Quickies

I pointed out a radio tower on top of Mt. Tom to Grafton, while we were on a walk. He then explained to me, Dad, you can go up there to the radio tower and listen to the radio!"

Grafton now enjoys "reading" books to himself now. Not that he can read yet. And he's always liked paging through his books when we were not around to read them ourselves. But now, he pretends he's reading the books to someone else. It's rather cute. He sits with his book quietly, turning the pages, and paraphrases the story on each page in whisper voice.

Mom asked Grafton what they should get Dad for his birthday. All on his own Grafton came up with the idea of strapping a snow shovel onto his Dad's front bicycle wheel. He explained Dad could then ride around and around, plowing the snow out of the way as he rides. This was a particularly insightful idea, considering that we don't even snow on the ground this winter.

Grafton can identify pizza delivery trucks by the illuminated signs they place up on the roof. (No doubt, he's picked up on our frequent comments of "there goes another Family Pizza delivery in our neighborhood", which we see 2-3 times on any given weekend night.)

Grafton was singing a song to the melody of "Farmer in the Dell", but making up his own (nonsense) words. I asked him, is that "Farmer in the Dell?" He replied, "No, it's the same tune, but different words." While this a entirely reasonable response, I was surprised that he already has separate concepts for the melody and the lyrics of a song.

In January we visited NYC, arriving at Grand Central Station. When we entered the crowded, bustling station, he quickly commented, "I see a lot of legs!" When we exited onto 42nd St, he asked, "Where are the taxi cars?" (While we riding on the train, I had told him about how everyone takes taxis to get the around the city.)

Dental Report

Grafton had his first dentist visit recently. He did great! A model patient, agreeable and patient with the dental technician. And his teeth were in very good shape. (Good brushing, Grafton!)

Unfortunately, we confirmed that he has a non-trivial underbite. We've always been aware of it, but never worried about it too much. Now we're worrying a little more. We'll be heading to an orthodontist soon to figure out whether we need to take corrective actions. If we do, it's not going to be fun for any of us, least of all Grafton. But we'll just wait to find out the facts first.

Turning a Corner Behaviorally?

Grafton's behavior over the last few months has, at times, been, well...trying. And trust us when we say that Grafton's teachers would agree with us on this one. Perhaps it's that Grafton has just been trying to assert his independence, but the little guy simply would not listen to instructions. You could ask him, then tell him, them order him, and then blow up in anger in front of him, and he would simply go on doing whatever he wanted. It was not fun for any of us. Or his teachers, who were even forced to implement some Grafton-specific positive-feedback tactics to improve his behavior at school (with limited success).

But we believe our son may finally be turning a corner. With increasing frequency, Grafton now will listen to us, after even just one request. And if he's done something wrong, made a mess, or otherwise upset us in some way, he now shows a modicum of remorse when we scold him. In the past, if you had to raise your voice with him, he would just get more impertinent and mock your anger with a silly grin. But recently, you can tell he actually feels bad, and has even become teary-eyed and pouty in response to a scolding. And once in a while, he'll even explain to us why his actions were wrong and what the consequences might have been.

So perhaps life will get a little easier around here for us all, with a lot less yelling and arguing.

Please don't get the impression that he's turned into a perfect angel--he's still very much a free spirit and has a strong sense of what he wants to do (or not do). And we love that about him. Sometimes. :-)

D**n it!

Well, I suppose it's not the worst word to yell out, for your first bad word.

Our Little Grinch

Over the course of the Christmas holiday, Grafton picked up this "cute" routine that he would enact while we were driving in the car. It goes something like this:

G: "Talk about me while I'm sleeping." (closes his eyes)
D: "Mom, do you think Grafton enjoyed what we did today?"
M: "I guess so, since he seemed happy most of the day."
G: (indistinct growls)
D: "What do you think he would like to do later?"
M: "I don't know...maybe should we ask him...I think he's waking up."
D: "Grafton, are you awake?"
G: (growls, louder, finally awakening) "I'm not Grafton! I'm the Grinch! I will steal Christmas!" (roars)

And this act would go on for a while, before our sweet Grafton would return.

We'll have to be careful not to show him the Grinch TV show next year. Oh, and we actually saw the Grinch in NY this past week:

Grafton Meets Santa

We found out that Santa Claus would be making a public appearance at Yankee Candle at a time that would perfectly coincide with our drive back from a day in Brattleboro. We arrived at around 4:30pm, waited a short while (while watching Christmas movies on multiple large screen TVs), and by 6:30pm Grafton was the first in line to see Santa! Grafton told Santa everything he wanted for Christmas, which included a green garbage truck and a white pickup truck. I guess we'll find out soon if Grafton has been naughty or nice!

We posted some pix from their encounter. And here's one for the blog:

Happy Holidays, all!

Potty Trained

For the record, Grafton has officially earned his "potty trained" badge. He pretty much had it by his 3rd birthday. But with a month of "proof" behind us, it's clear that Grafton knows when he's gotta go, and where he's gotta go to take care of business. We still use a diaper overnight, but they are generally dry in the morning. I'll also note that Grafton gets a kick out of using "erinals" in public restrooms.