Boys’ report February 09
Alek has had a birthday since the last boys’ report. The kid is two years old now, and he seems to view this milestone as including a great deal of entitlement. He believes that two-year-olds can, indeed are required to, bounce on the bed, climb the curtains, eat venetian blinds, and talk.
What does Alek say when he’s talking? That is a good question. We are often unsure. Some utterances arrive entirely transparent; “I can see da moon”, in fact, is not new to us; it was one of Adam’s earliest sentences, too. But most of the time Alek is jibber-jabbering away and we have no idea what the topic is, let alone his opinion on it.
Fortunately, since it is a stage relatively close in time to him, Adam still speaks Baby and is often willing to interpret for us: ‘Papa, Alek is saying dat HE is da one who broke da lamp!’ Very helpful. There have recently been signs of detente in the playing area, with a slight down-tick in the amount of conflict, screaming, physical violence, etc. vis-a-vis Thomas the Tank Engine, e.g.
Adam can also do some Bulgarian interpreting for us. He’s getting very fluent at his kindergarten, and while Magda can rattle away in it well enough with Baba Sofia, I have not made much progress with the language at all.
Adam has stopped growing in his weedlike direction pretty much, and the changes we witness in him these days seem to be in the shape of his face, which grows more boylike every month, and in the sprouting aptitudes and interests. Prime numbers, for example; astronomy (‘Papa, I love you all da way up to da Crab Nebula. AND BACK’).
Drawing (cars, engines, sevens, houses with canonical chimneys with smoke curling away) has been a big activity, along with puzzles. Adam is now old enough to understand that he should be proud that he is four but can easily put together a puzzle stamped 6+. In fact, he never shuts up about it.
Adam has recently branched out from his deepest darling transportation device, Thomas, and developed an intense relationship with Lightning McQueen, the somewhat smarmy, Owen-Wilson-voiced race car from the imaginatively-titled Pixar film “Cars”. My dismay at this is not quite balanced out by Alek’s deep love of “WALL-E” and penchant for croaking ‘EEEEVAAAA!’ whenever the little white robot appears.
As I type this the snow continues to fall outside my window, blowing and drifting and piling up into powdery sleddable stuff. It’s Friday afternoon and my mind turns turns to the sled we got for the boys just before the last storm’s leavings melted away, and I know that we will face a weekend of tearful pleas for some sledding and carrot noses. Adam’s kindergarten functions not only as source of social skills, crafts, and learning, but as a giant virus incubator, and while both boys have had and gotten over Adam’s latest take-home, Mama and Papa have not. So it looks like more “Cars” and “WALL-E” for you two.
EEEEEEVAAAAAA.
UPDATE: At Magda’s explicit request, the Boys’ report feature on this site has finally been dragged kicking and screaming into the last century with the addition of MOVING IMAGES, aka embedded video. Mark this date on your calendar:
