Oh, if we brush your teeth, will they be happy?”
E: “YES!”
And then he opened his mouth and let me brush his teeth. Whatever works. He also has picked up a few new phrases, that we’re hearing over and over. “My looking for you!” “Wanna check” and “I told you!”
Often when Tom will get home, or I’ll pick him up from daycare, or someone will come home from an errand, he’ll greet us with an “My was looking for you!” and he’ll be all excited that we’ve now been found. And if you tell him something, he might not take you at your word. You may tell him we’re out of snacks, or we can’t use the vacuum because it’s charging, or his brother is taking a nap. He’ll look at you for a few seconds, and then say “wanna check” before running off to see with his own eyes. It’s like he’s figured out that adults aren’t always entirely truthful with toddlers or something…
Sill my favorite is the “I told you!” which comes out more “I tole you.” Oddly enough, he actually says “I told you” instead of “my told you” like he does with almost every other sentence, which leads me to believe it’s because he’s copying someone else saying this, instead of it being a sentence he put together himself. He’ll often come home from daycare with a new phrase that often leave us scratching our head - like when he’ll tell us that we need to sit down because our back is hurting…
The “I told you” often comes after we’ll say something that he agrees with. I’ll ask him if he wants to go outside, and he’ll say “I told you! I told you that!” as a way to say, yes, I do want to go outside. Even if he hadn’t previously told us that he wanted to go. Pretty much anything I say lately that makes him excited will get an “I TOLD YOU!”
E: You’re happy, Mama!
Me: I’m happy? You’re right, I am!
E: My got a happy Mama. My got a happy Dah. My got a sad G. All day.
Me: Oh no, G’s sad? Why?
E: Cuz he wants a bag of snacks!
Me: Oh. You’re probably right
E: I tole you that!
I told you!
