Lilypie 4th Birthday Ticker

Friday, March 30, 2007

the complimenter

I'm not sure if this is learned behavior, or just part of Spencer being a 'nice guy,' but lately the compliments have been flying and it makes me feel great. "Mommy, I REALLY like your red pants!" "Your skirt and shirt are pretty!" "Mommy, you have nice lips and teeth." "This meal is delicious!" "Mommy, I like you a lot PLUS a little. Daddy, I like you a little PLUS a lot." Who knew having a kid could be such an ego boost?

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Being different

When Spencer was in the 18-24 month classroom at his school, there were two girls in his class both named O. As they all turned two, they were assigned to one of the two different toddler classes for the next age grouping, and the O's were split up. Spencer isn't particularly close with them, but we hear about all of his friends from time to time. Yesterday he was telling me a story about "the O that is in my class, not the O who is in the other class." He continued on "the one that is in my class is a little bit different." And at this point I froze and sucked in a breath. O in his class has a (repaired) cleft lip, and I was horrified to think that at this age kids (my kid) were already focusing in on something like this and categorizing it as different. It didn't really make sense either - his school (and Houston) is so ethnically diverse Spencer sees so many "different looking" kids all the time. I was trying to gently ask what he meant by different, without encouraging him to focus on a birth defect. He replied "Well, they are similar. But one has brown hair and one has black, so they don't match. They are different." Oh.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

delayed gratification

Tonight at dinner Spencer was dipping veggies into some dressing and he informed me, "I didn't use any dressing on that last bite so I would have more left for those later." And I was filled with so many emotions, not sure exactly what they all were. It made me a little happy, a little proud, a little content, and a little at peace. All for a seemingly silly comment from a toddler. It just seemed so 'mature' for this little guy to be thinking these thoughts and see a small glimpse of some day graduating from "everything! me! now!" And a part of me projected far into his future and it felt good to think that being able to exert self-control and being able to delay gratification will serve him well in life. Then I laughed at myself for reading so much in to it.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

do we really talk like this?

Tonight it struck me as funny hearing myself tell Spencer "you need to wear underwear if you want to help me cook dinner." But, as usual, he managed to take the prize(s) for unique utterances for the night by blurting out "awesome mommy!" in praise of our meal. Then while getting ready for bed he informed me "there are FOUR O's in 'poo poo!'" And as I was saying goodnight he stared back at me and declared "your hair is REALLY BIG!"