I’m really starting to think maybe nature is more powerful than nurture. I have read Hey, Little Ant to you since February and it has seen a prominent and recurring stint as one of your favorite books. It’s a wonderful rhyming story about a little boy tempted to squish an ant–encouraged to do so by friends and even his mom who argues that ants are rude because “they carry off our picnic food.” The ant eloquently argues his case, saying things like “Oh, big friend, you are so wrong. My nest mates need me, because I’m strong. I build our nest and feed baby ants too. I must not die beneath your shoe.” At the end, the questions are: “Should the ant get squished? (You shout: No!) Should the ant go free? (Yes!) It’s up to the kid, not up to me. We’ll leave the kid with the raised up shoe. What do you think that kid should do?” Great tale.

Well, several days ago I pointed out an ant crawling on your play kitchen and said, “Look, buddy. Hey, Little Ant!” With lightning speed, almost before I’d even finished pointing it out, you brought your hand up high over your head and slammed it down on the little guy. Squish! I was horrified. Traumatized. I scooped up the little black ant, now with a wonky leg, and placed him gently outside, far out of your destructive reach.

Nurture. Nature. Is there any question?!

All of my spare time has been consumed lately with a big project I’m working on. You have not been crazy about that fact, and you’ve been acting out a bit to get my attention, making not-so-subtle demands like, “No phone, Momma.” “No work, Momma.” In the craziness, I have gotten way behind in blog updates of your life and world. This is an attempt to remember accurately and catch up.

mulch floats: Daily we head outside to the garden to see what bounties await us. You luh-huh-huh-OVE picking raspberries, and you have learned which ones are ready and which ones have to hang around for another day or two. We get a handful or two of the crimson delights and head to the bench in the garden to snack on them. You shovel them in, and I’m usually lucky to get one or two. One warmer day I had a small plastic container of water out on the bench, so you could play with your squirt toy. Tiring of that quickly, you just thrust a small handful of mulch in the water and said, “Momma, mulch. Float!” Brilliant!

me!: Daddy desperately needed new shoes, and he needed Momma’s help picking them out, so we went to Marti and Liz. I convinced you to stay in the aisle Daddy was looking for shoes in, to not pull shoes off the shelf, to leave your shoes on and to use your inside voice—no easy feat. I offered the padded bench as entertainment, and you climbed up and down for a few minutes, turned around, saw yourself in the mirror in front of you, laughed heartily and shouted, “Ha-ha. Me!”

goosebumps: Sometimes to help you pee—which often helps you poop—I sprinkle water on your legs while you sit on the toilet. This must’ve given you a chill, and you rubbed your legs and looked up at me with the most concerned look. I felt your legs: goosebumps. You didn’t know what they were, and it worried you that they were suddenly on your legs. Hilarious!

imperatives: I don’t know how complex different sentence structures really are, but it struck me as needing a pretty good grasp of the English language and a decent idea of what you hope to accomplish with statements like the the ones you put forth recently. Playing and wrestling on the bed in our room is one of your favorite activities. I was busy getting dressed and not paying attention to you, so you demanded, “Momma, push me.” It was not mean, not aggressive; it was simply something you wanted and needed. Another example along those lines came when we were having lunch. As usual, you polished off your cheese right away (you take after your dad), and I was just breaking into mine. You said to me: “Share me, Momma.” Oh! So I’m supposed to share my cheese with you! I had no idea. Don’t those statements seem like they require a sophisticated thought process? Maybe not; maybe I’m just a proud momma.

misunderstandings: You chatter up a storm these days, and you want me to understand all of it. With some context, I am a veritable interpreter for you, often clarifying things you are saying to Daddy or Mammy. Sometimes though, with no context, I cannot understand what you are telling me, and you get very frustrated. You’ll repeat it… louder and more emphatically. I try and repeat it back to you—exactly the way you’ve just said it—but you hear it from me far differently than you hear yourself saying it. You repeat it again, this time even louder and with more visible frustration. At this point I have to resort to a cheat-sheet of sorts and ask you to show me. With context, as I said, I can figure out what you’re talking about. You’re so relieved and pleased when I finally get it, as if to say, “Duh, Momma!”

dinner request: The other night I was stumped by what to fix for dinner, so I thought I’d ask for your input. I said, “Hey, sweet potato, whaddya want to eat?” “Food,” you replied… without a hint of sarcasm. I think you might have inherited your daddy’s sense of humor; you seriously crack me up. And that was no help, by the way.

I dropped you off at your parents’ day out program this morning. We’re at the end of week three of this new, little adventure, and it has not been without its bumps. You cried hard on the first day Daddy and I dropped you off, and so did I. When we asked you about that first day, you admitted, “I kie, kie, kie.” (so sweet) Most school mornings involve at least one “No school bus, Momma” (your way of saying school). I gently remind you of the fun you have and reassure you that today is indeed a “school bus” day. You then set to processing the potential trauma; it goes exactly like this every time: “Momma. Daddy. Bye-bye. I kie.”

“It’s okay to cry a little bit, Bubbee. Momma will see you soon,” I reassure.

Today is gray and rainy, and your slight protest seemed more reasonable to me with those conditions as part of the day’s reality. You didn’t want to walk in on your own, and you were sucking your thumb and snuggling Sleepy Sheepy, trying to center yourself when we peeked into your classroom. You saw the markers and paper laid out on the table, and you nearly leapt from my arms, shouting “coloring!” You do like your markers, Mr. Man. I convinced you to give Sleepy to me, so she wouldn’t get dirty and watched you and the other little people in your class color for a few minutes. When I declared that I needed to go, you said, “No go, Momma.”

“Momma’s gonna go, but I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Sheepy?”

“You’ll get to see her at naptime. Okay, buddy?”

“K. Bye-bye, Momma.”

Then you blew me a kiss and waved good-bye, our first tear-free day! I feel like I owe Crayola a debt of gratitude! Curiously, the no-tears scene made me sad too. It’s the end of an era. You’re getting to be a big boy, full of independence and fearlessness. Soon, you won’t need Momma at all. It’s all going so, so fast…

You are a child of motion and have been since leaving the preemie stage. You explore and run and climb. You’re up, then you’re down. But two times a day, you sit very still, and I love it. We read stories before your nap and before bedtime. You sit on my left leg, tucked into the corner of me with your thumb in your mouth and snuggling Sleepy Sheepy. You wiggle very little, absorbed as you are into the story. You lean your sweet head on my chest and follow along by repeating every few words or pointing out parts of the illustrations that interest you. I love this time together. Other than when you are sound asleep, it is you at your sweetest.

Engine 14 was all shined up with the doors open, sitting outside the firehouse on 16th when we passed by on our way home last night. I asked you if you wanted to go see it, acknowledging that sometimes these things look cool from a distance and scary up close. You said you wanted to, so I turned around and took you back. A very friendly fireman brought you a helmet and a fire safety activity book. He even told us I could put you up in the engine cab. You were mesmerized…

You gotta love a fire engine that has a 37206 bumper sticker on the back. Aaaah… East Nashville ‘tude.

Aunt Jates was telling me that your cousins were having a discussion about what you look like, and Evan said with some confidence, “You know, he’s the one with circular hair.” I’m not sure how “circular” is easier to come to than “curly,” but that is hilarious!

A friend of Momma’s and her little girl (your friend, by association) came over to play on Wednesday.  R (as she will be referred to here) is only two days younger than you are, born early just like you. She’s recently had to have her tonsils and adenoids taken out and has had a difficult time with recovery—refusing to eat or drink because of the pain. Knowing that she didn’t feel well and anticipating the scene that comes when two kids want to play with the same toy at the exact same time simply because the other one is playing with it, I had a little talk with you before they arrived. I explained that she didn’t feel well and that we needed to be nice and do our best to make her feel better—to share toys, to share snacks, to be kind and gentle. You whined over a couple of her toy selections, but you were very gentle and generous, and the two of you actually put a puzzle together as a team. She’d pick out the pieces, and you’d point out where they went. She’d then navigate fitting them in in the right direction, a step that still challenges you sometimes.

Thankfully, you do not know McDonald’s yet, but we thought it might convince R to eat, something she’d really not been doing since the surgery. We were willing to try anything. So you got your first Happy Meal. (Aagh, it pains me to even write that.) Well, neither one of you had any interest in the chicken nuggets or the fries. You sipped a bit of your apple juice, but both of you were feeling distracted by the colorful plastic indoor playground. All I saw when I looked at it was an active breeding ground for super-germs. I finally convinced a single chicken nugget and half a fry into you and decided that was good enough, since it was junk food anyway; you were off to play. You were timid climbing up into the tubes, but once you could see me on each level, you were fine, and you followed my directions about how to get to the next level. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, you were stuck. Looking back, I think you might have freaked out because some other kids were working their way up around you, and maybe you started to feel a little closed in upon. Anyway, you wouldn’t budge. You weren’t listening to my instructions. You couldn’t get out of there on your own, and you started to cry. Hard. I had to go in and get you. Seeing you cry, R started to cry too, and by the time I got to you, I had two arms full of crying, snotty kiddos. I had to fight the panic, because I was literally folded up in those tubes. With the help of a stranger uncle who had to go in after his niece,  got you down to a level where you guys could crawl out to R’s mom. You were sweaty and crying uncontrollably… and asking to go back in and play. What?! Nuh-uh.

I don’t want this experience to have traumatized you for life… or do I? No. I’m pretty sure a phobia is not the best way to discourage Micky Dee’s. We’ll have to think of something else.

I made cupcakes yesterday—the kind from a box, not from scratch—but they were an organic mix I was eager to try (and, you should know this about your momma: I am not much of a baker.) I couldn’t find any organic frosting though, so that part was full of fake, not-so-good-for-you stuff. The cupcakes served as your treat for eating a good dinner. I put yours in the freezer for a few minutes to cool it off, and when you got it, you were so excited. It was hilarious watching you balance the frosted thing on four fingers while you tried to determine your approach. Finally, you nibbled around the edge enough to know that it was pretty darn tasty and began licking the frosting off as it melted on the still-warm “muff,” as you call it. It’s your word for muffin, and you had determined this was just a “muff” with frosting. HI-larious, booboo.

Ta-Da! We FINALLY assembled the Melissa and Doug play kitchen we got for you in January during Fairy Tales’ after-Christmas sales. How sad is that?!?! In our defense, it did take around 2.5 hours to read through the 15+ page manual and match up color-coded dots and fit tiny screws. Again, in our defense, we weren’t just being cheap by not having it assembled, as is usually our MO. This time the assembly guy only worked through the holiday rush, and we missed that option with our 50% off status. Still a good deal for us…

You really wanted to be a part of the assembly team, and while I love you dearly and would’ve had it no other way, I’m pretty sure you slowed us down. You love your little kitchen and played with it while I made dinner tonight, confusing some of your utensils and hot pads with mine, but all-in-all being a great cooking companion.

I’m pretty sure most kids have no idea what a water spout is in the Itsy-Bitsy Spider song; I didn’t. Saturday we tried out the new burrito place in the ‘hood, aptly named Nuvo Burrito. It was sprinkling and had been raining all afternoon, and water was trickling out of the water spout near Marché. It seemed a perfect opportunity to show you a water spout, the oddly favorite place of this itsy-bitsy spider everyone’s singing about. You love the song and loved that I had pointed this out to you. In a bit of a ceremonial ritual conceived all on your own (with a look to me to see if it was going to be approved or if you were going to get in trouble), you bent down and washed your hands in the water spout. Sweetness. Now, when we sing the song before nap or bedtime, you will have a visual reference.