Second Verse, Not The Same As The First

Doug is now into his second year of life. The good news is that we pretty much got the hang of parenting an infant. The bad news is, Doug is now a toddler. So, we begin learning all over again!

Our pediatrician warned us that tantrums are now on the horizon. I remember laughing at that, because earlier that day we'd had our first toy store melt down. We'd been checking out wagons, and Jeff took Doug out of one, after taking him up and down a few aisles. Well, Doug wasn't ready to get out, and promptly sat on the floor and screamed. It was kind of funny. We were glad to see that he liked the wagon and we decided to get it. The tantrums are interesting. Sometimes they're due to the communication barrier. Doug only says 'hi!', and I've been very lax on signing. He does know 'all done' and 'bird'. He also invented one for lotion -rubbing his hands together, like I do when I put lotion on my hands. Other tantrums I think are due to simple crankiness or just toddler stubbornness (he gets that from his father). It's been a rather interesting experience navigating tantrums, and I think my work experience has been useful. I sometimes see parents bombard their child with language during a tantrum, and I've learned that sometimes the best thing to do is to just step back and give him some space and some simple language. I stumbled onto this series of books at the library, one is called 'Teeth Are Not For Biting', there's also another one called 'Hands Are Not For Hitting'. I think they're great and I like the use of a simple easy to remember phrase. I think simple language and repetition are key. I wish I'd seen these books when I was working!

Doug constantly surprises us. He's very bright and doesn't seem to miss a thing. Every night before we read Doug a story, Jeff puts our bird up for the night. He changes his water and food and then puts two towels over his cage. Well, for the past week, Doug has been jumping up and bring Jeff a towel at a time to help put Hermes away! After he did so last night, Doug was flipping his hands over. Jeff noticed that and asked me what that meant. I told him that's how Doug signs 'all done'. So, I guess the bird was all done for the night!

The other day we took Doug to the Play Ground Super Store* in Columbia. We put Doug down a couple of slides and then we let him down. He walked around and then ran over to a baby swing and then proceeded to put his arms up. I was struck by the very purposeful way he communicated that he wanted to swing. Now! I ended up pushing him on the swing most of the time we were there and totally missed the salesman's pitch. Doug highly recommends the swings though!

I'm sure I could blather on and on about Doug, so I'll stop here :)






*On Mondays and Thursdays they have open play on all their equipment from 10-1, I think. If you're in the Columbia area, it looks awesome!