“Trevor, you cannae change the laws of physics.”
“Yes, I can! I don’t like that law!!!”
The latest version of Trevor’s house has three floors, the coughing room is above the living room and below the bathroom.
Trevor has added “Ode to Joy” to his singing repertoire and Owen can now stand by leaning/grabbing onto something other than another human.
Last Tuesday, Trevor found a screw somewhere and decided to fix my office chair (the chair has been broken since I can remember and though we fixed it a few times, the design, particularly given the way I sit in this chair makes it break again to the point that we have given up on fixing it). In any case, Trevor came into the kitchen and asked for a screwdriver. Not having a good reason not to give him the tool, I told him where to find it and left him to his own devices. He selected the correct screwdriver and proceeded to the office where he attempted to fix the chair. Then this Tuesday, he decided to clean Owen’s swing and he needed to take it apart so he asked for the screwdriver again. I need to come up with some good ideas as to what to give him to “fix” so that he can use the screwdriver in a constructive and rewarding manner. I have originally decided not to get him Meccano when Dan first suggested it, because the interesting toys are only rated 7+, but perhaps, if we supervise him, it might work out. Any ideas?
Owen, in the mean time, has been able to sit by himself for extended periods of time which makes him a very happy baby. He can sit and play by himself for a while without getting bored. His new favorite toys are mirrors; he keeps trying to hug and kiss the “other” baby. We had a blast playing with stacking blocks yesterday. He was very excited to knock the towers down and chew the blocks. His most common phrase is “ba!” though I swear I heard him attempting to say his name.
Owen looked up from the Jolly Jumper at me and meaningfully and with great intent pronounced ma-ma.
According to Chris, he said ma-ma yesterday while they were out shopping and he was missing me. But that is not all, he will actually react to hearing the word “Trevor” and look around for his brother.
Owen is now able to sit on his own for a short while. After a minute or two he will attempt to move out of his comfort zone and fall over and bump himself. He loves sitting though and he is able to entertain himself for a short while with toys if he is on his belly. He is quite an experienced chewer of toys, but we have so far not been successful in feeding him solids.
Owen is an adorably sweet baby. He smiles at the drop of a hat and is very cuddly. He is no longer as anxious to be close to me at all times so he has been spending more time with his daddy and other friends.
As much as we try to convince ourselves that Trevor is the best behaved child ever, he is still a three year old. Here is a very common event:
Trevor has been exploring our boundaries more and more to which we have responded by reinforcing the discipline. A lot of the time, he is just too tired, since he does not always get his nap. Other times, he gets frustrated with his toys not working the way he wants them to, or we are not allowing him to do what he wants to do.
When he is in a good mood, which is quite often, Trevor loves building structures. Here is a house he built for himslef and his brother:
In one of the versions of the house, he had a room on top of the puff. He asked me to put Owen in it. I did and when both boys were inside the room, I asked him if this was Owen’s room. He wasn’t quite ready to give up the room entirely, so he thought about it for a minute at which point Owen coughed. Then Trevor coughed too and happily informed me that this was a coughing room.
Trevor has been struggling with the laws of physics over the last few months. He has been making different machines, from boats to printing presses to car crushers etc… However, whenever something doesn’t work the way he wants to, he cries and screams. There is not much we can do, we cannot tell gravity to go away.
Trevor is pushing through the frustration though and he has been able to build more and more complex machinery. This one even has a user interface and requires an operator. Once it was completed, Trevor requested Owen’s help in the trial run.
Apart from the hands-on experience, Trevor is also learning theory. When I was dressing yesterday, I put on my pi shirt. Trevor asked me about the symbol on my shirt and I told him that it was a special number, 3.14 something something. Later that day, Trevor was taking a bath and we had a bit of an argument because he was slurping the bath water after I had told him not to. As a result, instead of warning him that he has five minutes left to finish the bath time, I told him that he has three. He was not pleased about being punished and insisted that he should have this number of minutes left, showing me a different combination of three fingers. I connected my three fingers to his and told him that we both have three fingers and therefore he has three minutes left. He kept insisting that his number is different from mine. I said, “Fine, my number is three, what is yours?” and he retorted “Pi!”. I agreed to that approximation and then we counted down to two minutes left in the bath time.
