Nolan is such a nice boy in some ways....neighbours will comment on how polite he is- if he is over at Christopher's or now, Cole's house with a bunch of neighborhood kids he say "please", "excuse me", and "thank you" like a champ. Perhaps formulated as "umm, um - Excuse me, can I please have a cookie too?" He even says things like that it to me sometimes.
Stubborn however remains a more difficult issue. He gets really inflexible and will not take a "no" easily, unless he is 1) not overtired and 2) you have an interesting way to distract him from whatever his current Prime Directive is. Then, start with "Yes", as "Yes, we will go to the store for a train, just not right today - the store is closed, lets go see if we have a Wagon Wheel for a treat!" Then NEVER take him to the train store. Derry, derry dangerous place to take him.
I bought Wagon Wheels once and the revelation of marshmallow and chocolate together was HUGE. I hid the remaining for emergency bribes. Powerful. Kind of gross. (I guess I probably loved them when I was a kid, but YUK).
The other stubborn issue is toilet training. He is pretty good with morning BM on the toilet if you time the episode well, but the rest of the day he has to be coerced to stop whatever he is doing to go - and again, if timed right it works. If you have an irregular schedule- like most weekends end up with this and that- downhill. Previous nanny wasn't all that great at getting things farther ahead- plateaued- and current nanny (she seems super) is trying maybe too hard- if you stress him by nagging or too much focus out he regresses. I have talked to her about that already. I think he has bodily signals appropriately, but just isn't attuned to them, an the consequences of missing signals- ie- continuing to play or watch a show with a pullup on- aren't really a deterrent. Pull ups that "feel wet" are not notably different. Lack of pullup consequences- well, we tried that. He put on the underpants, forgot, and it was an almighty mess to clean up. Not willing to face again unless scheduled breaks and incentives continue to fail even for the new nanny and disciplined weekend parents. We may have to force the issue in August so he can start school again- might have to do a crash course in potty training. Yikes.
Recent Nolan things:
Improved "try try again". He would try something, and if he didn't have immediate mastery would want me to do it for him (crafts, manual tasks, and physical feats like climbing a soft climbing wall in an inflatable obstacle course at the fair). Now he'll with coaxing actually try and succeed- sometimes.
Relatively less interest in TV and more in playing. Very happy about this as it the press to limit him caused conflict- he gets so passionate about things!
Renewed interest in dancing and music. He is a very musical boy, loves making a drum set out of buckets and boxes and a tambourine and just whacks away with two wooden spoons, whistles, and having me play the piano for him (sometimes he isn't happy with the sounds he produces, and wants me too play songs instead- similar to what I described above). He sings quite nicely to I think- has a good sense of tome, pace, emotional possibilities of music.
Shyness- he won't just stroll into someones place the way some of the other kids do- he takes me or Mike by the hand to walk over and see what is going on. He gets quite shy with people he doesn't know well, but less so when he is on his own turf. In an unfamiliar setting - like at a neighbours house he has been to less- he'll want me to stay while he plays with the other kids, so I pop in and out and say "I'm just over here I'll come back and check" and he intermittently come out to me when nervous, until he gets accustomed. I wonder if he feels "different" sometimes- related to growing up in a house of adults maybe? He hangs back and observes the crowd quite a bit. He's a tall boy, MUCH bigger than kids a year older than him even, and he speaks a little differently- his diction is more "little kid" - less clear, more substituted sounds- but his content is sometimes amazingly sophisticated and adult.
Affectionate- Nolan still will slip a hand in my shirt (ummi comfort), lay his curly head on my shoulder, sigh and relax into a long, tall noodlechild, feet bumping my lower legs as I walk, utterly trusting that I can carry him forever. (How does he get HEAVIER with relaxation? He is close to 45lbs) When we finish our storybooks (he's a tough negotiator even when propping his eyes open) and go to sleep, he still hummocks over and rounds his back to me, saying "Rub my back, mom" in a sleepy voice, then in moments is falling twitching into dreamland.
My "present". Evolution of rituals continue, all odd. This one involves what Mike calls a hostage taking- post tub, Nolan likes me to throw the brown towel over his head, wrap the blue one around his lower body, and hoist him up, as if hooded and bound- and carry him to the bedroom, where I drop him giggling on the bed, and say "Oh! I got a package!! lets see, it has a knobby bit that feels like knees, and a smooth bit like a back and...and...and.." eventually, I "unwrap" his face and say in a tone of wonder "It's a little boy!!!!! He is so nice, look- eyes, eyebrows, cute little nose, cheeks, oh, I like this present so much- will you be my boy???" And sometimes in a Pinnochio reference he will say he is made out of wood. Or, a real boy.
Well, I started this post without a theme in mind, I was just awake and wanted to do something more (or perhaps less!) tangible than Ebay. Dangerous place and I have been known to get weird things at night. All in all, these updates are useful for me, as I know that things I never thought I would forget slip out of my mind, and so these fragments end up being important.
Absolutely, he is my present.
