Anders Update

I haven't talked much lately about the kids' accomplishments, and I've particularly been sloppy about talking about Anders.  So this post is dedicated to him.  Here are some things you should know about Anders at 2 years, 3 months...

• I have started to notice my own speech patterns and ticks by hearing them come out in my kids.  I'm not sure if this one is an example of something I say without realizing it or If Anders came up with it on his own.  Anders has started responding to my explanations or answers with, "Ohhhhh!" or "Ohhhh, OK."  He says it even when it is not clear he understood what he was told.

• If we are doing something that he finds interesting, he will walk up and ask to help.  This was one of the first 2-word phrases he uttered: "Mommy, help you?"  Now he is trying to string together words to express ideas.  This morning he said, "Mommy, no find baba." He couldn't find the baba he went to sleep with.  

• He still requires his baba -- only one kid that is sold at Whole Foods and is easy to lose because it is clear.  He sleeps with 2: one in his mouth and one in his hand that he uses to stroke his cheek.  I am not kidding.  I could not make this up.  But he doesn't really use them outside of sleep and his slow, drowsy wake-up period.  He has learned to negotiate with them.  I started getting him to give them up for something he wanted.  "You can have your milk when you give me your baba."  Now he will hold out his baba and say, "Mommy, Ooby-doo?"  Translation: I will give up my baba if you let me watch Scooby-doo.  It doesn't work, but you have to admire the strategy.

• He loves Scooby-doo and associates the show with spiders, or "aña" (for araña in Spanish), as he calls them.  I don't know if there was once a spider on the show or if spiders and spooky mean the same thing to him.  But in spite of his love for the show and his requesting it frequently, he doesn't really sit still to watch it when it is on

•  He loves superheroes and loooooves Superman, which he calls, "Bupermen." He particularly like the cape.  We had a superman shirt with a cape.  The shirt has since gotten too small, but the cape remains and Anders likes it attached to any shirt he is wearing, including pajamas. He loves showing it off and will leap forward with his fists clenched and yell melodically, "Buperman!"

• He also likes Captain America and if we say captain, he will hold his pointer finger up and say "America!" But the first comic book hero he learned was Hulk.  He loves the Avengers as a group, but leans heavily toward the DC comics for his favorite (Superman).

• The mommy obsession has not gone away either.  This morning when he woke up, he called out for me while I was in the shower.  Mike went in to get him, but Anders chose to stay in his crib until I could be the one to pick him up.  Ridiculous.  I call this the "baby gorilla phase" because he always wants to be attached to me.  If we are downstairs and I need to go upstairs, he says,"Mommy, come?"  If I don't take him with me, he usually dissolves into tears; but lately he has been confident and quick enough to just follow me.

This child is as cute as he is willful.  The former saves him when the latter is driving me nuts.  The poem about the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead applies well to him.  When he is happy, he laughs more openly and joyously than anyone I know.  But the tantrums are epic.  My hope is that further speech development helps to manage this.  I can tell how frustrating he finds it when he feels powerless.  But he can't communicate through speech enough to manage it.  Did I mention that he is cute?  He is ridiculously cute.