Ron bought a Nintendo Wii. Miles gets to play before bed time if he has had a day of listening and following directions well. He had a great day today so we all played for a little while tonight. Miles beat us both at Golf. He made par (?) on 2 holes and ron and I went over par. That kid!
We recently read that a good way to introduce a sibling to a toddler is to look through the child’s own baby photo album and tell the story of what he did when he was a baby and how he grew and changed. Miles’ photo album starts out with his very first photo that was taken of him in the hospital just hours after he was born, before we even knew him. The next photo is one that we took of him being held by his birth mom, S., when the four of us got together when he was 2 weeks old. We’ve told Miles that S. is his birth mommy and that she grew him in her tummy (as well as a little bit about how she came to choose us to be his parents) and that he “grew in our hearts” many times before and have gotten no reaction or acknowledgment that he even heard us say it. So the other day I was letting him narrate the story of Miles in the photo album. He started with his newborn photo and went on to the next photo of him and S. “…And this is S. , my… my….I grew in her tummy. And I grew in your heart, right Mommy?”
He really seems to be developing a pretty rudimentary understanding of adoption. There are 5 other kids in his class that were adopted (that’s 6 out of 21!) and I was talking about it with him. His face lit up. “So-and-So was ‘dopted just like ME!? Hooray!”
Miles has learned the word killing. He learned it from Charlie Brown, who also says stupid a lot. Miles understands that stupid is not a nice word. In fact, one of his catchphrases these days is “Zoe doesn’t say stupid any more.” We have stopped trying to decode that little John-from-Cincinnati-style nugget.
He still doesn’t know the word gun. I’m not sure why we believe this protects him somehow. He’s seen other boys with toy guns, but Miles thinks these are tools for putting out fires. He will aim something at me and say, “Daddy–I’m firefighting you!”
We’d just finished dinner and Miles was sitting around wearing just a tshirt. He started to put a pair of shorts on.
ron: Do you want to put some underwear on, buddy?”
miles: “No, I only wear underwear to the mall. Or the movies.”