Asa's Home Page



Monday, July 23, 2007

New Things Asa Does

Asa has been coloring lately, although he also likes to eat the crayons. It's mostly broad brush strokes that are made pretty randomly. Abstract art at its finest. He's also exploring pointillism.

He got a new sandbox for his birthday. Some explanation is required here, because this is not just ANY sandbox. No, it is a handmade, 8'x6'x2' sandbox with lid and two benches on either side. It was made by his grandfather, then driven 5 hours in the rear of a pickup to reach us. It didn't fit in the bed of the truck. So he has LOTS of space to crawl around in and dig. Did you know that children don't require any instruction in what to do with buckets, shovels, and the like in sandboxes? He isn't (knock on wood) eating TOO much sand yet. He does, however, like to climb on the benches and drop his shovel over the side, where I am supposed to retrieve it. He is trapped inside, unless he dives two feet to the ground (which - knock on wood again - hasn't yet occured). Nonetheless, the sandbox helped me finish the Harry Potter book when he woke up and I was 20 pages from the end. He's independent enough for stretches at a time, that I could read a page or two at a time.

The sandbox joins the rest of our miniature playground, which now includes a wading pool, the wagon from my sister's wedding, another push/ride-on toy, and the climber. We use the wagon every day (except when it rains) to go and get the mail. Asa gets to hold the mailbox keys on the way there, which he thinks is super.

Climbing is actually his big new thing. Chairs are excellent for climbing. This morning he took on the rocking chair in his bedroom, which was lots of fun. A flight of stairs is as nothing to the child. Thank goodness for baby gates. Even with them, though, we have turned around to find him three quarters of the way up. He doesn't really go down well, although he is learning. He knows to turn around to get off of high surfaces, which is superb. He can get down off of the bed and sofa relatively safely now. Going down stairs he gets nervous/bored/tired before we reach the bottom, and sometimes before he even gets started and asks for assistance to get down.

He isn't walking yet, although he took another step yesterday and he is significantly more stable on his feet when standing. He's not interested in walking yet though, as crawling is still working so well.

He's finally mastered putting things in baskets. Actually, his fine motor skills are getting better. He got a shape sorter for his birthday which is hugely complex and will last him until he's 17, but he is able to get a few of the shapes in (circles and squares) if you show him what holes to try. His visual skills are not quite there yet to identify the hole with the correct shape. He is working on the concepts though -- finding out what will fit inside of his barn, what fits into his stacking cups, etc. Putting things "in" is now almost as fun as taking things "out". We have been encouraging this as a preliminary step for cleaning up. Also encouraging his love for the vacuum cleaner.

He's also learning lots about books, and is expert at helping turn pages, although it is still very hard to separate the pages of a board book (let's face it, adults have trouble with this too). He's pointing at things in books now, although not usually in response to the question (i.e. where's the baby's nose?). He's also bringing us books to read to him, sometimes stacks of them. He prefers the ones we've read 40 billion times already. Last night, as I was reading to him on the couch, he got down, retrieved his baby doll from the basket, and climbed back up.

The baby doll is a big hit. We've had to take it upstairs for nap time three times already. You can see the beginnings of imaginative play with it. He gives it drinks from his sippy cup (after we demonstrated once) and thinks it should be kissed and held. Which is not to say that he is terribly nice to it much. He bangs on it a lot and throws it and drags it by its legs. We played a game that he thought was hilarious in which he threw the doll from his wagon, and I picked it up and comforted it. I'm thinking he'll be a great dad someday, right?

He's talking a lot in words that are not comprehensible to adults. His tonality is great, and in context I can often understand what he's saying, but without it, I'm usually lost. He's pretty clear with "Da" and "Dah" for Jack and dog, but he also says something that sounds a little more like "Dn" which I believe is drink and "Duh" for done. He maybe does "ee" for eat and "nuh" for nap. They all sound similar enough to each other and to random babble though that it is really hard to know. He does have some signs, shaking his head and occasionally nodding. He can make the sign for milk, but doesn't always. He's developed a sign for drink, that sometimes also means eat. And sometimes he just crawls to the highchair, clings to it, and whines. For naps, he crawls to the stairs, clings to the gate, and whines. Whining is another skill that children don't need to be taught.

Jealousy has also been to visit. I sat for a 6 month old baby last week. She was a very sweet, easy baby, but she doesn't quite sit up on her own yet, so I held her a lot. Oh my! Asa was SO jealous, even if I was holding him as well or playing with him while I held her. I had brought out baby toys that I had packed away; she got to sit in the bouncy chair; she had a pacifier and a bottle... and he wasn't allowed to hit her or take her toys. Asa thought the whole day was for the birds. Maybe I'd forgotten I was HIS mother? Fortunately, Jess was home (and awake) for a couple of key hours, so I was able to get them both down for naps, which meant they actually didn't spend much time awake together. Even while the baby slept though, Asa was unhappy. I sat on the couch with him and we cuddled, but he kept looking over to where the baby was and throwing a temper tantrum. I'm not sure he's ready for a sibling yet.

We had a second birthday party with friends of ours recently. We made a Very Hungry Caterpillar cake ("we" meaning that Jess did the hard work and I provided the creative design). It was actually really easy. Jess made a chocolate bundt cake, then we cut it not quite in half and put the two pieces on a cookie sheet round-side-up. We then cut one end on a diagonal and flipped the cut piece to make both ends angled. Frosted the body green, the face red, with two yellow circles for eyes, into which we inserted green jellybeans. We used two blue candles for the antennae. Would have used marshmallows for feet, but we didn't have any. Asa thought this cake was better than the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting on it (although this was cream cheese frosting too). I made little pipe cleaner butterflies for the kids.

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