VMOU: How many bugs under the comforter?

I'm still sick and Otter's still cute. This morning he used his developing undressing skills to remove the neat pirate hat and vest that make up his costume for Halloween. (We knew better than to expect he'd leave the eye patch.)

He is still charming, and has now fallen in love with the "How Many Bugs in a Box" pop-up book we'd been saving until he got old enough to not rip it to shreds. He's doing pretty well at being gentle with it. G finally got it out this morning, and then had to read it to him six times in a row while I showered, and twice while we changed him; then I read it to him several more times before promising him grapes if he'd go eat breakfast.

While he was headed for his grape-promised land, I hid the bugs book under the comforter in the living room.

VMOU: Taking it off

I've been working on helping Otter learn to take his clothes on and off. As of yet, he can't take anythign but his socks off unassisted, and he can only do that when he's in the car seat bored and yanks away until they come off. Then he gets upset because he can't put them back on.

He can take off his shoes if I untie them and put his hand on the right spot of the heel to yank, and he can do his socks at home if I get them past the heel. He can pull anything off over his head if you hold the clothes while he pulls out his arms, and he can stpe out of his pants once you pull them down.

As to putting clothes on, Otter does a fabulous job putting his feet in his father's shoes.

I know the eventual result of this learning process will be Otter deciding spontaneously to strip naked, almost certainly when we'd prefer he didn't, but I think we're still required to teach him to get clothes on and off, despite that.

VMOU (very mini Otter update): new words

Sorry for the late tiny post today; we sadly had to put one of our cats to sleep yesterday, and now I'm sick tonight with a fever. Never a dull moment.

I am gettting much work done on my dissertation this week, which is good news.

Anyway, Otter's new words today included "bubble," "Bert" (of Sesame Street fame), the signs for CHEESE, MAMA, CRACKER, and BABY. And this morning in bed he mimicked me clucking and snapping my fingers to get one of our cats to come over to me. It didn't work but I am sure it will eventually.

Plus when I asked him if he wanted to watch a DVD before dinner, he nodded yes. When I mused "so what should we watch?", Otter immediately said "Ehmo!"

His maternal grandmother was quite prescient in buying him a stuffed Elmo for this coming Christmas.

MOU: the game of parenting

It has taken Otter a while to teach us his new game, but last night we finally caught on. He stood up on the sofa and said "Dih dow?" As I began to open my mouth to tell him to sit down, I realized that he, himself, was saying "sit down."

Saying it, not doing it. So I said "Sit down, Otter." And he giggled and sat down. I turned to his bright-colored plastic dresser to get out his pajamas for the night and two seconds later, as I am opening the drawer, I hear behind me "Dih DOW" and I turn to see Otter standing up, giggling. I say "sit DOWN, Otter", and he sits down, giggling still. I turn back to the pajama drawer, and one second later, hear a cheery "Dih dow" and turn to see...

Otter standing up on the sofa wobbling back and forth giggling. I say "sit DOWN, and stay sitting down" and back up to the dresser, saying "sit down" over and over while Otter sits and leans back into the corner of the sofa giggling madly, clearly waiting for me to stop saying "sit down," which he sees as his cue to stand up again. Repeating "sit down" in that broken record moment (a metaphor that kids of Otter's generation, raised on CDs, probably won't even recognize), I grab blindly into the drawer for PJs.

G comes in and then, as we get Otter ready for bed, Otter, half-dressed in clean PJs, squirms out of G's grasp and stands up again on the sofa and says "dih down?", looking expectantly at his dad, as if to say "hey, want to play? here's your line..." I start to say "sit down Otter" but instead, I am overcome with glee at the sound of my son's voice and his hopeful up-eyebrows face, and I hide my face in the sofa, my shoulders shaking with laughter.

That leaves G to struggle to say sternly "sit down Otter", as I peek out to see G's face twist in that grimace of "I'm not going to laugh I'm not I'm NOT" while Otter giggles away, sitting down readily as soon as we ask, standing up as soon as he decided it's his turn again, time for another round of "Dih dow." It's like a toddler version of musical chairs.

I don't know if this is a story of parenting success or failure.

MOU: a duck is a duck is a duck

This weekend Otter got two baths--pretty rare around here, especially as the second one was only a half day after the first, but he asked, making the BATH sign repeatedly after his lunch.

Once we had him in the tub, we realized we weren't sure where the duck spout cover was. So we draped a washcloth over the spout and were extra-vigilant to keep him safe.

Of course, Otter has no idea why we put the duck cover over the spout, and halfway through his bath, he picked up a small floating duck toy and sat it up on the spout, I believe on the theory that, hey, if the spout always has a duck on it, and we hadn't thought to put a duck up there, he'd do it for us.

This may also be part of his new interest in imaginative play. He has a frog bath toy that we took in to the living room when his bath was over, and this morning while I was checking laundry, I heard him talking to himself and looked in to see him placing the frog on gate to the kitchen, lifting it into the air, putting it back down, over and over, saying "Jumm, jumm."

Any of you who have read him "Jump, Frog, Jump" will recognize the reference.

I'm hoping that this will translate into more play time with his many and various stuffed animals.

In other bath-related news, he can now say "Elmo", which is bath-related news in that his Grampy and Grammy P gave him a vinyl waterproof bath book with Elmo giving a dog a bath. Of course, Elmo comes out as "Whelwo" as often as it does as "Ehmo", but his meaning is clear.