Toddlers are so wonderful for providing material to write about. I think it is just that you get to a point where you think you have them all figured out. I mean, you spend every day with them you think you can predict what they will say or do, but they are learning and soaking things up so fast that the last thing they are is predictable. This of course comes with a story.
Tonight I was putting T to bed. Things were going along pretty normally.
"T, Bedtime in 5 minutes." ..... (Long pause) ... "Did you hear me?"
"Yes. Can I play one more race?" (Mario Kart Wii)
"Sure. One race takes about five minutes. That would be perfect."
T plays the game, finishes the race and turns off the game. He then looks for the remote for the TV and turns it back from game mode to TV. (Oh, wait. Did I say the night started 'normally'? Yeah, that is not normal. Typically I would try to stop him from playing what ever he was playing with for those last five minutes, and then we would battle for a few minutes until I finally got him into the bathroom to start getting ready. There would be some crying involved on a normal night.)
Without any problems we grab Tigger and head to the bathroom. In the bathroom he starts acting a little silly. I thought I would redirect it a little before it gets out of control.
"Grab that step stool and bring it over here." I say to him, pointing to the plastic step stool he has near the toilet from when he was shorter and needed a boost up. He listens, mostly because he is not sure what I am doing. I took the plastic stool, and placed it along side his two-step step stool he uses at the sink. I put them together in such a way as to make them look like a podium from the Olympics. It is the same type podium that they put the characters on at the end of the races of Mario Kart Wii. Now that made an impression on him. We had fun standing on the steps and looking like the characters from the game, pumping our arms in the air and yelling the silly sayings they say like "waahooo!", "Wacky" and "Mahhriioooo". We needed three people of course, so Tigger was kind enough to take up a step. Initially he made it to the number one position, but T decided that Tigger wasn't fast enough to get first. After all, he didn't even have fingers to use the remote. Tigger was then demoted to third and T took first place. We did that for a few minutes, and it was easy to slide the podium to the sink so he could brush his teeth. He was very happy and the experience reinforced the new word we were working on: Podium. (That boy picks up vocabulary pretty quickly. All I can say is never talk down to a toddler. If they don't know the word they would love for you to define it so they can learn it.)
OK, teeth brushed and P.J.s on. We debated which stories to read, and I lost. I wanted to read the quick story about the worm that eats his homework, and he wanted two stories that were level 2 stories. Not taking my own advice about how quickly he can learn, I thought the vocabulary was too difficult for his age. He disagreed and was very adamant about it. So we read his choices and I just had to spend some extra time explaining some terms they used. Story time is always fun because it leads to so many discussions that may never have come up in daily life.
Finally it was time for me to leave. Lights out. As I was tucking him in I found two dish towels in his bed. "Why are these towels in your bed? They shouldn't be in your bed."
"Those aren't towels. They are for Tigger. This one is his sheet." He takes it and gently spreads it out over his pillow. "And this one is his blanket." He puts it over the top of the other one. "We are having a sleep over."
"A sleep over? Ohhhh. I didn't know that. OK, tuck Tigger in well, and make sure he gets a good night sleep. He looks tired."
"OK daddy. Tigger's tired. We have to be nice when we have a sleep over."
"Since you are having a sleep over, tomorrow instead of milk and coffee, I will have to make milk, and milk, and coffee."
"Yeah, that's right. We will have milk, and milk and coffee tomorrow. That's nice to share when you have a sleep over."
"That's right T. It's good to be nice when you have a sleep over. Good night T."
"Good night Daddy."
4 comments:
The towels thing sounds like thing my son has done!
*giggles* Gotta love them little critters! They get cuter every day ;) I know what you mean about giving you bloggin' material--Katie keeps me on my toes...
How totally cute. We Heather was little, her favorite book was, The Monster at the End of the Book. (Sesame Street) When she got a little older, we switched roles and she read the stories to me. You've brought back some very fun and sweet memories for me. :)
Preston, we just started a book called Do Not Open this Book! It is similar to that monster at the end of the book theme. Here he spends the entire time telling you to stop turning the pages because he hasn't written the story yet and you are distracting him and he is annoyed with you. By the end, he realizes that he has completed the book already and thanks you for helping him write it. Very cute, and T loves it because I get to yell out the lines like the angry pig that is writing the story. "Go Away! Don't you have anything better to do?" he yells at us.
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