Making Mischief

We have this great shelving unit thing in Oliver's playroom that holds all of his miscellaneous toys that doesn't go anywhere else - the random puzzle pieces, dolls, tops, stuffed animals, cards, and so on. It's pretty simple - twelve plastic bins of various sizes and a nice shelf to hold them all.

I knew I was in trouble when I saw him carrying all of the empty bins, stacked together, down the hall.

"Daddy, I'm going to take these far, far away."

I stared at him, dumbfounded, not realizing at first what had happened. And then I went to look in his bedroom, and found his shelf stripped bare. Everything - toys, bins, the whole kit and kaboodle - was gone.

And then I asked: "But Oliver, where did all the stuff go that was in those bins?"

"It's in my basket."


Yes, it was. All of it. Twelve bins, emptied into one vessel. It wasn't a pretty sight.

The strata of his playroom, as it were.

He then dragged the entire overstuffed bin down the hall into our bedroom, where he had already laid out all the bins. He proceeded to start sorting all of the toys back into the bins.


This fun game lasted for about five seconds before he decided it was more fun to toss everything onto our bed.

The moral of the story: when your child is in another room, happily and quietly playing, this is not a time to relax. This is the time to imagine the worst thing he could possibly be doing. Because the chances are good that's exactly what he's doing.

Bea

Oliver has a baby doll. For the longest time, she was just an occasional toy. He played with her sometimes, but mostly he ignored her. She sat unused for months, collecting dust, just another stuffed thing in the bin of stuffed things. Suddenly, he has fallen madly in love with this doll. He carries her everywhere. He went to bed with her clutched in his arms the last three nights. It's his baby.

Her name is Bea. His name was going to be Beatrice if he was a girl, so Mrs. B took the liberty of naming his baby doll for him. There's something strange about him carrying around something with his alternate-universe female name. It's as if he's holding his other half.

He tells us that she's his baby. That's exactly how he says it - "she's my ba-by," he says somberly. "I wuv her."

I must get this on video, because when he says "she's my baby," his voice croaks with emotion. He says it with a combination of unconditional love and existential dread, like he knows that the love he has for Bea is ultimately going to break his heart and destroy him. (I don't really believe that myself, about Bea or about him, but when he says it, you just hear the heartache in his voice.)


She went to the beach with us last week. She went shopping on Sunday and patiently sat in a chair while he tried on shoes. He eats with her. He asks us to get her sippy cups full of milk and water. When we read stories, he insists that we read to both of them. Sometimes, he comes looking for food in the kitchen and he says "we're hungry."

But mostly, it's the endless clutching and looking at her. And he really doesn't look joyfully at her, like he's thrilled to have a baby. He looks honest-to-God mournful. Haunted. Or maybe that's just his way of looking protective and watchful. But he just looks so burdened. It's hard work being a parent, but he's only three yet - he shouldn't know this.

Happy burt-day!

It's Oliver's 2nd birthday today. I'll talk more later, but i thoght I'd just let y'all know.

He got lots of cool presents - a little baby doll (complete with fun diapers!), books...

One of these things (all the cool kids have one)...



But the absolute coolest birthday present was his birthday balloon. Because what's more fun than a balloon?

Wait. What about ... two balloons?!



The second one is mine. (My birthday was last week. Amazingly, it's still inflated.)

Happy birthday, little man.

The Learning Tower

Kids like to climb up and sit on things. This is a fact. At some point, they just love making themselves bigger and getting a new perspective on their world. Unfortunately, the things they choose to climb into aren't always safe. For example, step stools are fun, but there are no handholds and kids can easily fall unless someone helps them up and down.



Chairs? Definitely not safe for a kid still learning about gravity.


So we got this thing called a Learning Tower. (Dorky name, I know, but stay with me.)

The tower's about three feet high. It has an adjustable platform he can stand on, with four different levels. When he stands in it, he's at the perfect height to reach the kitchen counters. So he can play, eat, or help us cook dinner. (Heh. Usually, this means that he puts vegetables in a bowl, or something fairly safe and simple. He's not quite ready to mash potatoes or julienne carrots.)

According to the literature, kids use this until age six and beyond. It cost nearly $200, but we saw it as a long-term investment.

He loves being around us in the kitchen, and before we got the tower, he would just get underfoot and drive us crazy. Now, we can keep an eye on him while we cook, and with a snack or a toy, he can easily occupy himself.


He's had it for around a month now, and has grown to love it. He now calls it his tower. "My towa!" (Yeah, he sometimes sounds like he has a New York accent.


He learned to climb into it the first week we had it, and that was a frightening discovery for us. So we have to watch him carefully, and stick to the rule that he can't be in the tower without mom or dad nearby. It does have handholds, and he is enclosed on all four sides. But that hasn't stopped him from falling out once or twice.

(Note: if you get one of these, don't let your kid sit on their butt on the platform. It's meant for standing. It's too easy for kids to slip out the sides and tumble out when they sit.)

It's caused a bit of commotion for us, as we adjusted to the idea that he needed free rein of one counter when he was in it. That means rearranging appliances (the coffee pot, toaster oven, etc.) and moving anything breakable out of his reach. But it's worth the trade off. He feels proud and independent when he's up in his tower, and he can happily keep himself occupied for a long time.

If you get one of these, you really have to have a wide open kitchen. Assume that you're bringing in something roughly three feet high with a two-foot square base into your kitchen. Make sure you have the room first. (We never would have gotten this in our previous apartment, with the hallway kitchen.) But if you can fit it, and you can afford it, this is a great idea for a toddler or a preschooler.