Catching Up

Corbin is 19 months old right now, and the last two months have seen a lot of changes. The first amazing thing is that he's finally started saying words. He was doing sign language at 10 months old, but could only say two or three at 18 months. The first clear words were apple, juice, and moo. It was funny how he learned animal sounds so easily, but English took more effort. By eighteen months he knew lots and lots of animals. We could look at a picture of several different ones and ask him to find the giraffe, pig, tiger, etc. About that same time, he also got hooked on stars and pointed them out everywhere. "Sah, sah!" It was really cute. But the really big event was just before he turned 19 months old when we figured out that he knew several letters of the alphabet. We really had no idea until I found a cute program on the computer that went through the alphabet by hitting any key. He'd get excited by the ones he recognized, which was A, E, and O at first. Of course, half of his toys try to teach this stuff, but we just didn't realize that he was remembering any of it. Why he knows the vowels first, we still don't know. Today he knows A, C, E, F, G, I, O, T, U, and Y. It's certainly possible that he knows more, but these are the ones he can pronouce and point to consistently. A few days ago I used some of his magnets to show him how the letters spell words, and though he certainly didn't start putting together anything on his own, he had a look on his face of complete fascination. I'll have to rent some word-making DVDs to help him better understand the concept.

His favorite thing on TV is The Wiggles show, where four Australian guys sing and dance. He often does the motions along with them, which is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. His first favorite was Rock-A-Bye Your Bear, though he's never done the whole routine. Unlike Hot Potato, which he can perform in its entirety. We've shelled out $90 for he and I to attend their concert in early August. Other shows he likes include Sesame Street, although each episode is hit-or-miss. Some are on his level, but others are too heavy on plot and dialogue too hold his attention. We have one on our DVR with a fruit theme that he absolutely loves. He's seen it at least 50 times since we taped it back around 12 months. For the last couple of weeks we've been watching Blue's Clues, which seems to be a hit so far. I've been watching it with him and personally responding to Joe's questions in order to be an interactive example. Hopefully Corbin will join in soon. The show is geared to slightly older kids, probably age 3, but most of it is something Corbin can comprehend. There were a few Baby Einstein videos that he enjoyed earlier this year, but we haven't played any of them for him since he started counting to five before the narrator--about a month ago.

It's disconcerting to hear him count to five so clearly. Of course, three is actually "tee," but he still says them all in correct order. Even stranger is when he seems to count to ten, since we've never worked on that, but he doesn't do it consistently. Corbin really likes to count, perhaps because it's something he's good at. It's a great distraction anytime, anywhere. Don't want to eat your grapes? Let's count them! He'll usually eat one, and then we can count them again. When he turned 18 months, he couldn't count more than 5 things on a page without pointing to some of them twice and skipping over others. Now he's counting 7 or 8 perfectly. It's really neat to watch him learn and improve over such short periods of time.

Last month we bought him a slide and put it in the living room. It seemed a real challenge at first just to get up the steps, which are really just a set of rock-climbing protrusions on an incline. Now he's got it mastered, though he's still working on landing without crashing forward and picking up his feet when he's wearing shoes. It's been hard to keep him from getting too frustrated by not being able to climb up the slide! For the last couple of months, he's been climbing on everything everywhere. It's as if his motor coordination suddenly clicked and he's achieved complete confidence in his balance. He's gotten more than a few spankings from trying to climb on things like tables and treadmills, not to mention constantly standing on top of his toys. Thank goodness he doesn't weigh too much!

One of my favorite things is that he's learned how to give hugs on cue, and even seems to enjoy them for a short time. That affection-giving has been a great sustainer during difficult days. He's still not into cuddling, and the closest we come is reading a book in my lap. But I manage to get some physical love language in through tickling and kissing. We have a special song that we sing (to Frère Jaques): Mommy loves you, Mommy loves you, little boy, little boy. Mommy loves to hug you, Mommy loves to kiss you, little boy, little boy. When he hears it he smiles big and sways with the beat, and giggles like crazy at the end when I tickle him. It's very cute, and I just love that it's obviously so special to him.

The parenting book I'm reading right now is about gifted children (IQs of over 130). It has nothing to say about toddlers, but it's a good road map for what probably lies ahead. With Corbin already learning his alphabet, we're having to constantly find new ways to challenge him. So far, learning seems to be lots of fun. And I hope that as parents we never become pushy about it. A couple weeks ago we bought a little potty for him to get used to, when he started informing us when his diaper is dirty. We certainly don't expect or want him to be toilet trained at this age, but we wanted to take advantage of his current level and introduce him to the next, giving him the opportunity to show us when he's ready to move forward. We have him sit on it and read a special book right before we get into the bathtub. No hassle, no pressure. But it's just another example of the rapid changes his brain development is going through right now. It's a fascinating time.

It's also an enfuriating time. Like all toddlers, he experiments with his power. Saying "no" to us happens many, many times a day. Sometimes we can change his mind or distract him with something else, but often we just head straight into a battle of wills. It's challenging to deal with this day in and day out. But it really helps that he's become old enough to understand a little of cause-and-effect. Such as, if you eat a pear, I'll give you a piece of cheese. Or I remember the first time I told him to pick something up (in another room) and then we'll watch a video, when he quickly complied and returned to point at the tv. That must have been around 14 months old. It was astonishing. Even now he's often able to follow complex directions given in ordinary adult language. Like, Go put your toy in the box and then find your shoes so we can go outside, followed by bringing me the shoes and saying "ow-sigh."

Well, that's all I want to write about for now. Hopefully I can manage to keep up!