The Burritos Lately

Time marches on, and in the meantime, the Burritos are blossoming like spring flowers, which have yet to appear around here.  Not that I'm whining.  Okay, I am.

Asher is obsessed with coloring.  Any medium will do, although he is partial to pudding finger painting.  He generally just scribbles either up and down or left and right, but recently, he has started to draw two specific things:

He informs me that these are jump ropes.  (They used to be whole, but, alas, the artist defaced his own work with stickers, which didn't come off well.)  Asher has never actually seen a jump rope in real life, but there are pictures of jump ropes in a couple of his books.  Apparently he found these illustrations very meaningful.  Or at least easy to imitate.

These, as you may have surmised, are various renditions of the letter "A."  A few days ago, he asked me to come look at his "A."  I looked over, expecting to see some inadvertent creation resembling either a pointed peak or a pointed valley (Asher will sometimes say that a V is like an A.), but lo, and behold, there it was: an actual intentional grapheme.  Asher has been writing them everywhere ever since.  

Potty-training is very up-and-down.  Mostly down.  But then up enough that I decide not to give up after all.  And then down again.  I'm thinking of waiting to start with Simon until he's seven or eight.

Asher has become interested in time.  He often asks what time it is, or at what time we will do a certain activity, and how long it is until then.  He also wants to know what letter everything starts with, and what letters "say."  I have always loved the quirkiness of the English spelling system, but I suddenly find myself a little frustrated with it on occasion, like when I explain that "E" and "R" together at the end of "Asher" are for /r/, but that at the beginning of other words, "R" says /r/ by itself.  It has suddenly struck me as quite unsurprising that many children have a hard time learning to read.

Asher continues to talk more and more, which is usually pretty fun.  Here are a few things he has said to me in the last couple of days:

In the midst of playing quietly with his toys: "I'm not food."

"Mommy, I like you, but I love Daddy."

Asher:  Don't do lots of things.

Me:  What would you like me to do?

Asher:  I want you to snuggle with me.

"I was just realizing that I need to go to the bathroom."

Simon has taken a step once or twice.  Soon we will enter the phase in which he is old enough to walk, but too young for nursery, during which I will wonder each Sunday why on earth I bother going to church.

Simon is also becoming very verbal.  He babbles endlessly and even says "mama" when he wants me... or maybe just when he's upset.  But really, those are generally the same thing, so I think we can count that as a "word."  

Today, Simon had his first mouthful of dirt.  Actually he had two mouthfuls.  This event raised two very important questions: first, why is there no place set aside in his baby book for me to record this important developmental milestone?  and, second, (especially considering the sandiness of this particular dirt and the very yucky face Simon made after the first bite) why on earth do they always go back for seconds?!?

And, last, but certainly not least, Simon has delved into the very subtle art of pretending to cry:

I'm thinking he'd make a great Hamlet.