Three Cool Things This Week On The Homefront

All of them related to minor milestones in our son’s life.

He’s about three and a half. Tall for his age but reticent in new situations. Until recently, he’d been kind of taking his time getting up to speed on some of the social basics that his peers seem to already be mastering. Which is fine with me. He’s a happy kid who’s curious and funny and kinda flirty, he already knows the ABC song and he’s in good health. I don’t need anything else for or from him.

Which is why big advances always take me by surprise and freak me out. I’m always happy with the stage he’s at, and he’s always looking to move on to the next one, and the one after that!

So here are the bullet-points for the last week:

• He went from being a potty-training handful, requiring much reminding and attending and hands-on assistance, to a marvel literally overnight. One day we’re wrestling him onto his little plastic training potty only with the promise of bribes, the next day he’s whipping his drawers down by himself, taking care of business, yanking his underwear back up and marching the detachable container of pee to the bathroom, where he empties it, flushes the toilet and puts the lid back down before heading back to the front room to reassemble the potty. On his way past my office, he mentions casually, “I went pee, daddy.”

• One day a week, he and I usually end up at Burger King for dinner (usually the night The Missus is off teaching a class at the university down the road). This week, we’re at our usual table, back and in the corner, and we’re eating and for him, it’s all about the fries which themselves are only the delivery vehicles for the ketchup. When the ketchup got low, he told me, “Need more ketchup.” I said, “Okay then, well get your little ass on up to the counter and ask the man for some more.” I didn’t know what he’d do, I was fully expecting to be one who retrieved the extra ketchup. He looked at me like ‘Really?’ I said, “Go on, go ask him. Make sure you say, ‘More Ketchup please.’” He slid out of his seat and started walking toward the counter, all the way across the restaurant. He stopped about a third of the way there and looked back at me. I waved my hand at him in a shooing motion. “Go on, all the way up to the counter.” He continued on and when he got to the counter, he must have said the right thing the first time, because the Burger King guy immediately relinquished to him a handful of ketchup packets. He came back to the table, I told him what a great job he did and there were fries and ketchup enough for the entire kingdom!

• After a particularly ugly potty-training malfunction of the number-two variety (which I am eternally grateful that I slept through), The Missus had to put The Boy under the shower to get him back up to Code. And since that incident, he has eschewed baths for showers. Now I don’t even know if this is anything, but that seems kind of young to me. It’s a lot easier and quicker for everyone than sit-down baths, but showers at three and a half?

File this post under “Insane Ramblings of a Proud Dad.”