I have to look up how old Robin is. Babycenter’s monthly updates stopped being useful and interesting as soon as Robin failed to walk on schedule.
And on that subject: When he does walk, it’s very unsteady. He falls a lot. He kneewalks like a pro, and people seem continually amazed by his crawling speed. He prefers to crawl when he’s in a hurry; he kneewalks if he needs to use his hands, and he walks if he’s already standing and wants to reach another standing point and he’s in familiar territory. He climbs everything. He’s mastered pushing chairs around the greatroom to climb higher, which means he isn’t spending as much free-range time down here.
He’s really a very motivation-driven kid. That is, he only does things with sufficient motivation. He discovered a while ago that he could point at things and we’d name them for him. Pointing! It was like talking except MORE FUN. So, now he prefers to point rather than talk, if at all possible. Or show us what he’s holding. He still does use words, especially when playing by himself, but it’s clear he’d much rather hear us say words.
His understood vocabulary seems immense, although it’s hard to be sure because he’s mastered intuitive guessing. Pointing has allowed us to realize that he did in fact understand ‘daddy’ as ‘generalized adult that takes care of me’, and even now we can’t correct that belief. He knows I’m mommy, but daddy is known as Kevin. He knows Raymond and Hannah and Dante by name; ‘doggie’ alone refers to critters in books or his stuffed toy. He’s finally started noticing animals at the zoo, he loves fishies and other types of marine life, and he can recognize a few letters. His favorite foods are pizza, broccoli and french fries with ketchup.
Recently he discovered the joy of wheels and things that go vroom. He has a Duplo truck he enjoys, but his favorite unofficial toy is Hannah’s wheelchair. Giant wheels! Like those of real cars! But he can still push it back and forth. He makes little vrrm-vrrm noises as he does so.
He is happy playing by himself for unbelievable periods of time, although he’s always delighted to interact with an adult after even a short time playing alone. He rarely has tantrums, and those are usually because a basic need has been overlooked even by himself for too long (such as thirst).
It takes him a long time to fall asleep at night and he never quite seems to get as much sleep as the guides say he should be getting– 10-11 hours at night and 1-2 hours during the day.
His interactions with other children that don’t involve treating them like strange new objects or obstacles are probably inspired by his interaction with Big Brother Dante. At least, other kids seem appalled at his intrusion into their personal space. He did try to give one girl a kiss once– although his form of facial physical affection involves touching his forehead to something rather than his lips.
There’s a water table at the Children’s Museum that he terrorizes. One week, he was shoving other kids away, including children older than him. A later week, he was doing long sweeping splashes that managed to wet half the room. I keep having to intervene. At the crowded new penguin exhibit, he was reaching out from my arms to push people out of the way. They all thought it was cute behavior, even though I was mortified.
I’d worry in different ways than I do if so much of his behavior wasn’t so hauntingly familiar to me. I really wish my mother was still around so I could ask her about some of these things. I’d always had the impression I was a pretty normal baby, whereas Robin’s behavior sometimes feels like a Muppet Babies version of adult me. The unwillingness to do things he sucks at or he knows somebody else can do better. The resistance to being shown things instead of doing them himself. The ability to get so involved in what he’s doing that he doesn’t notice hunger or thirst until somebody mentions it.
I guess I was at daycare from infancy, so maybe the continual presence of other children was normalizing? I try to take Robin out to be around other kids once a week, but I don’t think it’s really the same; he has me there so I don’t think he feels any pressure to bond or fit in.
I’m good at anticipating him– figuring out that he probably needs food or a drink, a new toy while we’re out, whatever– and for a long time I worried that I was reducing his motivation to communicate. But at the same time, I’ve read that a calm and protected childhood helps resiliency and flexibility later in life. And I feel like I’ve seen evidence of this now. He’s pretty unflappable. Sudden noises and weird situations startle him but don’t make him cry. God knows I wasn’t that calm. Still aren’t.
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I’m not quite sure if I’m ashamed of this, but I bullied another child on Robin’s behalf a couple of weeks ago. He, Kevin and I were at the Bellevue Square children’s area, playing with a spinning wall toy far from other kids. Another child ran up– maybe 4? and took over the toy, totally ignoring us adults. I was taken aback; I almost said something but noticed Robin didn’t seem to mind watching, so didn’t. But after a moment, Robin started trying to play with it again and the kid just pushed his hands off of it and kept doing his thing. At this point it seemed awkward to say something, so instead I stood up, loomed over the kid just as he loomed over Robin, and turned the toy the opposite direction he was spinning it. He paused, looked up at me, and then ran away. I’m probably going to Bad Example Hell, aren’t I?
