electric boogaloo

Graham’s reached a stage. A phase. A… what’s the word for the thing that some kids go through? Where they strap bombs to themselves and head for the door declaring death to the infidels? That. Except he’s not so much concerned about people’s religious devoutness or whatever but his passionate devotion to his personal causes is just as impressive and yeah, I guess I really did just summarize thousands of years of deeply complex cultural conflicts with “or whatever”.

I knew we shouldn’t have given him that guided laser for Christmas but Nicolaus had one as a toddler, and he only used it for good. Graham uses it to destroy distant planets, sometimes several per hour. Today entire innocent alien civilizations were wiped out because of

• Wanting saltine crackers when all we had was cheez-its
• Nicolaus coming near him while he ate cheez-its
• Nicolaus existing all day
• Having to take a nap
• Waking up from that nap and finding us all still alive
• Unfairly deprived of scissors
• Unfairly deprived of opportunity to put brother’s shoes on over his own shoes, because Nicolaus: needed his shoes so we could leave the house/still existed
• Having to leave the house in the middle of ripping up a piece of a paper towel
• Having to get in the car instead of being able to ride tricycle, even though he can’t actually ride tricycle worth a crap but duh that’s why I need to practice
• Old Navy not being a restaurant
• Old Navy SUCKING in general
• Other children exist on the park playground, and sometimes enter 10 foot radius surrounding him
• Having a dirty diaper
• Having dirty diaper removed
• Weiner disappearing under new diaper
• Being interrupted in the middle of very interesting work involving pouring entire juice box into wipes container, and then putting all of Nicolaus’ paintbrushes in there and carrying the whole mess around. What in the fuck is everyone’s problem with me doing stuff?
• Wanting to work on a puzzle
• Puzzle being a slight challenge
• The dog not holding still while being wonked with puzzle piece
• Not being allowed to work on puzzle anymore, maybe ever
• Having to go to bed
• Being unfairly and inhumanely covered from the waist down with a blanket
• Being offered a variety of unacceptable bedtime toys including but not limited to:
  rabbit, kitty, baby doll, elephant. All of which suck total shit.
• Being offered a cup of water
• Drinking water for a minute and then remembering about being pissed off about the bedtime

There would have been more tantrums today, except the day ended. But not without a fight! He screamed for a long time and for some reason, this screaming doesn’t trigger my brain defect. It’s not crying. It’s not sad. It’s a little bit I’m a horrible mom for saying this — funny. He screamed if I stood there and he screamed if I walked away, so finally I walked away and eventually he fell asleep.

In general, I’m not stressing over the tantrums. He gets over them pretty fast, unlike another toddler I used to know who is still hurt because of that time on December 19, 2004 at 2:30 in the afternoon when I told him that the winnie the pooh sippie cup was dirty.

So Graham is 17 or 18 months old (when people in public ask how old he is I say “Can I tell you his birthday and you do the math?”) and he is going through a bit of an anger thing.

But he’s also going through a funny, wonderful, hilarious, talking, eating, playing silly games thing. And a pretend to be a puppy, pretend his crayon is a straw, giggle at jokes thing. And a thing where Nicolaus can teach him to say “Ch-ch-ch-CHIA!”
And a thing where he lists all of the people in the room, faster and faster. Mama. Daddy. Nini. Mama Daddy Nini. Mamadaddyninimamadaddynini.

And a thing where he practices different funny ways of walking and breathing and sitting, and where he is determined to figure out how to work a button and a buckle and a camera and a plug and the answering machine.

He’s going through this thing where he’ll calmly say “no” to everything you ask him. It’s very controlled and mellow sounding, never losing patience, never the emphatic NO! of classic toddlerdom. It sounds like he’s answering a list of trivia questions.

“Do you want your kitty?”

“No.”

“Do you want a drink?”

“No.”

“Do you want a hug?”

“No.”

“Do you want a blanket?”

“No.”

“Do you want me to eat your toes?”

He calmly points his foot towards my mouth and makes pretend eating noises.

“Oooh really? Can I eat your toes all gone?”

“No.”

There’s something about this age that is so perfect. Between 16 months and two years, babies go from being puppies to small apes which are really quite humanlike. He’s talking more – really I think his vocabulary is about what his brother’s was at this age, the difference is that he doesn’t! need! to! talkallthetimeandnarrate every thought that comes into his head. But if something comes up or catches his attention, he’ll say the word for it. Usually in a calm, Kevinlike tone.

But the perfectness of the age isn’t the talking. I’ve always loved babies this age, talking or not. It’s just the way they work. It’s like they have a bubble over their head that constantly says “WTF?” — and then it switches sometimes to say “Oh!” or “I want that.” You can see them thinking and trying to figure out everything… they hold one hand in the air while the other hand is busy with a toy, and they flex their human little feet and wiggle their toes as they work. I tried to take a picture of what I mean, but I’m not sure it’s something a photo can show.

See? So even with the tantrums and even with having to explain to a tearful Scout that no, your brother doesn’t hate you honey… he just hates for you to be near him, which is totally different, Graham really is very sweet and awesome. Or at the very least cute as all heck.