Thursday, March 17, 2011

The little toddler that could

In the first year and half of Biscuit's life, he learned to roll over, sit up, crawl, walk and talk. He figured out how to feed himself, how to play, how to run and jump and climb. He accomplished all of these huge physical feats.

Then from about 18 months to the present, it seems like his biggest accomplishments have been more intellectual. He puts facts together and comes up with assumptions (sometimes right on the money, sometimes nowhere near reality).

Like yesterday evening, I pulled around to the drive-through window at the drugstore to pick up a prescription. The drive-through lane has a portico, and as we pulled up, we were behind another car. Biscuit looked around and said, "Oh. Get red cah cean." I asked him to repeat what he said, and he said, "We wash red cah. Get red cah cean." Then it occurred to me, he saw the shape of the portico and thought we were at a drive-through car wash. Makes perfect sense.

Another one I can think of is that all motorcycles are "Geg's mo-cycle." My brother has a motorcycle, therefore all motorcycles belong to him. Again, makes perfect sense.

But we spent a little over an hour at the playground this evening, and I realized a few things:

1. Biscuit is still making great physical strides. They're just not as obvious as the early accomplishments.
2. My little man is already showing leadership traits (read: he can be quite bossy).
3. Every day, it seems like he needs me a little bit less.

As he made his way to the playground from the car, Biscuit ran. He ran fast. He ran steady. And instead of watching the ground like he used to, he kept his eye on the prize: The Big Twisty Slide.

He grabbed ahold of the stair rail, walked right up the steps, climbed onto the next platform, scooted to the edge of the slide and down he went. He got to the bottom, dragged his feet on the sides of the slide to stop, then he scooted off the end and took off running to take another turn. And I stood there and watched in amazement. Last year at this time, I had to place him at the top of the slide then tell him to sit right there until I could get into position to grab him as he jetted off the end of the sliding board with reckless abandon.

I was just totally taken aback by the strength and balance he's gained in such a short time. He seems to have a confident air about him. Maybe all toddlers do, but I just hope he can hang on to that.

And speaking of confidence, for as long as I can remember, my family has been using the word bossy to describe me. It's usually in a playful way, but it's kinda true. I've never been shy about asking people to do what I wanted or needed them to do, and to my astonishment, they usually do.

A couple of years ago, I saw a guy I went to school with. We started kindergarten together and like most of the students in my class, we went all the way through 12th grade together. I have no recollection of this story, but knowing my history, it doesn't surprise me. But according to my friend, on our first day of kindergarten, I sat with him when I got on the bus. As we headed toward school, he made a comment to me about how scared he was. And he says that I looked him straight in the eye, grabbed his hand and said, "Just stay with me and I'll show you what to do."

Well, I saw a little bit of that in Biscuit this evening. This pretty little blond girl was standing on the platform trying to decide whether to go down the small slide, the fireman's pole or the big twisty slide. She must have been taking too long to decide or either Biscuit just wanted to end her dilemma because he looked her in the eye and said, "Go on. You go down big slide." The little girl looked at him for a second, then went down the big slide. I thought it was a cute thing for him to say, but then he made up several other children's minds as well!

All of this was in addition to the fact that Biscuit was looking fine today, and I think he knew it. He had on his distressed denim overalls with a green shirt (for St. Patrick's Day) and his darkest sunglasses with the flames on the sides. And I swear, at one point I think the kid was flirting with a couple of little girls who were at least 2 or 3 years older than him. One of them giggled, started jogging away, then looked back over her shoulder and said, "I like your sunglasses." Holy moly! It was like a preview of his teen years that I don't even want to think about yet.

As much as I enjoyed seeing Biscuit have a good time this evening, I also realized how independent he is becoming these days. He climbed up and went down the slides with no help from me, and he handled several situations of taking turns and navigating around other kids all on his own, too. The most I did was stand there and give him the occasional high-five as he ran by.

I love watching Biscuit grow and learn, but at the same time, what happened to that little-bitty baby that used to fit in the crook of my arm in my rocking chair?

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