Shawna’s Whimsical Weblog

**Shawna’s comment - I asked for a small blurb from Tim to add to the bottom of the 20 mo summary below.  I thought this short story by Tim deserved it’s own entry.**

It isn’t always possible for me to interact with Mal in a fashion that
was fun for both of us. Most of what you do when playing with one of
his age involves picking up whatever interaction scraps he throws at
you. Sometimes, this involves literal throwing, when it comes to
projectiles launched unerringly thrown at your head. Sometimes, this
is literal picking up, when it comes to picking up the debris and
detritus that he leaves strewn about the house.

This interaction is seldom equitable. In play terms, I’m usually just
Robin to his Batman. Actually, I’m Dick Grayson to his Bruce Wayne.
He gets to be the billionaire playboy out on the town, while I have to
wait in the limo and listen to Alfred going on and on about the way it
used to be. Bruce is out with two or three supermodels, and if I’m
“lucky,” I get to hook up with one of the wingman notties.

Apocryphal analogies aside, playing with Marshall can be a one-way
relationship. This was up until recently, when he and I started
playing hide and seek together.

It’s a modified version of the playground game, being that Marshall
can’t be entrusted to wait while I go hide. The game begins when we
chase each other around the house, circling the hallways that connect
the bathroom to our bedroom. I’ll get a head start on him, then I’ll
disappear to one of the 5 or 6 hiding places that I can conveniently
use. The hiding places are spread out across the rooms of the house
and they obviously have to be big enough to hide me.

Clearly, it would be too easy to win the game in the conventional
sense. He’d search for me for a few moments, give up, forget about me
and go about his merry way. The true game is to lure him into finding
the hiding space by sporadically calling out his name. We end up
playing a game of Marco-Polo echolocation until he has the right room.
I hide in obvious places, but even then, I often leave my legs or
feet out in obvious places.

I win every game. I get to be a part of the excitement every time he finds me.

About a week ago Marshall became obsessed with letters. It started with the letters on his blocks, but soon it passed onto writing on shirts, signs, books, license plates, etc. Marshall will happily point and call out the letters he recognizes (which is most of them). There even seems to be a hierarchy among the letters to which ones he likes better. “W” definitely tops the list with the necessary loud shout of “Dadooo!” when he sees one. “Y” is at the bottom and doesn’t even get an acknowledgment that it’s an actual letter. Marshall has gotten better with number recognition as well, but they don’t get “letter quality” attention. Maybe because they are harder for him to pronounce or there are fewer of them.

Demise of the 2-finger salute
Sometime last month Marshall stopped sucking on his 2 right fingers. I didn’t mention it at last writing, because I hadn’t realized that he had stopped. It is now clear to me that the habit has run it’s course. There have been times when Marshall will fall down, he will contemplate his fingers but then shrug them off. I suppose there is a chance that he might still suck on them at night, but I have never come in to find his fingers in his mouth. On the security-front, Marshall has grown fond of a number of items in his crib, but he appears to get the most comfort from a small blue fleece blanket that was a gift from Dorothy. Sometimes if Marshall is having a rough go of waking up, I will point out the blanket and he will calm down (if only this trick worked when putting him down for a nap). The blanket, while similar in color to Linus’, does not get carried around with him for security purposes. He will occasionally express displeasure if you try to remove it from him while taking him out of the crib, but as a generality he doesn’t like items removed from his hands.

White baby can’t jump
Marshall still hasn’t figured out how to jump yet. When asked to jump, there is a very dramatic all body sway where Marshall will end up on his tip toes with his arms over his head (like he’s doing the wave). However, he has figured out how to climb. The block box is now used to climb into the chair and half in his room. Marshall used to do the “climb stairs -go down twisty slide” circuit at his local park and has moved onto the “climb arced ladder - go down tunnel slide” circuit.

“Pease”
We have been trying to teach Marshall his “please” and “thank yous”. While nothing resembaling “thank you” has yet to breach his lips, Marshall will now say “pease” when prompted. He will sometimes even point to objects he wants and say “pease” (mostly for his Leappad book kept up on a shelf). I’m certain this will soon turn to him pointing to objects I don’t want him to have while saying “pease”.

Marshall was far more excited than this picture shows to receive his first BRIO (magnetic wooden) train set. He mostly likes piling as many train cars as he can into the bridges, but he is slowly learning not to completely destroy the train tracks while he plays with his trains.