"words exploding in the light / like dormant seeds waiting / in the vaults of vocabulary"

TBD is three years and five months old, and does not want to nap any more.

We're still adjusting to the new schedule, which includes an afternoon hour's "quiet time" and an earlier bedtime, but aside from low-resource evenings and the occasional mid-afternoon crash, it seems to be working out. Which we like because it means more afternoon for errands and more evening for ourselves.

Achievements unlocked this month: riding 12 blocks on a balance bike to the wash ("river") and back, folding a square paper into quarters ("small squares"), drawing crossed ("window") and parallel ("walking sticks") straight lines, using "Aw, man" as a release for disappointment (such as anyone getting sent back down the Candyland path), "reading" familiar picture books to self, and seeing figures in clouds.

There have been more and more demands for invented stories ("Tell me about my X day," including a running serial about meeting Ponyo in daily life,** who then disappears before any grownup sees her,* as well as episodes of meeting Daniel Tiger), and more demands to play rather than read. We parents are starting to be used as a sibling substitute: "Say 'That's mine'" is the signal for the start of a practice wrangle. Ditto the cats.

Monster Threat Level is currently low -- which is our way of measuring anxiety levels: more monsters "show up" when unsettled. OTOH, during a discussion about whether ghosts are real, after being told that TBD could decide whether to believe they are, said, "I don't want them to be real. Like Daniel Tiger." -- and there's been much less anxiety about them since. Overall security is high enough that the parent of a friend is sufficient accompaniment for a half-hour ramble in the forest; on the other hand, being left alone with grandparents for a 10-minute errand meant a few days of clingy worries of abandonment.

More interesting is how TBD keeps making connections between things: for example, took the fact that we've seen ant nests in broken street pavement and the fact that broken roads get repaired, and asked how the road workers move the ants out of the way during road repairs. A few days after a discussion about how bicycles can't go inside schools and libraries because the wheels are dirty from being outside, asked why wheelchairs are allowed.

And then there's number abstraction: if there's two cups on the table and I put down another, when asked how many does that make, we get the answer not by counting the cups but own fingers. (We still having trouble keeping track of which objects have been counted past around 7, though.)

Also: TBD can get enough focus on a given task that it can be hard to catch attention.

So, um, yeah. This is a preschooler with an interesting brain. Not to mention one who's always talking, talking:

TBD: "Why my shadow so long?"
Me: "The sun is lower in the sky. It's setting earlier and earlier."
"It means I'm getting bigger."

"Why we people?"

"Why some tigers and some cats wear clothes?"
(struggling with the concept of story animals)
(note, btw, the way in these three "why" acts as a verbal)

Janni: "Would you like some yogurt?"
TBD: "Yeah. That would cheer me up."
(this may be an Elephant & Piggie reference)

"It's not funny, said the fart."

"If we have no furniture, we say, :gasp:! We have no furniture!"
(this came totally out of the blue -- no idea where that came from)

"If I want to be a moon, I will rise."

"Let's take this man to the hospital. No, we're not ready yet. We have to do the dishes."
(it took 10 minutes for the "ambulance driver" to finally take me there)


Growing, growing, always growing.


* Rule #1: grownups never disbelieve Ponyo was there, and are always disappointed they missed her. "Aw, man!" *giggle*

** The fanfic impulse starts young.

---L.

Subject quote from "Oda a Diccionario" ("Ode to the Dictionary"), Pablo Neruda, tr. Margaret Sayers Peden.