A walk through the neighborhood

Jason likes to walk. Yesterday, for the third day in a row we went to the play fort. The Play fort is a jungle gym, with things to climb and slides and a large tub with lots of balls in it. Jason is two, so, mostly he watches the other kids, runs around all of the gizmos, and screams. I stay about five feet behind him, occassionally, I throw him onto an apparatus, he laughs, quickly extricates himself from the experience, and runs away. He has not mastered stepping over things, so, as in going down the stairs, he backs his way over and out of things. Sometimes he gets angry, and he will lay on the floor and scream, usually it is because he is thirsty, and for some reason, he has not been able to generalize that sensation and understand that what he wants is something to drink. If I offer him his milk or juice, often he will reject it with the first offer, a second or third might get rejected, but usually by the third offer, he takes the fluid, and is usually happy about it. This little boy is amazing in how he withstands pain, when he trips, he usually brushes himself off, gets up and continues; if he falls hard, he might cry for a minute, at most, before he focuses on what he is doing and puts the fall behind him, this also applies to innoculations and blood work, he cries for a minute and then he seems okay, because he appears to be already focused on other things.. The other day at the Fort, when I followed him around, he found a little recess in the apparatus, he placed me in it, and every time I moved, he would scream at me, and direct or pull me back to where he wanted me to stand, it was fascinating. He has two stuffed animals who are his buddies and a little blanket and he conferences with them daily. On several occassions I have witnessed his attempts at feeding his two friends (Tigger and Pooh). Several times, he has avoided allowing me to take him out of his crib, he is basically teasing me; when he has done this, I have picked up Tigger or Pooh and have begun to diaper them, he promptly gets angry at me, and pointedly demands that I pick him up and take care of him. Having a son is incredibly exhilerating, none of the books about it have prepared me for this. Each development is somehow special, and enables me to understand him, and connect to him a little. Another fascinating thing about this is how personal this experience is, nobody empathizes enough to understand my experience. Other parents kind of remember similar experiences, but, often the memories are dim, and somehow, they cannot really remember what happened. I like to think that these thoughts are indelible, but already, there are experiences from a year ago, when Jason was much younger, that kind of meld into the current experiences, and so my memory is not so clear about what happened. Hopefully, by writing, I will have a clearer picture of the experiences. I also got a video camera, and hopefully I will be able to capture some of the essence of Jason's time with me. However, I am finding that this is difficult too, for example, last week, I took Jason to the zoo, they have a petting zoo there, and there are about two dozen miniature goats there. I bought some of the pellet food the zoo sells, and I figured that if I put the food near enough to Jason, he would have this experience of the goats kind of mobbing him, and it worked, perfectly. Ten or fifteen little goats surrounded him and kind of pressed against him as they vied for the food on the ground. He had a grand old time of being pressed by them. Unfortunately, I had no camera, so I could not record the experience. A week later, I brought the camera, but the zoo was more crowded, and there were more children in the petting zoo, so, I was prepared, but the goats had too many other attractions, so they didn't mob Jason, so, I could not record the experience; but, I will try again. Jason and I often walk in my neighborhood, about half to three quarters of a mile. Linnette is one of our neighbors, she owns a horse named Diesel, and Jason and I always stop on our walk, to feed this horse a carrot or an apple. We were very pleasantly surprised to be recognised by Linnette in our local supermarket by Linnette, who works in the Deli department. Jason loves going to the supermarket, he loves the multivaried stimuli which the supermarket has; he loves helping to place things in the cart, and he loves sharp turns and quick stops as he is being pushed through the market. Jason is capable of about an hour of focused sitting while we are moving around the supermarket, it is fascinating to watch him.

Jason today

He walks, he babbles, he talks to his three cats, he talks to his dog, he shares his food with the dog. Every bowl of vegitables, every fig newton, Ruby, his dog gets one bite for every bite he takes. Bed at night, is a battle, brushing his teeth requires me to hold his arms, while his mother brushes; after which he takes his brush and goes over what we did independently with the brush. He smiles a lot. He is not one of those terrible twos who says no to everything, he often says yeah. He does have some horrendous tantrums. He reminds us of who is in charge. He is Jason, the master of all he surveys.

Jason at 25 months

The terrible twos in action. He screams, he rants. He pushes chairs all over the house to reach stuff that used to be out of his reach. When I take him out for a walk, he demands a trip to the play fort or the zoo. And pulls me to the car. He still talks to the cats and the dog. When he goes to the zoo, he talks to the mercats, and the miniature goats in the petting zoo. He refuses to be placed in a stroller, he will not sit still in a restaurant, he is Jason. He will watch DJ Otzi sing the Burger Dance, he will listen to Agadoo, a lively song about Hawaii, but he no longer sits still for his ABCs (every now and then I hear him reciting his ABCs to himself). Jason likes to glue his ear to the telephone. I do not know what he is saying, but he speaks to it for hours, and he will find a phone he can reach any time me or his mother pick up a phone. He has a radio control car, which he spent a day playing with, now it deserves about three minutes a day of his attention. He is Jason, a very oppinionated little guy, my son.