Your Clock is Yellow

I've told you about Dexter's clock, right?  The most fabulous invention ever?  Don't know how other people with kids make it through life without one?  Yes?

We've had sleep rules for a while.  Close your eyes.  Go to sleep.  No talking.  Those were the originals.  I had to add "No whispering" to the mix after Dexter would be up there in bed softly whispering his cares away.  And then I added "No kicking" after hours of thumping on the crib mattress drove my nerves to the very edge of their limits.  When Dex started adding singing and humming to the mix I was at a loss.  My list of rules was getting too long.  And I really had no recourse or punishment when he didn't follow the rules.

The boys scope out what's going on outside

Enter - Tah Dah!  The fabulous M&M.  Fixer of all that is bad.  I put a small bowl in his room.  I put 2 M&M's in it.  I explained that if Mama heard him through the green light (his monitor), I would come in and take his M&M's.  But if he could be quiet the whole time his clock was blue, HE could have the M&M's when his clock turned yellow.  It took a couple tries, but man, I haven't had myself an M&M in a while.  And now I giggle at the end of nap time, as Dexter stands up when his clock is yellow and says "Your clock is yellow.  You can have your M&M's now.  Your CLOCK is yellow.  Your can HAVE your M&M's now!"

Lest you think I am brilliant for thinking of this fabulous idea...  No.  Not so much.  I totally stole it from the internets.  So glad I did!

I do have to keep the M&M's in Dexter's room on a tall shelf, though, because if they lived in the kitchen or someplace else where I could find them in the evenings, the entire pound of M&M's would have been gone by the first day.

Who'd have thought that VACUUMING  would be one of our favorite activities?  When I turn if off Dex says "We can vacuum another place."  Also, I know, right?  I VACUUM!!

Let's see.  What else has been happening around here?

Dexter started school a few weeks ago.  It's an Intro to Preschool class at the Y, for 1.5 hours, twice a week.  Perfect.  His teachers say that he is very polite and helpful and lovely and maybe one of these years he'll actually talk to his friends.  I get only snippets of info about school.  What did you do at school today?  You don't know.  Did you have a snack?  Yeah.  What did you have?  Animal crackers.  You LIKE animal crackers.  Did you read any books?  Yeah.  What were the books about?  Apples.

And so it goes.  A tiny bit at a time I get a little piece of his day.  But mostly what he does at school remains a mystery to me.  I am sending Miss Lisa in next week to observe and report - she can do a little spy recon work.  He doesn't seem to hate school, which is good.  And I try to make sure we do fun things at the gym after.  We'll go shoot baskets, or go swimming, or go to the playground across the street.

This may well be the best ten dollar garage sale purchase I ever made.

While Dexter is at school I stay at the Y and take a FIT class - which is basically a group of ladies doing circuits of weight and sprint training.  Essentially, it's a little bit like killing yourself, twice a week.  The first time I went I was pretty sure I was going to die, and I could not straighten my arms for about five days.  It's gotten better, slowly.  I am still pretty sure I am going to die.  But the soreness has reached a tolerable level now.  And it's fun.  I compare it a bit to basketball practices in high school.  Except, you know, worse.

Dexter's favorite book these days has been "Puff the Magic Dragon."  I like it quite a lot, but I have a really difficult time making it through the whole book without crying a little bit.  I really never understood why my dad said he needed to listen to the song a whole lot in his car before I danced with him, to that song, at my wedding.  He wanted to be used to it, so he wouldn't cry when we danced.  I mean, really?  It's just a song about a dragon.  Why would that make you cry?  But, yeah.  I totally get it now, Dad.  I'm sorry I thought you were nuts.

This is why we keep cameras around.  I totally forgot he climbed right in his water table.  We put this one in the file of "things we don't tell Daddy..."

We've been working diligently on trying to get Dexter to use his pronouns correctly.  He refers to himself as "you" and refers to other people as "I."  We're so totally used to it now that it doesn't even phase us, and we translate in our heads and carry on with the request.  It's so much harder now that we're trying to correct him.  We have to think about what he said, and think about what he means, and only correct him the 75% of the time he says it wrong.  It's arduous.  It's frustrating.  But, in other, related, Early Intervention news, I think the child has finally figured out how to ask a question.  A "Can you do this for me?" question.  Thus far in his life he has approached these sort of situations with demands instead of questions.  I think we might have turned the corner on that one.

So long, farewell, purple Jeep.  You served us well for two weeks.

Let's see...  John couldn't quite handle the fact that his son was driving around in a purple and pink Jeep.  Actually, "driving" is totally the wrong word for it, because the child freaks out if anyone touches the gas pedal.  So, I suppose John didn't like that his son was SITTING in a purple and pink Barbie Jeep.  His reasoning was that kids are mean, and when they see pictures of him on the internets driving said Jeep, he would be teased mercilessly.  So he made it his duty to find Dexter a non-purple and pink Jeep.  And we sold the purple and pink one to a family of, I THINK, two girls and a boy.  So their son can get the shaft now.  And we ended up with a cool green Jeep for the little man.  Because, of course, green is his favorite color.  Til you read the book "All About Me" that got sent home from school with him Tuesday, where it says his favorite color is brown.

What??  I'm supposed to PUSH the gas pedal?  NOOOOOO.

Dex gives the green Jeep an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Speaking of things being sent home from school - holy large piles of crap being sent home!  Also, my kid is a piss-poor colorer.  I don't blame him.  I hate coloring, too.  But, man, kid, could you at least put a little effort in to it?  A picture gets sent home, with about three scribbles on it.  Like a teacher told him to color his picture, he took a crayon and went "zoom, zoom, zoom" and that was it.  One point five second later he was done with his coloring and off playing in the corner by himself again.  That, at least, is what it looks like.  I need to sneak a peek at his classmates some time to see if this is how ALL two-year-olds color.  Or if mine is just special...

Dex and I went to see Thomas this week.  You know, the train.  Where we went in the summer with about thirty million other people.  It's MUCH more civilized on a week day in September.  Far fewer people.  Lines were non-existent.  Lovely.  I think Dexter had fun, after he finally un-plastered himself from my chest. Which is where he spent the entire five mile train ride out to the turn-around point.  If you ask him if he liked riding the train, he will say "Yeah."  Ask him if he wants to ride it again?  "NOOOOOOOOO."

Somehow we're swamped this week with play dates and school and orthopedic appointments for the child who is still limping off and on, and Miss Lisa, and Aunt Jeanne coming to visit next weekend, and Buddy going to get groomed, and damn we have zero time to just sit around and watch vi-vee-oh's on the computer.  So we might better do that tomorrow, when it's going to rain.  Again.  Holy crap our grass is long.

More Thomas pics for you:

Fab little model train display in one of the stores

Here's our ENTIRE train ride out to the turn-around point.  Apparently the open-air car is a no-go.

He finally perked up a little bit when the train stopped and we got to watch the engine go down to the other end of the train.

And I peeled him off me and got him to look around a bit on the ride back

There.  That's not so damn bad, is it?

THIS made the small one happy.  We stopped for a picnic and had a chance to swing

And push the merry-go-round

And ride the teeter totter UUUUUUUPPPP

And DOOOOOOWWWWNNN

So by the time the train came back to pick us up Dex was in a pretty good mood, and all was right in the world again.

Dex also used his big old muscles to drive the cranky cars (fun!)

And we watched the black engine hook up to its coaches.  Backward, right?  It was like this the whole time.  I don't get it, really, but there was nobody around to ask why.  It's a cool engine.  Has coal in its tender and everything.