Another Nathan Anecdote

A week or so ago, Nathan was quite thirsty and began drinking very noisily from the cup of water I handed him. After taking the first couple of gulps, he paused, looked at me, and said, "What was that?" Then, as if to clarify, he said, "glub, glub, glub." After thinking for a brief moment, he confidently answered himself, "fishy," and continued drinking, apparently satisfied with that external explanation for his own loud swallowing. So, this is how myths are born.

And, of course, a few cute pics:

Nathan's Yarn Doggy & Sun Hand

I was crocheting one day while Katie was sleeping (the only time when crocheting is remotely possible), and to keep Nathan happy I gave him his own bit of scrap yarn and one of my extra hooks. To my surprise, he did not start poking in and out of the yarn with the hook (as he usually does under such circumstances); instead, he started walking around holding one end of the yarn and dragging the rest of it in a clump behind him. He started calling, "Come on, doggy" and leading the "doggy" to the kitchen to get some "cereal"--which is what he believes dogs eat. Now, if the yarn is put away, he sometimes asks, "Where Nathan's doggy?" and thus a new friend/toy is born.

Another fun story: One day, I was in the kitchen with the kids. Nathan was playing with the magnets on the fridge and I wasn’t paying too much attention to him because I was feeding Katie. I heard him saying things like, “train” and “sun” and then he kept repeating “sun” for a while, but I’m not too sure how long or if he said anything else because I was focused on Katie and I was just happy that he was playing by himself so well (that is, without destroying anything). Suddenly, he got really excited and started saying, “Hand! Hand, Mommy, hand!” He was kind of insistent this time and kept repeating himself, so I looked over. He had arranged some of our rectangular word magnets around one of our large circular magnets so that it did indeed look like a hand—all of the words were sticking out lengthwise on one side of the magnet and there was around, but not necessarily exactly, five of them:

He put his hand up to it and then wanted me to put my hand up to it. As I looked at it, I realized that he had probably been trying to make a sun moments before and he often makes "trains" out of the rectangular words. That would be why he was so surprised and excited about the hand: he wasn’t expecting it. I was really impressed that, in the first place, he recognized that he could try to arrange rectangles and a circle into the shape of the sun and, in the second place, that he recognized a second object while he was making the first. Of course when we color, I’m the only one actually drawing shapes. He just draws lines. So, I really appreciated being able to see that he does recognize shapes (beyond just naming them off when Mommy points to them on the paper) and that he could put 2 and 2 together that way. It is just so wonderful to watch his mind develop and to see his excitement. These moments and the moments when he runs to give me a hug and tell me he loves me...Well, what can I say? It's cheesy, but these moments are my life's greatest treasures.

What happens when you give a 2 year-old cereal and then get distracted?

The Answer: He'll finish eating as much as he wants then leave the bowl (partially filled with milk and cereal fragments) for his 1 year-old sister to find.

What will she do when she finds the bowl? The answer to that question is pretty obvious even without the photographic evidence.

What will Mommy do when she finds milk all over the floor (notice the wet rug), bran flakes smeared on the linoleum, and one little Katie with a bowl in her mouth?

The answer: Laugh her head off. Take a picture. Remind herself never to leave Nathan or Katie alone in the kitchen.

Nathan Learns Photography

Lately, whenever I pull out the camera to take a picture (of Nathan/Katie cuteness or my amazing track building skills), Nathan insists that he get a turn to take some pictures. Usually, he ends up pointing the camera at the ground or at least tilting it downwards, missing entirely the object he wants to photograph, as he tries to look at the digital screen on the back of the camera:

Here he was trying to take a picture of Mommy (sitting at the computer desk).

Well, he is only 2. But with a little coaching from Mommy (and, in some cases, a little last minute intervention to tilt the camera back up), his photography skills show great promise:

Well, who hasn't cut off an extra head here or there? In a photograph, I mean.

Watch out National Geographic, here he comes (in about 20 years). He's got a camera and he's not afraid to use it.

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