20

So A turned the big two-oh yesterday. I wish I had lots of exciting news and updates and milestones to speak of, but this month's post reads pretty much like the last one. He's growing like a weed, debuting new words everyday, loving school, loving the outdoors, loving his family, etc., etc.

One change is that we have had to work a little harder to keep his attitude in check this month. He seems to think the world revolves around him. I cannot possibly imagine why. The timeout corner has been getting a lot more action this month, and thank goodness, he seems to be responding well to it. A little too well, in fact. The kid actually likes timeout. When he starts to cop an attitude, we will ask him if he wants to go to timeout. So far, his answer has always been, "yes", and when we tell him, "Okay then, go to timeout," he marches right over to the designated corner and sits down until we tell him to get up.

We thought the novelty might wear off after a while and that he would eventually realize that timeout is a punishment, but after dozens of opportunities to fight us on it, he still goes willingly. Not that I blame him. There are many times during the day that I would love to be sent to timeout, but no one is willing to send me. Then again, it is not at all uncommon for Alex to put himself in timeout for no apparent reason. Many times during the course of the day, I will look over and find Alex sitting in the corner by himself, flashing me his aren't I funny? smile. I'll ask him, "Are you in timeout?", and he'll say, "Yes". I'll ask, "Are you a bad boy?" and he'll say, "Yes". Then he waits for me to tell him to get up and give me a hug and apologize for his bad behavior.

Despite the fact that he seems to enjoy his few minutes of solitude, this method of discipline does seem to be effective. He usually gets in trouble for throwing a fit when we tell him he can't have something that he wants, or when we tell him not to do something and he continues to do it. The word "timeout" calms him down immediately and distracts him from his bad behavior, and once he has had a few minutes to "reflect", he never goes back to doing what got him in trouble. Not right away, at least...

Other than the occasional short-lived hissyfit, he is a good, sweet, fun boy. He is super affectionate, always climbing on me and hugging me and kissing me. He has become more independent and has started to enjoy more "big boy" pastimes, like doing art projects and collecting things and trying to read. His personality has continued to blossom, and he is more outgoing now than ever. He loves to scream "hi" and "bye" to friends and strangers and loves to participate in the activities at school. After I picked Alex up from class one day, we ran into the director of the Mother's Day Out program. She stopped to say hi to Alex and told me that she had come into his class that day to play games with the kids, including a game where you sing a song about rolling a ball to someone, then you roll the ball to that person, and they roll it back to you. She went on to explain that he was the only one in the class that would play with her because the rest of the kids wanted to keep the ball once she rolled it to them, while Alex was the only one who understood that you are supposed to roll it back. It seems that the kid knows who to impress. Of course, we figured Grammy deserved some credit for his cooperation because he's had some practice with rolling his bowling ball.

And that about covers it for this month. Our "project" for this upcoming month is to work on Alex's two and three word phrases because, while he seems to have single words down, actual phrases are few and far between. We have also been working like mad on his numbers because his counting now goes something like this: one, do, eeh, bow, five! We're hoping that, by age 2, he will be able to recite the first 1000 digits of Pi from memory. Hey, it's doable.