larryhammer | "changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle' / with Brigitte Bardot playing part of hypotenuse"

TBD is three years old today, and fully engaged with learning All The Things.

Language has been leveling up all around -- it's been a couple weeks since I heard TBD use "you" to refer to self, and while there's been occasional, usually playful uses of $realname as a Third-Person Person, first- and second-person pronouns have been pretty much been straightened out. There's been some interesting abstractions, especially relating to time: "If we going to $friend house, we need pack up?" asked a half-hour before it was time to get ready.

Socially, we're getting much more open: TBD is now willing to go over a hill out of sight or be picked up by another adult, if also in the company of an age-mate friend (or, for being picked up alone, it's by a friend's parent). Also: at their second meeting, a new adult friend was given a hug in greeting, instead of sticking with a high-five. (His being Chinese probably helped there -- "From my China?" "Yes, the same China where you were born.")

The most common invisible companion this month has been Sheeshee (or possibly Xi-xi?) who is scary "because she looks like Elmo," and a visit from her is an all-purpose embodiment of anxieties -- sending her away ("Go home Sheeshee!") helps calm TBD. Others have been nonce named and vanished. Well, Darth Vader also showed up a couple times, as a scary one, one time with the Emp'er as well. Geek kid in training.

Achievements unlocked: carrying the bike up stairs all by self (short flight), inventing random songs with new tunes (already had been putting new words to existing tunes), color sorting. Also getting better at catch with the large nubby ball and the crocheted Totoro about the same size. On the other hand, we've we've learned that the endless repetition of the first line of "Puff the Magic Dragon" can be tiresome. Ditto rereading Busy, Busy Town. (OTOH, for a while the obsessive rereading was a compendium of nursery rhymes illustrated by Rosemary Wells -- go Team Poetry.)

Talking, talking: I forgot to mention the popular diminutive "up-y", which is shorthand for "pick me up!" In heavy rotation are the questions "What's that?" "What's in that?" and "Why?" -- especially the last. It's not yet being used to question orders (those not liked are simply resisted, or sometimes a petulant "Stop iiit"), but to learn about the world. No conversations recorded this month, just some choice single lines:

"I want to talk about animal butts"

"Unicorns got snot?"

"School is not my work. Park is my work."

The party is Sunday, where there will be three young guests (number to match TBD's age), about twice as many grown-ups, and a jumping castle in the park. We figure the combination might give us at least a few moments of being able to sit down and rest. And celebrate.

---L.

Subject quote from "Lobachevsky," Tom Lehrer.